For those of you forging ahead and taking summer courses, you can take a deep breath knowing you’re more than halfway there. And, for those of you contemplating a fall semester class, now is the time to check in with an advisor and get all of your ducks in a row for a smooth start.
YOUR college library is here to assist you as you work on your final projects and papers or to help you find classes and textbooks for Fall. We are getting closer to moving into a new space and hiring new staff so we can meet the needs of a new campus community. The services and resources we provide are ever evolving with not only the changing times in general but also, the changing abilities and experiences of the students and faculty we serve. In a New York Post article dated June 30, 2017, it stated, “Kids are learning to text before they can tie their shoes. An Australian study of 2,200 moms with internet access and kids ages two to five suggests that little ones are becoming tech literate before learning basic life skills.” So, it’s up to YOUR college library to assist these generations of students who are so tech savvy but may not have the information literacy skills necessary to utilize their devices for their academic success. There are those that still think librarians just simply check out books, or shush people in the library, or sit around reading the latest novel but information literacy is a key component to all library work. “Information Literacy is one of those meta-skills that lurk behind the ability to master any subject,” explained David Gooblar, PhD. who was previously the Associate Director of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching. What is information literacy? The general definition from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) states that Information Literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."
When you look at the NM Higher Education Department’s website it states, “The defining characteristic of a New Mexico general education course is its focus on essential skills: communication, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, information and digital literacy, and personal and social responsibility.”
We feel it is our role as YOUR college library to help our students and faculty uncover these information and digital literacy skills from basic email communications to citing a scholarly source. Yes, we do check out books and we may read a novel here and there, but YOUR college library staff also keeps their finger on the pulse of what we call the AAA model…how to ask the right question, access the research and then assess it for use. Over the years many have attributed this quote to Albert Einstein but we have yet to find the exact citation nonetheless, it states, “The only thing you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”