Open Educational Resources and Student Success
Posted: May 13, 2022 Filed under: Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, Teaching Ideas, University of Louisville Libraries | Tags: open educational resources, student success Leave a commentStudies have shown that students will forgo buying a textbook due to its price even while acknowledging that they will do worse in the class without their own copy. With hardcopy textbooks costing as much as $400 with averages running between $80 and $150, many students feel financially pressured to not purchase the text.
Open Educational Resources (OER) can help students succeed by reducing their costs and improving their access to course materials. OER are freely available material and the availability of them is growing as faculty recognize the advantages to students and their financial considerations in whether to buy textbooks, or indeed, to complete their degrees.
In order help faculty learn about OER, the University Libraries have created a new website, https://library.louisville.edu/oer/, that provides information on what OER are, how to find them, and how to implement them.
The Defining OER section introduces what OER are and how they benefit student learning.
The Finding OER section includes search options for OER metafinders and library e-books (which are available at no additional cost to UofL students, staff, and faculty). On the OER by Subject tab, faculty can link to individual guides for specific subjects which provide highlight available materials. The Evaluating OER tab provides a suggested list of questions faculty should ask when determining whether a particular OER will work for their class.
The Implementing OER section provides information on creating and adapting OER, creative commons licensing, and contact information for consultation services with our OER Librarian.
We invite you to explore the site and start thinking about how you could use OER to improve student success.
Sources
Richard, Brendan, Dean Cleavenger, and Valerie A. Storey. “The Buy-In: A Qualitative Investigation of the Textbook Purchase Decision.” Journal of Higher Education Theory & Practice 14, no. 3 (2014): 20-31.
“Average Cost of College Textbooks.” Updated August 12, 2021, accessed May 13, 2022, https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-textbooks.
Libraries hire new project archivist for Julius Friedman collection
Posted: April 26, 2022 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Books, Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, donor, Ekstrom Library, Exhibits, Kentucky, Librarianship / Archivy, Louisville, Louisville History, New Items, People, Photographic Archives, Photographs, Primary Sources, University of Louisville Libraries | Tags: archives, Collections, donors, JuliusFriedman, philanthropy Leave a commentA trove of work by Louisville artist Julius Friedman (1943-2017), including a diverse mix of graphic design, books, commercial art, and photography, was recently donated to University of Louisville’s Archives and Special Collections (ASC), by Friedman’s sister, Louisville philanthropist Carol Abrams.
And now Friedman’s work will soon be preserved, organized, cataloged and available for public viewing thanks to additional funding from Abrams which allows ASC to hire a project archivist.
“It’s a rich and unique group of materials and there are so many different types,” said Haley-Marie Ellegood, who will serve a one-year term as archivist for the Julius Friedman Collection. “He worked with widely different formats – there is graphic design, posters, photography, and at the end of his career he got into bookmaking. He was moving into video production when he died.”
A recent Indiana University graduate with a Master of Library Science, Ellegood specialized in archives and records management and worked in the IU Archives. In addition to researching, cataloging, and preserving the collection, Ellegood will help select items for an exhibit of Friedman’s works to be held in mid-July in ASC’s gallery.
“He really loved working for nonprofit groups and he mostly worked for free,” said Ellegood. “He wasn’t really into making money, but he created annual reports for corporations and was able to charge a fair fee for it. That type of payment apparently funded his work for nonprofits.”
Friedman was well known for his commercial photography, graphic design, and iconic posters, including “Fresh Paint”; “Ballerina Toe on Egg” for the Louisville Ballet; and “Ice Cream in French Horn” for the Louisville Orchestra.
In addition to many of Friedman’s iconic posters, the collection includes much of his photography, and graphic design for menus, postcards, stationery, event programs, and flyers. Other materials include some of his written work, including a few notebooks and some correspondence. ASC has had a relationship with Friedman going back decades. Although the Filson Historical Society has a small collection of Friedman’s art, ASC holds the largest part of the collection.
Ellegood says her love of archival work grew out of her love of history, her subject major as an undergraduate. “I love learning about important people in historic places and from historic times. And I enjoy making information accessible to people, so they can appreciate it.”
Processing Friedman’s collection is an exciting first professional project after graduate school for Ellegood. “His art really makes you think about what’s going on, it’s not what you would expect. You wouldn’t expect a ballerina to balance on an egg. It challenges your preconceived notions.”
Louisville history of racial oppression and activism revealed in new online resource
Posted: March 7, 2022 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Art Library, Books, Collections, Databases, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Images, Kentucky, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, Louisville, Louisville History, Photographs, Primary Sources, University of Louisville Libraries | Tags: archives, information literacy, Photographic Archives, racial justice, research 2 CommentsBy Rebecca Pattillo
University of Louisville’s Archives and Special Collections (ASC) has published a new resource, Uncovering Racial Logics: Louisville’s History of Racial Oppression and Activism, a website that provides access to documents, oral histories, photographs and other materials that tell the story of Louisville’s history of racial oppression and activism.
The site is focused on education, policing and housing, “areas in which we see institutional racism at work, producing unequal access to resources, freedoms, and opportunities as part of ongoing U.S. racial stratification,” according to the site’s introduction. Funded by the Cooperative Consortium for Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research (CCTSJR) and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, the collaborative project was created by faculty members across multiple departments for an interdisciplinary look at the “racial logics” of Louisville via primary source materials housed in ASC.
Dr. Carrie Mott, UofL Assistant Professor of Geographic and Environmental Sciences and one of the site’s creators, said the goal of the project was to provide access to useful information to anyone interested in learning about Louisville’s history around racial justice.
“We also wanted to provide a tool that would help people see the amazing archival resources housed at ASC,” said Mott. “From prior research and teaching with archives at UofL, I knew of the wealth of resources we have here at UofL. But we recognized many people on campus as well as in the larger Louisville community do not understand how to use archival resources, why they might be useful, or know how to access them. The website was an opportunity to provide some resources in terms of actual scanned documents, but also to help people learn that UofL has a lot more where that came from for research on Louisville’s racial history.”
Rebecca Pattillo, ASC Metadata Librarian and site co-creator, said “Working on this project allowed ASC to make some of our materials available digitally. The site also directs visitors to our robust online digital collections, where they can explore some of the materials referenced in greater depth.”
“One misconception about the archives is that they are only available to UofL affiliated people, when actually we are open to anyone in the community,” said Pattillo.
The site features scanned archival documents including pamphlets, newspaper clippings, oral histories, correspondence, and photographs, with contextual and historical information about each document and the larger collection to which it belongs. In addition to scanned documents, the site also highlights oral histories, story maps, and other resources addressing Louisville’s racial history.
Site users may explore the topic of both secondary and higher education in Louisville to learn about the push for equal pay among Black and white teachers in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the city’s move to desegregate schools via court-ordered busing in the mid-1970s, integration of the University of Louisville in the 1950s, and the founding of the Black Student Union and the Department of Black Affairs in the late 1960s. In addition, learn about Simmons University, one of Kentucky’s two HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), and Louisville Municipal College, the only Black liberal arts college in the state which operated from 1931 through 1951, when it merged with a newly integrated UofL.
Another topic explored is the history of policing and police violence throughout the city. An example is the story of Fred J. Harris, a Black man who lost an eye after being beaten by police in 1979, and the work of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression to seek justice for Harris by demanding accountability from the police force.
Housing and Urban Renewal is another focus of the Uncovering Racial Logics project. Select archival materials highlight the narrative of Louisville’s history of racist housing policies and practices, including the construction of racially segregated federal public housing projects in the aftermath of the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of communities via Urban Renewal. These materials also reveal resistance to and organizing among the Black community and white allies to fight against racist housing policies and discriminatory practices. One such well known housing project is Beecher Terrace, which is explored via the papers of its long-time manager, Earl Pruitt.
Rounding out the project is an extensive, albeit not exhaustive, list of resources for further research. You can explore interactive maps that detail the history of racism within city planning and zoning, as well as redlining within Louisville. In addition is a list of community resources that highlight local organizations that work to empower and improve life for Louisville’s diverse citizens. Also included is a list of UofL Resourcesthathighlights on-campus organizations and committees that work towards racial and social justice, as well as minority affinity groups.
This project was created by Carrie Mott, Rebecca Pattillo, Melanie Gast, Anna Browne Rebiero, Joy Hart, Kelly Kinahan, and Catherine Fosl, with additional assistance from undergraduate and graduate research assistants Cat Alexander, Elizabeth Frazier, and Ben Harlan. Additional technical assistance was provided by Cassidy Meurer and Terri Holtze. Special thanks goes to UofL’s Cooperative Consortium for Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research (CCTSJR) and Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research (ABI) for funding and supporting this work, as well as our community partners.
Archives and Special Collections collects, organizes, preserves, and makes available for research rare and unique primary and secondary source material, particularly relating to the history and cultural heritage of Louisville, Kentucky and the surrounding region, as well as serving as the official memory of the University of Louisville.
ThinkIR Highlights BIPOC Scholarship
Posted: October 25, 2021 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Art Library, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, Librarianship / Archivy, Music Library, People, Primary Sources, ThinkIR, University Archives & Records Center, University of Louisville Libraries Leave a commentPart of Open Access involves building structural equity in OA venues. To this end, the Libraries have created The Collective, an initiative to uplift BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) faculty and staff at UofL by highlighting their research and providing open-access to BIPOC-produced scholarship on ThinkIR, the University’s digital institutional repository.
Hosted and managed by the University Libraries, ThinkIR promotes genuine open access and sustainable scholarship by making the work of UofL researchers freely available to a global audience without requiring costly and unsustainable access to journal subscriptions. “The Collective” was initiated in response to research showing that faculty who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color are underrepresented and marginalized in academia. According to the Higher Education Research Institute’s 2016-2017 faculty survey, there were large gaps between white and BIPOC scholars feeling a need to work harder to be perceived as a legitimate scholar. “Substantially more Black (72.2%), Asian (70.7%), Latino/a (70.6%), and Native American (66.7%) faculty perceived a need to work harder than their peers to gain legitimacy compared to just 46.8% of White faculty who felt similarly.”
By featuring a BIPOC scholars research collection in our institutional repository, we hope to encourage scholars of all disciplines to intentionally seek out the research and scholarship of their colleagues of color.
Helpful Links and Resources
Home – ThinkIR – UofL Libraries at University of Louisville
BIPOC Scholars – ThinkIR – UofL Libraries at University of Louisville
HERI-FAC2017-monograph.pdf (ucla.edu)
Celebrating International Open Access Week
Posted: October 25, 2021 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Art Library, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, Librarianship / Archivy, Primary Sources, ThinkIR, University Archives & Records Center, University of Louisville Libraries 1 CommentInternational Open Access Week (IOAW), held this year from October 25-21, advocates for the right to use and access knowledge freely and without subscription and copyright limitations. Every year, IOAW attempts to raise awareness of the potential disparities that arise when some scholarship is made more exclusive and less accessible to the public.
The theme for this year’s IOAW is “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity.” This theme was created to align with the recently released UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science:
Open Science should embrace a diversity of knowledge, practices, workflows, languages, research outputs and research topics that support the needs and epistemic pluralism of the scientific community as a whole, diverse research communities and scholars, as well as the wider public and knowledge holders beyond the traditional scientific community, including Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and social actors from different countries and regions, as appropriate. (UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, Page 7)
Often large publishers force academics to sign contracts limiting publication of their work to a single journal, and then charge high subscription fees for access to the work. This creates a disparity in who can access the knowledge.
ThinkIR, UofL’s Digital Institutional Repository, offers an online venue for sharing the work of our researchers, making it free, open, and accessible to a wide audience. There are no paywalls, no copyright contracts. ThinkIR is managed and hosted by the University Libraries.
Helpful Links and Resources
Home – ThinkIR – UofL Libraries at University of Louisville
Women’s Work in Louisville, Ky.
Posted: September 7, 2021 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Digital Scholarship, Louisville History, People, Photographs, University of Louisville Libraries, Web Site Leave a commentOver a decade ago I assisted at the research desk in the Archives & Special Collections (ASC) at the University of Louisville for a short time. I’m not an archivist, but I find the archival collections fascinating and I’d worked the ten years prior as the Social Sciences Reference Librarian. ASC was short on staff that year and I had just taken the position of Head of Web Services and wanted to keep some contact time interacting with the public, so I jumped at the opportunity to assist at the ASC Research Desk.
Cigarette manufacturing at Brown and Williamson, 1930. (CS 111146)
While working there, I got a lot more exposure to their collections – particularly the photographic collections. Being a woman, I started to notice a pattern in the photos related to Louisville: they were heavily-weighted towards men – well-off White men in particular. Talking with our archivists revealed some history about the collections. Most of our Louisville images came from the work of photographic studios in Louisville and the work of the studios during the early twentieth century was largely paid for by – you guessed it – White businessmen. So, it’s no big leap to understand why you see so many men in business suits and relatively fewer images of women, but that just made me more curious about what women were doing during these times and what life was like for them.
That started a ten-year journey into researching women’s roles in the workforce of Louisville, Kentucky. My research took me through dozens of collections in the UofL Archives and Special Collections, as well as collections at the Filson Historical Society, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, the Jefferson County Public School Archives, and the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives.
In doing this, I “met” some fascinating women – from a frontier businesswoman to a nun / nurse for Civil War soldiers. I felt that their stories needed to be shared more broadly to make people more aware of the contributions of women’s work to our community and to advertise these amazing historical resources to people who’ve never set foot in one of our archives.
So the Women’s Work of Louisville, Ky., project was born. It’s available to anyone with internet access at https://womenwork.library.louisville.edu/. The project includes sections on Eras, Women, and a Timeline. The Eras section features essays about women’s occupations from settlement through World War II, along with a bonus essay on Louisville women’s fight for suffrage. The Women section includes short biographies of women in a variety of careers, from steamboat captain to Lieutenant Governor. Whenever possible, I tried to include quotes from the women themselves talking about their work experiences. The Timeline section highlights important legislation and firsts for women in Louisville.
I hope you enjoy learning about these women as much as I did. And when you’re ready to learn more, come visit us in the archives!
https://womenwork.library.louisville.edu/
PAS students collect oral histories that capture 2020 turmoil in Louisville
Posted: May 27, 2021 Filed under: Archives & Special Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Librarianship / Archivy, Louisville, Louisville History, People, Primary Sources, University of Louisville, University of Louisville Libraries | Tags: oral histories, Oral History Center Leave a commentA continuing pandemic and historic reckoning with racial tensions in Louisville and throughout the country have created unprecedented stress and turmoil in the Louisville community. No group has borne the brunt of the difficulties more than people of color.
To capture some of these experiences, students of Dr. Bamba Ndiaye’s Pan-African Studies-200 class conducted interviews with UofL students and Louisville community members, offering insight into their emotions and experiences over the past year.
Students were given the tools to conduct the interviews during an oral history workshop held within the class, led by University Libraries Archivist Heather Fox. Resulting conversations have been turned into an eight-week series on the Archives and Special Collections’ Instagram page.
“Dr. Ndiaye used oral history methodology in his doctoral work and recognizes its value,” said Fox. “He reached out to me to do a workshop with his students and was extremely proud of the work they did in this class.”
The Oral History workshop 101 was framed as an hour-long session, one typically taught to history students, but also students in Modern Languages and Women, Gender and Sexuality studies. Students learn about oral history as “a guided interview where your interviewer has done research on the topic and is trying to elicit info about a particular topic with focus being on the interviewee,” said Fox.
The interviewer’s role is to listen, she continued. “It’s hard for people to get used to that. I counsel them: “‘Don’t talk; you’re supposed to listen. Don’t say, “uh huh,” etc. Just stay focused on what you are saying. Count to 10 before asking another question.’ That’s hard to do, especially if they’re nervous.”
But resulting interviews were extremely professional and gleaned many insights into individuals’ experiences during the past year.
One interview by UofL student Buff Fallot is of Tara Bassett, one of the 502 Livestreamers, a collective organized in the midst of the protest movement in Louisville. Bassett not only reveals life experience that led her to being a part of this group, but also explains a specific moment where her footage helped a protestor who was wrongfully arrested.
Fallot also interviewed George Smithers, AKA Santa George, about his work appearing in malls throughout the country as Santa to provide representation where it is lacking. Smithers livestreamed along the 502 Livestreamers during the protest movement, something he speaks on in the interview as well.
Student Daja Walker interviewed Jazman Branche, a young protestor who details her experiences during the protest movement, including her feelings on the National Guard being employed, how the collective energy of the movement felt, and her emotions after the verdict was announced. This particular segment focuses on the impact that media outlets had on perception of the protest movement.
Student Edison Pleasants interviewed Domini Williams, a nurse practitioner working at the Park Duvalle Community Health Center, who finished nursing school in May of 2020. A single mother of three, Williams juggled the completing nursing school, working full time in the University Hospital ER trauma center, guiding her kids through online schooling, and navigating the pandemic all at once. This interview also touches on Williams’s experience being a first responder to covid while working at the ER, her experience with nursing school at UofL, and mental health trends in the African American community during the pandemic.
Ja’Nay Williams interviewed Ecasia Burrus, an educator at the Shawnee Boys and Girls Club and an activist in her community. In the interview, Burrus talks about the difficult conversations she had to facilitate with her students as the upsetting events of police brutality unfolded last spring and summer, as well as what Black Lives Matter means to her as an activist.
The students’ questions were savvy and helpful in revealing important information from each individual, Fox said. “They’re not experts: these are 200-level 15 students, but they were extremely engaged, and asked excellent questions, so I’m really pleased with the work they did.”
“There’s quite a bit of pedagogical value in these interviews,” said Fox. “It’s a different ways to engage in the community and also as a research method that people are trained in.”
The Oral History Center will collect and curate the interviews. Archives and Special Collections Imaging Manager Cassidy Meurer has created a series of videos released as an eight-week series on ASC’s Instagram page over the past six months.
Ekstrom Library online librarian presents at ACRL virtual conference
Posted: May 6, 2021 Filed under: Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Librarianship / Archivy, People, Services, Teaching Ideas, University of Louisville Libraries, Web Site Leave a commentHow has the COVID-19 pandemic affected academic libraries and the roles of online learning librarians? That question formed the genesis of a recent paper and presentation by Amber Willenborg, Ekstrom Library’s online and undergraduate learning coordinator, and co-author and presenter Tessa Withorn, online learning librarian at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Willenborg and Withorn presented findings from their paper, Online Learning Librarianship in a Fully Online World: Findings (and Advice) from a National Study During the Covid-19 Pandemic, at the April virtual conference of the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL).
Prior to the past year of virtual work, some academic librarians may have doubted the efficacy of online librarianship, said Willenborg, but many came to appreciate the practice during the pandemic, at least according to the impressions of online academic librarians.
“In a previous study we found that online learning librarians often felt siloed and were often solely responsible for online learning work,” Willenborg continued. “But as academic libraries rapidly expanded online offerings, online learning librarians found that their colleagues were more supportive and open to online learning, where in the past they had been hesitant about its value.”
During the pandemic, online learning librarians themselves took on more leadership roles, spent more time training colleagues, and were managing an increased workload. This gave other librarians a greater appreciation for the role of online learning, according to the paper’s findings.
Initially, with a goal of uncovering difficulties within the profession, Withorn and Willenborg asked academic online learning librarians about their roles and challenges in early 2020. However, the pandemic hit soon after interviews were concluded, so the two decided to re-interview the same librarians in late 2020 to find out how their roles had changed.
Interviewees offered helpful advice to academic librarians who may be newly involved in online learning work due to the pandemic. “Find a support network and be proactive about training and professional development,” said Willenborg. “That was the topline advice: online learning is a lot of work but don’t get discouraged.”
The paper and presentation on these findings followed up an earlier study on online learning librarians titled A Foot in Both Worlds: Current Roles and Challenges of Academic Online Learning Librarians, co-authored by Willenborg and Withorn, a former Ekstrom Library student assistant. The two colleagues also presented together at the Kentucky Library Association’s Library Instruction Retreat in 2018.
Presenting at ACRL is an exceptional honor, with only 30% of presentation submissions accepted for inclusion in the conference. Willenborg also appeared at ACRL’s 2017 conference to discuss a poster.
“We received a lot of positive comments during and after our presentation,” said Willenborg. “Online learning librarians in attendance really identified with our findings.”
Ekstrom Library adds new resources on African Diaspora, Black Drama and Black Studies
Posted: April 21, 2021 Filed under: Books, Collections, Databases, Digital Collections, Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, New Items, New Videos, Photographs, Primary Sources, University of Louisville Libraries, Videos, Web Site Leave a commentThe University Libraries have added new materials to Ekstrom Library’s digital collections, including links to primary source documents, recordings, video and other materials on Black studies, Black drama and the African diaspora. The additions support the University of Louisville’s drive to become an anti-racist campus.
Among the materials are the transcript of the trial of Clay v. United States (Muhammad Ali); 2,500 pages of exclusive Black Panther oral histories; and the full text of over 1,700 plays by African diaspora playwrights, including previously unpublished plays by Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka and Zora Neale Hurston among other authors.
The digital databases also offer UofL scholars and researchers access to the former Hatch-Billops Collection which includes 5,000 pages of rare interviews, oral histories, photos, original art, poetry, and other firsthand perspectives tracking African American cultural trends in the 20th century. Interview subjects include Dizzy Gillespie, Arnold Rampersand, Errol Hill, Anne Cooke Reid, Butterfly McQueen, and Charles Mingus; many recordings took place when these figures were nearing the ends of their lives, capturing a historical record that would otherwise be lost.
“It’s exciting to provide these new materials to our students and we do think they will appreciate the breadth of these digital databases,” said Libraries Dean Bob Fox. “This is part of our commitment to supporting UofL’s goal of creating an anti-racist campus.”
Recently, Dean Fox reallocated gift funding to purchase books, DVDs, digital collections and other materials on civil rights, equity, and Black history, among other subjects, in support of UofL’s anti-racism initiative.
The purchases from Alexander Street Press include:
Primary source documents exploring the migrations, communities and ideologies of the people of African descent who have dispersed around the world. The focus is on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom and France. 1860-present.
Approximately 1,700 plays by 250 North American playwrights, together with detailed information on productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. 1850-present.
Black Studies in Video is a collection documentaries, interviews, and archival footage exploring the black experience through history, politics, art and culture, family structure, gender relationships, and social and economic issues.
Black Thought and Culture is a collection of nonfiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. It includes letters, speeches, essays, political leaflets, interviews, and transcripts.
Citizen Literacy receives notice in ALA 2021 State of America’s Libraries Report
Posted: April 8, 2021 Filed under: Digital Scholarship, Ekstrom Library, Librarianship / Archivy, People, Primary Sources, Research Tips, Services, Teaching Ideas, University of Louisville, University of Louisville Libraries, Web Site Leave a commentCitizen Literacy, the University of Louisville Libraries’ online toolkit to promote information skills and resist disinformation, continues to gain recognition. The latest notice is in The State of America’s Libraries 2021: A Report from the American Library Association by the American Library Association, which offers an overview of how libraries operated in the US during the past year during the global pandemic. The report lists Citizen Literacy in its section on disinformation.
The University Libraries created the online portal to help students become better consumers of media, research and information. Launched to coincide with the final weeks of the 2020 election season, Citizen Literacy promotes essential information skills like algorithmic literacy, news literacy, how to evaluate expertise, how to investigate the veracity of online sources through lateral reading, and how to become an informed voter.
The site was created by Rob Detmering, head of Research Assistance and Instruction; Amber Willenborg, online and undergraduate learning coordinator; and Terri Holtze, head of web services.
Citizen Literacy was also recently praised in a recent report by Stanford University on general deficiencies in university instruction on digital literacy. The report shows that students are mostly unable to discern legitimate news and information sources from falsehoods and proposes innovative teaching methods to combat this deficiency. Citizen Literacy embodies a good kind of remedy, the report concludes.
“Institutions need to follow the example of forward-looking librarians and information specialists at the vanguard of new approaches to dealing with misinformation—often on shoestring budgets at liberal arts colleges and state universities. . . . Robert Detmering and Amber Willenborg, librarians at the Ekstrom Library at the University of Louisville, have produced a series of polished videos (with just the right dose of snark) that provoke college students to reevaluate their online behavior. We hope these and similar efforts will shine a light on a path for other colleges and universities to follow.”
“Educating for Misunderstanding: How Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy Make Students Susceptible to Scammers, Rogues, Bad Actors, and Hate Mongers,” (Working Paper A-21322, Stanford History Education Group, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2020). https://purl.stanford.edu/mf412bt5333
Additionally, Last year, the Chronicle of Higher Education featured an interview with Detmering and Willenborg on media literacy; CHE’s weekly “Teaching” column focused on how higher education can combat disinformation by teaching media literacy through various means, and the Citizen Literacy toolkit was one strategy mentioned.
University of Louisville Libraries News 