This book offers an account of American and Canadian librarians' experiences in collaborating with faculty in providing information literacy (IL) programmes. There are also some contributions on the topic from academics. Any library staff member who is new to the area of IL will find it a useful read. For the veteran teaching librarian, the book may go over much‐trodden ground but there are some insightful chapters and illuminating points made throughout. The ten essays have very extensive bibliographies and appendices illustrating course materials and the collection is completed with a comprehensive index.
The essence of library instruction has changed. It's no longer just about teaching resource‐based skills but rather also about inculcating students with a life‐long competence in information discovery, evaluation and management. More than ever, in an environment where internet use is commonplace and seen as a primary resource for all information needs, students need to learn good retrieval and discrimination skills. The librarian is (or should be!) the obvious person to teach these and needs the collaboration of faculty to do so effectively. This point is echoed repeatedly in the book. In his chapter entitled “Can't get no respect: helping faculty to understand the educational power of information literacy”, William B. Badke writes “librarians now have an unlikely ally (in impressing faculty with their expertise) – the increasingly complex information systems that hold the key to most of the storehouse of the world's knowledge.”
This is good news for librarians, or is it? Some of the authors feel that there are still barriers and a lack of understanding between the librarian and the academic when it comes to teaching roles. There is an underlying assumption that the librarian has to prove him/herself to cajole and win over the academic to be allowed class time to teach information literacy programmes. It seems that librarians may also have to contend with some antipathy about their teaching role from other library colleagues and even from library directors! Peggy Partello records some rather depressing comments from both groups in the chapter entitled “Librarians in the classroom”.
However all is not lost as there are many positive thoughts and much practical advice offered throughout the book. Partello, herself a library director, describes how she favours “coaching people to develop in ways that are congruent with the mission of the organization.” She feels that teaching is one such way and that librarians who teach “engage more profoundly in the teaching and learning community than their library role will ever allow them to”. There seems to be agreement among the contributors that the best way to introduce and sustain IL programmes in academic departments is to make sure that the courses are credit‐bearing. Librarians are urged to pursue this goal and to use their Centres for Teaching and Learning for guidance. There is a useful contribution from two of the authors (Nicole J. Auer and Ellen M. Krupar) on how they designed and graded assignments that counted towards students' final grades.
I would recommend this book to any teaching librarian or library director. The issues and problems highlighted by the authors and already familiar to many of us, are discussed in an intelligent and informative way. Solutions are offered including how to construct a “Library liaison toolkit”! I do wonder though how many of our academic colleagues would be interested enough in faculty/library relations to read this or any other book on the topic!
