In collaboration with students and faculty, the Library of Architecture, Design and Construction at Auburn University developed an interdisciplinary Materials Laboratory that offers students in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction a hands-on and interdisciplinary sensory experience of building and construction materials. Materials research is a key component to students’ learning in design disciplines, and the tactile and visual experience of handling physical building materials samples allows students to investigate and discover materials in new ways. This article explores the collaborative creation of the Materials Lab that positioned the library as a central and innovative educational resource for all design disciplines.
This article examines visual literacy education and research for library and information science profession to educate the information professionals who will be able to execute and implement the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) Visual Literacy Competency Standards successfully. It is a continuing call for inclusion of visual literacy into the curriculum for library and information science education and research in order to educate students to provide professional services in this visual information world and it is a call for a paradigm shift from text-based information services and research realm to a social construction of meaning, reading, searching, finding meaning in a visual information world.
This article discusses the partnership between the library and the studio art faculty that led to the integration of information literacy instruction into the studio art curriculum. The author outlines the importance of information literacy to artistic practice and student success, and discusses the program of instruction and learning outcomes. Early assessment of student needs and the program’s effectiveness, using both citation analysis and anecdotal feedback, reveals that the program has contributed to the maturation of student research and inquiry skills, and positively affected the relationship between the department and the library, and provides preliminary conclusions about undergraduate studio art information behaviors. An ongoing further program of study to more fully describe the information needs of undergraduate studio art students is also outlined.
The Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education presents guidelines for educators and provides a scientific framework in which students can acquire visual literacy skills and use visual media in a critical way throughout their professional career. The Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education was composed by the American Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). By means of these standards, the members of the association identified the domains of visual literacy and specified what learning outcomes could enable students to acquire visual literacy skills. The present paper is a discussion of the extent to which the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education can be met.
This article discusses visual literacy, its connection to information literacy, and its significance to scientific disciplines. It includes a case study from Washington and Lee (W&L) University that showcases how libraries can integrate visual literacy instruction into STEM courses. In the study, two W&L Library staff members partnered with one W&L visiting assistant professor of physics to transform a common assignment, the academic poster, into a digital form of visual communication. This shift resulted in a revised evaluative rubric and led to enhanced library led instruction focusing on information literacy, visual literacy, and digital literacy skills.
The role of the school librarian requires mastering numerous dynamic and pliable 21st-century literacies. Of those literacies, visual literacy is sometimes overlooked, yet appear in numerous standards at the state and national levels.
This paper describes the evolution of the Cultural Image Literacy Assessment-USA©. This assessment represents an important first step in measuring image literacy within a culture. Visual literacy is an integral part of all cultures. The framework used in creating an assessment of cultural image literacy in the United States could be employed in developing measures of visual literacy for other cultures. In so doing, image literacy can be compared within and across cultures. This survey study explores the effects today’s visual environments have on knowledge levels, and more importantly, knowledge gaps. The study builds on research relating to knowledge gap theory by describing the evolution of cultural image literacy assessment and providing current levels of image literacy within the United States.
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU–Boulder) is known for strong programming in the sciences and a teaching faculty at the forefront of science education and reform. Librarians at CU–Boulder, in collaboration with science faculty, are challenged to improve undergraduate science education. Using rare, historic, and artistic works from Special Collections, the librarians employ active learning techniques that emphasize visual imagery to improve the quality of undergraduate learning in the sciences. This paper describes the fledgling program developed by CU–Boulder librarians to create a space for student-driven, collaborative learning using historic and visual scientific materials found in Special Collections.
The author describes the recent collaboration of a special collections librarian and an art history professor at McGill University to integrate primary source material into a semester-long undergraduate course assignment and subsequent exhibition and catalog. The fourth-year art history course, Canadian Slavery and Its Legacies: A Curatorial Seminar, required students to select and prepare an exhibition catalog entry for two visual objects (prints, maps, books, plates, ephemera, objects) from within the holdings of McGill Rare Books and Special Collections. Through in-class visits and individual consultation, the librarian guided students in navigating special collections for the first time, thus easing feelings of “archival anxiety” and illustrating the role of special collections in academic research.
Visual culture is becoming an increasingly prominent part of our cultural identity in the 21st century. Consequently, images have become an important tool with which to communicate science. We identify two impediments to science communicators using visual elements effectively: (1) visual material is typically treated as an add-on instead of being an integrated part of the whole and (2) there is a lack of identifying target audiences and refining visual elements for them specifically. We argue that science communicators can become more effective visual communicators if they incorporate elements of theory and practice from the discipline of design.
The aim of this study is to develop a scale determining the visual literacy levels of university students. After reviewing the relevant literature a 75 item draft scale was prepared. The scale was applied to 3rd and 4th year students of Education Faculty of Amasya University. Non-functional items have been excluded from the scale as a result of the factor analysis and 41 items have been included. It has been determined that the statements in the scale are gathered in 7 dimensions. These dimensions consisted of: “Identification of the need for visual”, “Finding and accessing visual sources”, “Analyzing and interpreting the visuals”, “Evaluation of visuals and visual sources”, “Effective usage of visuals and visual media”, “Designing and creating visuals” and “Taking ethical and legal issues into consideration”.
When faculty were asked to use online assignments to make up the class time lost due to Hurricane Sandy, librarians at Lehman College’s Leonard Lief Library spotted a new opportunity for the Library’s Web comics. This article describes the partnership between the Library and the College’s Art Department that led to the development of the Web comics, provides readers with a model for responding to circumstances creatively, and puts forward an approach for combining digital learning objects with writing assignments to meet faculty needs.
“Although finding, interpreting, and using archives is inherent in the study of history, no standard identifies the archival research competencies college history students should possess. The purpose of this study is to identify history faculty expectations of undergraduates regarding their archival research skills and, based on those expectations, to create a list of archival research competencies that could be incorporated into the history classroom or introduced by the archivist in archival literacy sessions.”
“Visual literacy is essential for 21st century learners. Across the higher education curriculum, students are being asked to use and produce images and visual media in their academic work, and they must be prepared to do so. The Association of College and Research Libraries has published the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, which, for the first time, outline specific visual literacy learning outcomes. These Standards present new opportunities for libraries to expand their role in student learning through standards-based teaching and assessment, and to contribute to campus-wide collaborative efforts to develop students’ skills and critical thinking with regard to visual materials.”
“A conceptualization of visual proficiency is offered. A survey is described which asked college students (N=358) to identify five photographs, five symbols, and five paintings that are generally recognized to be “famous”. About 27% of all respondents claimed to recognize all the photographs, 23% recognized all the symbols, and 3% recognized all the paintings. About 14% correctly identified all the photographs, 4% correctly identified all the symbols and only 1% correctly identified all the paintings. The findings suggest that today’s college students may be adrift in a sea of images with little ability to see beyond their own generation.”
“In 2011, the ACRL Science & Technology Section (STS) completed its five-year review of the Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology. Predicated by the evolving nature of scholarship and research in the sciences, the reviewing task force strongly recommended that the standards be revised. This paper considers the broad recommendations of the task force, using the framework of e-Science – team-based, data-driven science – to address areas of necessary transformation in information literacy: an advanced team-based model that crosses disciplinary boundaries; a recognition that individuals and groups not only consume information, but also produce it; and stronger interplay between information literacy and complementary literacies. This paper also extrapolates beyond the sciences, referencing broader trends within higher education.”
“Metaliteracy is envisioned as a comprehensive model for information literacy to advance critical thinking and reflection in social media, open learning settings, and online communities. At this critical time in higher education, an expansion of the original definition of information literacy is required to include the interactive production and sharing of original and repurposed digital materials. Metaliteracy provides an overarching and unifying framework that builds on the core information literacy competencies while addressing the revolutionary changes in how learners communicate, create, and distribute information in participatory environments. Central to the metaliteracy model is a metacognitive component that encourages learners to continuously reflect on their own thinking and literacy development in these fluid and networked spaces. This approach leads to expanded competencies for adapting to the ongoing changes in emerging technologies and for advancing critical thinking and empowerment for producing, connecting, and distributing information as independent and collaborative learners.”
“The purpose of this paper is to investigate three tools based on principles of information visualization and measure their impact on undergraduates’ abilities to generate keywords for database research.”
“Visual literacy is an important part of being literate in the twenty-first century because people are interacting with visual materials with increasing frequency and immediacy as a result of the digital age. By understanding cognitive theories associated with visual literacy and combining them with the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, librarians can help students become visually literate. In addition to describing these cognitive theories and ACRL standards, the author provides practical suggestions as to how they may be utilized in visual literacy instruction.”
“This paper provides a brief history of women and independent comics, tracing the medium’s development from the 1970s underground comix movement to the present day. Individual creators and their works are discussed. Guides to collecting graphic novels exist; however, the vast majority of the artists included in these guides are men. This paper fills a gap by introducing librarians to several women graphic novelists who have been overlooked thus far.”