The Library Orientation Exchange (LOEX) hosted its annual conference on May 9-11 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Two iSchool professors, Dr. Melissa Gross and Dr. Don Latham, presented “A Framework for the Frames: Using the Peritextual Literacy Framework to Teach the ACRL Frames” at this year’s event.

The presentation focused on teaching an audience that was brand new to the topic about the Peritextual Literacy Framework (PLF) and how that can be used to teach the new Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education set up by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The PLF focuses on Gerard Gennette’s idea of the peritext–everything that surrounds a text that isn’t the main body itself. “The PLF organizes these various elements into categories based on function: promotional, production, navigational, intratextual, supplemental, and documentary,” says the presentation’s description. During the presentation, Dr. Gross and Dr. Latham discussed connections between the PLF and the ACRL frames and worked through examples using a peer-reviewed journal article and an article from a popular magazine to demonstrate their ideas.

Dr. Gross and Dr. Latham were very excited to share their expertise on the topic. “Attending this conference was a great opportunity for us to share our theoretical work with academic librarians and to demonstrate for them how they can incorporate our Peritextual Literacy Framework into information literacy instruction. With the recent adoption of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, it is exciting to be part of the conversation that is evolving about how to implement new ACRL Framework and ensure that students are competent consumers and producers of information,” says Dr. Gross.

Dr. Gross is a professor in the School of Information. She also served as President of the Association for Library and Information Science Education. Her teaching interests include research methods, the information needs of children and young adults, reference, and the development and evaluation of information programs and services. You can read more about her here.

Dr. Latham is also a professor in the School of Information. He teaches information needs of children, information needs of young adults, diverse resources for children and young adults, graphic novels in libraries, technical communication, and theory and foundations of information sciences. He has also authored two books: David Almond: Memory and Magic and (with Melissa Gross) Young Adult Resources Today: Connecting Teens with Books, Music, Games, Movies, and More. You can read more about him here.