Heather Jagman, Coordinator of Reference, Instruction, and Academic Engagement for the DePaul University Library, has been named the winner (along with her co-editor, Troy Swanson of the Moraine Valley Community College Library) of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section’s Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award for 2016 for the edited collection, Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students to Think About Information (2015).
In this collection, Jagman and Swanson brought together essays challenging librarians to go beyond teaching “research skills” to explore new ways in which they can work collaboratively with faculty and students to design learning experiences that allow students to think critically about their roles as both consumers and creators of information in the twenty-first century. The awards committee noted, in particular, the ways in which the vision of the evolving role of teaching and learning in libraries presented in the collection complemented the recently-adopted ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.
The Framework, which is notable for the manner in which it recognizes the role of the student as content creator as well as the critical thinking skills needed in an increasingly complex landscape for discovering and evaluating information to be used both in school and throughout one’s life, has also informed Jagman’s work with the Chicago Quarter, DePaul University Library’s recently revised undergraduate learning goals for information literacy, and revisions to the first-year instruction provided to DePaul students in WRD 104/HON 100.
Jagman and Swanson have collaborated in the past as part of the co-sponsorship by DePaul and Moraine Valley of the annual Illinois Information Literacy Summit.
The Rockman Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing, “recognizes an outstanding publication related to instruction in a library environment published in the preceding two years.” Further information on the award and the full press release are available from the American Library Association.