Education for information literacy: some strategies used at Scotch College, Melbourne

By Suzette Boyd
http://www.scotch.vic.edu.au/Library/Library.htm

The four teacher librarians at Scotch College are integral to the teaching learning program in the College. This has been achieved through building alliances with individual teachers, with departments, over coffee or Friday night drinks, while attending school functions and through deliberate initiatives, some of which are outlined below.

Orientation for new staff

Library orientation for new staff is the very first step in ensuring that teachers understand information literacy and know what the library has to offer them and their students.  At Scotch College we treat staff orientation seriously and ensure that it is built into the wider orientation program for new staff delivered by the school. Firstly new staff are introduced to the library home page and are given an overview of all the electronic resources it provides access to.  This is then followed by a tour of the physical library and a question and answer session.  At this time, all new staff receive a “Library Handbook for Staff”.  This glossy booklet gives an overview of all library services an is an effective way of capturing the attention and interest of new staff.

Library homepage

 http://www.scotch.vic.edu.au/Library/Library.htm                                                                

The library homepage is the ‘hub’ of student learning within the library. Library staff have created this award winning homepage for the information needs of our students and staff. Teacher librarians encourage students to use the homepage as a starting point for all their research needs: online databases; specially selected web resources for their subjects; guides to writing bibliographies and evaluating resources; and of course, access to the library catalogue!

Pathfinders

Teacher librarians produce pathfinders as guides for students to find relevant and appropriate information for all topics within the curriculum. The pathfinder is not intended as a comprehensive bibliography of every possible resource on the topic, but rather as a guide to useful keywords students may use when searching the catalogue or the internet, selected websites on the library homepage, videos or DVDs on the topic, entries in the various databases, or guides to current issues.

Pathfinders are available in printed format and also online via the library homepage.

Information Literacy Handbook

The teacher librarians at Scotch have produced a handbook for distribution to all teaching staff. It contains:

• Ways teachers and teacher librarians can work together. For further details go to

http://library.scotch.vic.edu.au/teachers/whatwecando.htm

• A guide to effective assignment setting using Blooms taxonomy
• A guide to defining the information process
• A continuum of student learning through years 7 – 12
• An information skills checklist
• A separate section of templates for use with each stage of the information process

Scotch College Teacher Librarians – Suzette Boyd (Head of Library and Information Services), Rachel Kerr, Durga Kamte and Kris Paterson
August, 2006