Marymount

"In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes* and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day (Bohn and Short, 2009).
 

How can teaching faculty and library faculty work together to help students make sense of all this information bombarding them year after year? It is difficult enough trying to locate and evaluate the information we need in our daily lives. To help with this challenge, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) developed Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

 

The American Library Association defines Information Literacy as a set of abilities that allows individuals "to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information" (Presidential Committee on Information Literacy:Final Report. Chicago: American Library Association, 1989).

 

The following resources are provided to help you and your students navigate the increasingly complex and ever-expanding world of information:

 

 

A variety of Search Planning Worksheets (available in print and online) help students narrow and focus their research topics.

 

Locating Information

 

Our Getting Started Guides help locate print and electronic resources.

 

Our How Do I… guides provide detailed information about specific databases, the research process, and library resources.

 

 

Our Identify Scholarly Periodicals guide distinguishes between scholarly and non-scholarly articles.

 

 

Citing the sources you use is very important. Check out our Citing Sources page with tips for citing in MLA, APA and many other citation styles.

 

 

*A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes.