Published research regarding the differences in the impact of services, resources, methods, and tools between the college and university library environment in the United States is, overall, lacking. The methods for transferring knowledge of information literacy practices between smaller, often two-year, college institutions and the progression through the remaining four-year environment of the university brings shifts in approaches to information literacy instruction. Additionally, the expansive changes brought by the 2020 global biological crisis formed the basis for the vast expansion of remote and asynchronous instructional methods. I aim to present examples of the differences and similarities between the styles utilized in different higher education environments for the purposes of expanding knowledge regarding practices suitable for students developing information literacy skills in higher education between academic environments serving different purposes. Kennette and McIntosh (2022) promote an analytical approach to the means of assessing the effects of library information literacy instruction. Assessment is critical in both the college and university environments, simultaneously the discussion regards academia as a whole with the subtleties between two- and four-year academic institutions. Shi, Peng, and Sun (2022) promote a multi-pronged approach in the methodology of deploying a heuristic space, yet the work does not differentiate with depth the variety of methods deployed between teaching and research institutions. Anders (2021) takes the approach of focusing solely on graduate students and leaves the issue of undergraduate two-year students, separate from the conversation entirely, while the scholarly conversation regarding information literacy surrounding university library research begins with first-year undergraduates, a view Valenza, et al. (2022), promote. Finally, Bennedbaek and George (2021) take the steps needed when seeking common ground between similar sized colleges and universities, though this approach does not cover consistency and longer-term planning when creating information literacy instruction between institutions of vastly different scales. Though the research grapples with aspects of the information literacy via library instruction across multiple institutional models there lacks a common thread illustrating the differences between types of academic institutions and the pathways available to support students in the transfer from college to university learning spaces. Though the community college environment is arguable a rather uniquely North American institution, planning for the successful deployment of library information literacy instruction between varying academic spaces, online, in-person, and synchronously and asynchronously is of benefit to scholars and teachers across geographies and disciplines. I have been both a college library director and a university faculty research librarian and seeing the scope and scale between two institutions serving different roles, but often with the same students continuing from one school to another, the need for collaboration and deployment of impactful information literacy strategies is critical. I propose to present on the differences between such institutions, the lack of representation in the research literature regarding the nuances between two- and four-year schools, and the means through which teaching and research schools promote, deploy, and evaluate the means of successfully enacting impactful information literacy instruction through library services.
References
- Anders, K. (2021). Information literacy and instruction: Building a multi-format graduate student information literacy program. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 59(3/4), 156–. https://doi.org/10.5860/rusq.59.3/4.7712
- Bennedbaek, D., Clark, S., & George, D. (2021). The impact of librarian-student contact on students’ information literacy competence in small colleges and universities. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 28(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2020.1830907
- Kennette, L. N., & McIntosh, E. A. (2022). Your information literacy practices (YILP): A new measure of information literacy. Partnership, 17(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v17i2.6680
- Shi, Y., Peng, F., & Sun, F. (2022). A blended learning model based on smart learning environment to improve college students’ information literacy. IEEE Access, 10, 89485–89498. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3201105
- Valenza, J. K., Dalal, H., Mohamad, G., Boyer, B., Berg, C., Charles, L. H., Bushby, R., Dempsey, M., Dalrymple, J., & Dziedzic-Elliott, E. (2022). First years’ information literacy backpacks: What’s already packed or not packed? The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 48(4), 102566. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102566
Andrew Denis Beman-Cavallaro
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
English 
French