| The present study was undertaken to discover to what extent community college librarians were aware of the American Library Association Committee on Information Literacy Final report and the Association of College and Research Library Information literacy standards for higher education; to what extent they were teaching information literacy to students; which of the recommended competencies they were attempting to teach; and to what extent this teaching was influenced by various demographic variables.; A nationwide mailed survey was conducted of librarians (n=300) responsible for information literacy instruction in community colleges in the United States. The response rate was 67%, making the results generalizable to the population of community college instruction librarians. It was found that librarians were more aware of the Standards (83%) than of the Final report (60%); that they were consciously teaching information literacy in general at a higher rate in group (60%) than in individual sessions (53%) with students; and that they were teaching each of the five components of information literacy at different rates. They were teaching students to access information at a significantly higher rate (96.5%) than any of the other information literacy skills; critical evaluation of information and sources came second at 85%, determining the extent of information needed third at 81.6%, acknowledging information sources fourth at 80%, and using information for a specific purpose last at 71%. The only demographic factor that was shown to affect teaching of information literacy was pedagogical training. Size of the respondent's college did not affect this, nor did years of service as an academic librarian nor the highest degree earned by the respondent.; It was recommended that more college librarians become familiar with the information literacy standards for higher education and that all five components of information literacy should be taught to students as much as possible. To achieve this result, librarians should be given training in teaching and more time should be afforded to information literacy instruction. In addition, information literacy should be included as a desired goal in colleges' outcomes assessment programs and stressed in the curriculum, and pedagogical training included in the library school curriculum. |
