Standards
I made a list of things to schedule to post while I was on vacation, like "What I'm Reading" and our evolving collaboration with the writing program. Instead, work got busy and I went on a 2+ week vacation. When I came back, it took a while to shake off vacation-brain, and because I had these notes about what to post, but couldn't remember what I actually wanted to say about them, I felt paralyzed and abandoned blog.
Summer-brain and vacation-brain feel similar to me. Everything is slower at work, everything feels optimistic, and there's no major deadlines looming. I even got back on Twitter. Mostly to lurk. Less to post. My Twitter-lurking coincided with #ALAAC16 (the American Library Associations Annual Conference). And it was there that I learned the Information Literacy Standards were rescinded the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education.
I read some tweets about it. I read Lane Wilkinson's blog post about it where we should use these documents to inform our teaching and understanding of information - not use them as crutches or shackles or or permission slips or saviors. We are more than texts.
I'm also reading Emily Drabinski's post "What Standards Do and What They Don't." It's a great explanation of standards/framework as context, not absolutes.
Here are my thoughts:
1. My library has already worked to integrate the Framework into our goals for information literacy. And by "worked" I mostly mean we've clarified we're all on the same page. Luckily our concept of information literacy, and what it means to be information literate, is not very different from the ideas in the Framework. I personally won't miss the Standards.
2. I wonder about the AAC&U information literacy VALUE rubric. In the same way our institution's information literacy goals and learning outcomes work within the Framework, these do too. I don't think they are incompatible.
3. A lot of the talk around the sunsetting of the Standards has been about people feeling lost, and feeling a lack of support on using the Framework. Some of the responses to these feelings have seemed a little "don't worry, dude" and "we're not trying to tell you what to do" and "use what you feel comfortable with." This has my Type A personality a little freaked out, because while I get that the Framework is not simply new and improved Standards, it seems like ACRL is reluctant to champion/advocate/go-all-in to say This Is Information Literacy. Maybe this announcement is their step towards fully committing.
4. Speaking of how the Framework is not just "the new Standards," I'm concerned that there will be a wave of research/publications with the topic of how "the Framework applies to x" or "an analysis of x under the Framework." One feedback on an article I had submitted for publication recently was along the lines of, why don't you take this topic you are writing about and add in the Framework?" It'll be the cool new buzzword in library literature, if it isn't already, and I just hope the results are something meaningful.
Summer-brain and vacation-brain feel similar to me. Everything is slower at work, everything feels optimistic, and there's no major deadlines looming. I even got back on Twitter. Mostly to lurk. Less to post. My Twitter-lurking coincided with #ALAAC16 (the American Library Associations Annual Conference). And it was there that I learned the Information Literacy Standards were rescinded the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education.
I read some tweets about it. I read Lane Wilkinson's blog post about it where we should use these documents to inform our teaching and understanding of information - not use them as crutches or shackles or or permission slips or saviors. We are more than texts.
I'm also reading Emily Drabinski's post "What Standards Do and What They Don't." It's a great explanation of standards/framework as context, not absolutes.
Here are my thoughts:
1. My library has already worked to integrate the Framework into our goals for information literacy. And by "worked" I mostly mean we've clarified we're all on the same page. Luckily our concept of information literacy, and what it means to be information literate, is not very different from the ideas in the Framework. I personally won't miss the Standards.
2. I wonder about the AAC&U information literacy VALUE rubric. In the same way our institution's information literacy goals and learning outcomes work within the Framework, these do too. I don't think they are incompatible.
3. A lot of the talk around the sunsetting of the Standards has been about people feeling lost, and feeling a lack of support on using the Framework. Some of the responses to these feelings have seemed a little "don't worry, dude" and "we're not trying to tell you what to do" and "use what you feel comfortable with." This has my Type A personality a little freaked out, because while I get that the Framework is not simply new and improved Standards, it seems like ACRL is reluctant to champion/advocate/go-all-in to say This Is Information Literacy. Maybe this announcement is their step towards fully committing.
4. Speaking of how the Framework is not just "the new Standards," I'm concerned that there will be a wave of research/publications with the topic of how "the Framework applies to x" or "an analysis of x under the Framework." One feedback on an article I had submitted for publication recently was along the lines of, why don't you take this topic you are writing about and add in the Framework?" It'll be the cool new buzzword in library literature, if it isn't already, and I just hope the results are something meaningful.
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