Wilson Mericle
Information Literacy- The student applies and values user education principles in the teaching of information literacy.
Before entering the MLIS program, I had only experienced information literacy from the student side. My first introduction to becoming a teaching librarian was in LIS 620: Information Services and Sources. One of our assignments was to create a research guide, popularly known in the library world as libguides, on a subject of our choosing. I have a background in music and a passion for film. I decided to look back at the beginnings of the film industry and create a research guide on Silent Film, with a section dedicated solely to silent film music.
In the creation of my Silent Film research guide, I learned how to provide information to patrons without doing all the work for them. It is far easier to provide many of the answers; less so to provide the tools and resources needed to aid a patron in his/her research. Librarians must vet the resources before adding them to the guide. As such, to provide a quality teaching tool, librarians must do a great deal of research. Although imperfect, this research guide became a great frame of reference to others I would create in the future.
In the Spring of 2016, I took LIS 688: Music Librarianship. For one of our assignments we were tasked to write a lesson plan for a hypothetical instruction session. My scenario was to teach freshman music students the basics of searching for scores using the various resources available to them. These included UNCG's online catalog, the database Classical Scores Library, and public domain site IMSLP.org. Using knowledge from my BA in Music, skills learned in LIS 620, and experience as a Reference and Instruction Services Intern in UNCG's Jackson Library, I constructed a plan on developing search terms, performing Boolean searches, and navigating the aforementioned tools.
In that same semester, I also completed a practicum in music librarianship with the interim head of UNCG’s Harold Schiffman Music Library. I helped the music library staff check items out to students and process gift items for the collection. I was also the teaching assistant to the music librarian who co-taught an introductory musicology course for music majors. His section of the curriculum was to introduce the students to the music library, teach them how to use it and its resources, and teach Turabian Style citations and annotations. My main tasks were to grade citation/annotation assignments and answer questions when the librarian could not be present in class.
Teaching has become an integral part of librarianship. Learning information literacy methods and standards, as well as putting them to practical use cements the fact that librarians are not just envoys to research but instructors who teach the exploration of information.
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