Dr. Don Latham and Dr. Melissa Gross, both professors in the School of Information, recently received $164,599 in funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for their project “Community College Librarian and Student Perceptions of Student Information Literacy Needs.” The project aims to “investigate community college librarians’ and community college students’ perceptions of information literacy (IL) instruction and student IL needs and experiences.” To do so, they will be partnering with Dr. Heidi Julien at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York to survey community college librarians and conduct in-depth interviews with students in Florida and New York.

This research will add to the literature on student perceptions of IL as education systems transition from using the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Standards to the ACRL Framework. “We are at an important juncture in how information literacy is taught as the standards guiding higher education have recently gone through an extensive change. More than half the institutions of higher learning in America are community colleges and we have a unique opportunity with this grant to explore how librarians at community colleges and their students are adapting to the new conceptions of information literacy that are being advanced by the field,” explains Dr. Gross.

“This award will allow our research team to learn more about community college librarians’ and community college students’ perceptions of students’ skills and needs related to information literacy.  Hopefully, what we learn will tell us how best to prepare students, in terms of information literacy instruction, for furthering their college education or going into the workforce,” says Dr. Latham.

You can read more work done by Dr. Gross, Dr. Latham, and Dr. Julien here: