Research Guides: Information Literacy: Goals & Objectives

Need for Information Literacy (IL) Skills

Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, learning environments, and levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, to become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning.

The ultimate goal is to graduate students with these fundamental skills to provide a solid foundation of knowledge and skills for after they leave Willamette. These fundamental skills may be taught as one-shot classes by librarians, or integrated into course curriculum and taught by faculty.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Mark O. Hatfield Library is to foster learning, critical thinking, scholarship, creativity, and personal growth within the spirit of the University’s mission, values and core themes. Through collaboration and our own endeavors, we:

Enable information and digital literacy through various modes of instruction.
Curate collections that support equitable access to a diverse range of information and viewpoints.
Provide expertise, physical spaces, and virtual environments that facilitate the creation and use of knowledge.
Preserve, make accessible, and encourage critical engagement with materials of historical value related to the University and the Pacific Northwest.

Contact Person

Contact Info

John Repplinger
Mark O. Hatfield Library
900 State Street
Salem, OR 97304
503-370-6525
jrepplin@willamette.edu

Late Revised/Revised

This resource was last updated by the Willamette University Libraries Teaching & Learning Group on Nov 13th, 2024.

Suggested Timeline

Below is the suggested timeline for a student's information literacy education while at Willamette. Departments will have individual needs and some topics are more appropriately introduced at different stages of a student's academic experience. Librarians are able to cover additional topics or specific resources for your classes.

COLLOQUIUM & FIRST YEAR COURSES

Navigate the library's web site (2.C)
Develop a research topic (1.A, 1.B)
Generate search terms (2.A, 2.B)
Evaluate resources (3.A, 3.B)
Identify popular and scholarly information (1.C, 3.A, 3.B)
Introduce the concept of primary sources (1.C, 3.A, 3.B)
Understand the value of different view points (1.C, 5.A)
Cite sources, knowledge about plagiarism (4.A, 4.B, 4.C)
Learn about basic databases (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Use the library catalog (2.C, 2.E)
Aware of Interlibrary loan services (2.C)
Aware of citation tools (2.D)
Learn about appropriate use of AI (3.B, 3.C, 3.D, 4.B)

GATEWAY COURSES

Aware of research consultations with librarians (2.C)
Identify & use primary, secondary, & tertiary lit. (3.B, 5.A- 5.C)
Analyze limits of info gathering tools or strategies (2.A - 2.E)
Define & use peer-review literature (3.A, 3.C, 5.A)
Learn about subject-specific databases (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Use the library catalog (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Organize & cite sources (2.A, 2.A - 2.C)
Use interlibrary loan (2.C)
Intellectual property, and fair use (4.A - 4.C)
Learn about appropriate use of AI (3.B, 3.C, 3.D, 4.B)

UPPER LEVEL COURSES & SENIOR SEMINARS

Meet with librarians for research consultations (2.C)
Identify & effectively use different types of lit. (3.B, 5.A - 5.C)
Demonstrate skilled use of subject databases (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Use bibliographies & citation databases to locate more
resources (2.A - 2.E)
Locate and use statistics and govern. docs (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Knowledge and use of archival finding aids (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)
Organize and cite sources (2.A, 2.A - 2.C)
Able to search the Deep web (2.A, 2.C, 2.E)

Note: The links on this table refer to specific Learning Outcomes.