Beyond the Basics: How Can Librarians Teach What We Truly Care About?

Most research instruction sessions do very little in the way of inspiring creativity among students. The great majority of these sessions engage students only at the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Remembering and Understanding). This often occurs by necessity- someone has to teach students research basics before they can ever hope to use research as part of a creative process. At the same time, we didn’t become librarians because we were passionate about Boolean operators! How can librarians move beyond the basics and begin to teach big-picture information literacy concepts such as intellectual freedom, critical thinking, and ethical use of information? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do have some ideas. This presentation will be highly interactive and discussion-oriented.