In 2015, the UN General Assembly introduced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2014, in anticipation of the SDGs, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) released the Lyon Declaration, asserting that the right to access information, and the skills to use it, is essential for development. Simply put, there can be no sustainable development without access to information. So, as the world looks toward sustainable development in the information age, what role should libraries play in meeting communities' needs? Sustainable development, whether on a local or global scale, requires that people have access to information in order to improve their abilities to make informed choices about their lives, livelihoods, and communities. Sustainable development is important for all communities, everywhere, and access to information is just one way libraries can contribute to development initiatives. Libraries, especially public libraries, provide not only traditional access to information but also engaged services and programs that are community centered. This chapter will explore the ways in which the profession at large is plugging into the SDGs, with a particular focus on the work that IFLA is doing to connect libraries to development. It will highlight a specific form of community development À Asset-Based Community Development, which focuses on using the strengths and capacities that already exist in communities of all sizes and economic statuses À as a theoretical and practical model to help librarians understand and leverage their own assets as they collaborate with their communities on building individual and community capacity. It will argue that an asset-based approach to integrating our services into the larger trend of sustainable community development can provide us with both direction for day-to-day engagement with our communities and an important way to reimagine our value.
In recent years, we have seen a proliferation of the amounts of information that we’re exposed to, and our ability to critically navigate that information hasn’t kept pace with the speed at which it’s coming at us. As information professionals we must ask ourselves—what is our role in helping students and patrons navigate information? What value can we add in a world where information is increasingly complex, contradictory, and competitive? Are our traditional methods of delivering information literacy enough? This paper looks at the evolution of information literacy instruction from the skills in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000) through the newly adopted Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2016), using examples from my own experience as a reference and teaching librarian. I will focus on how the ways in which we reach students has changed—from one-shot information literacy sessions to more in-depth interactions with students under the new Framework. I will argue, ultimately, that to truly serve students in our current information age, librarians must consider moving even deeper into the classroom, developing and teaching information literacy and critical thinking skills for credit in the college and university setting, and I will highlight a course I developed at my own institution.How will this change what we do in the classroom?
Many articles deal with diversity in academic libraries. Some include information on diversity initiatives and plans, or incorporating diversity into the structure of an academic library. This article outlines the steps that librarians can take to develop and implement diversity plans in academic libraries. In general and adaptable language, the article focuses on information gathering, communication, committee formation, contextualization, endorsement and implementation. Deliberately broad in scope, the intent is to provide a basic roadmap for libraries undertaking the development of a diversity specific plan for the first time.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.