An article on Information Literacy

An article on Information Literacy


A discipline-based approach to information literacy
By Ann Grafstein
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28(4): 197-204, 2002.

If someone is looking for useful guidance on implementing information literacy programme in academic institutions, I would recommend this 2002 article, By Ann Grafstein.


This article proposes a "discipline-based approach to teaching information literacy, argues that the responsibility for teaching information literacy should be shared throughout an academic institution, rather than limited to the library. An outline of the complementary responsibilities of librarians and classroom faculty in teaching information literacy is presented" in the article.

Article outline:

• Librarians and IL: a historical context

• IL: the library and beyond

• Teaching IL: goals and objectives

• The focus of teaching: content or process?

• What is constantly changing?

• The risk of isolating process from content

• Librarians and classroom faculty

• The role of librarians: generic information skills

• Searching skills

• Generic critical thinking skills

• • timeliness.

• • authority.

• • bias.

• • verifiability.

• • logical consistency.

• The role of classroom faculty: discipline-specific skills

• • evaluating the content of arguments.

• • assessing the validity of evidence.

• • proposing original solutions.

The article concludes stating that "Librarians are responsible for imparting the enabling skills that are prerequisite to information seeking and knowledge acquisition across the curriculum. While classroom faculty have the responsibility of teaching those skills that are required for subject-specific inquiry and research."

Full-text available online at: LINK

R. Venkata Kesavan

Updated on Sunday, August 29, 2010 at IST 9.00 PM


Disclaimer: All contents, resources linked on this blog are © protected by the respective content creators / site owners / authors, publisher, if any. This Bolger does not take any responsibility for the authenticity of such sites / blogs /online resources / articles / books and other resources that are featured in LISOnline.


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A latest article on the ‘cost of technology and libraries’.

A latest article on the ‘cost of technology and libraries’.


While browsing the current LIS journals at the Jawaharlal Nehru Library, University of Mumbai, this week, I came across an interesting article, which deals with the costs of technology changes in libraries. The article apart from dealing with the direct costs of hardware and software, throws light on the impact of the human costs that are associated along with cost of the technologies. Based on a detailed review of literature, the article forecasts a number of anticipated technological challenges, which, in future, will affect the libraries (eg. Web 3.0, webtop and cloud computing). Besides, offers a number of useful suggestions to library administrators to deal with the technology use and its associated changes. To cite a few from the article- Know your library and its user. Because the size of the library determines much about its organisation and how it functions; Understand what your library wants and how to accomplish it; Know your staff and their capabilities; Always keep a backup plan for information system and people in order to guarantee continuity of service; Plan not only for technological changes, but for staffing as well…and so on.

This article is really worth reading and some of the points are worth reflecting!.

The Hidden Costs of Keeping Current: Technology and Libraries.
By Kay Cunninghama
Journal of Library Administration, 50(3), April 2010 , 217 – 235

If you have subscribed to this journal please try it online  

R. Venkata Kesavan
Updated on August 21, 2010 at IST 3.45 PM

Disclaimer: All contents, resources linked on this blog are © protected by the respective content creators / site owners / authors, publisher, if any. This Bolger does not take any responsibility for the authenticity of such sites / blogs /online resources / articles / books and other resources that are featured in LISOnline.
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Old is Gold- a book on marketing of information products and services.

Recently while googling, I had, by chance got hooked onto some of the literature that is available on the Net on the topic ‘marketing of information’. Even though this subject was still in its nascent stage in developing countries, then in 1994, IIMA in collaboration with IDRC and came out with a kind of professional manual / guidelines, on ‘marketing  of information products and services’, which was subsequently published in a book form in 1999. For me luckily this had happened, when I was working at EDI India, Ahmedabad. I was very closely knowing late Mr. Ashok Jambhekar, (one of the editors of the book - in fact, he was one of the interview panelists at ATIRA, Ahmedabad, then I secured my first job as Librarian , way back in 1992). Soon the book got published, I had a chance to lay my hands on this fantastic work and refer it then . It was great and quite useful.

Coming to the present, while I am familiar with the contents of this book and I just thought of re-reading it, to refresh my mind again. (Luckily, this time around the book is available online - in e-book format, at the IDRC website and also available on Google Books ). It is interesting to note that, almost more than a decade after this book was published, most of the concepts and issues discussed in the book are still remain relevant  even in today’s web 2.0 world, where user-to-user (U2U) information sharing is an order of the day, supported by numerous ICT enabled hand-held mobile devices, which come as handy tools for information searching, retrieval and dissemination..

This book is surely worth browsing yet another time, even if you have already read it. In case, if you have never had a chance to read it, you may try it now.

Some of the key concepts and topics discussed in the book include:

Introduction to Marketing of Information products and services, General Marketing, Barriers to Marketing, Key Concepts in Marketing of Information, Marketing Management, Developing a Marketing Plan, Planning Information Products, Guidelines for Product planning, Designing and Developing Information Products and Services, Promotion of Information Products, Commercializing the Products and Services, etc.

What is more? The chapters in the book end with a comprehensive list of references, which are worth further exploring on the subject and related areas.

The Book:

MARKETING INFORMATION PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: A Primer for Librarians and Information Professionals.
Edited by Abhinandan K. Jain, Ashok Jambhekar, T.P.Rama Rao, and S. Sreenivas Rao
Tata McGraw-Hill/IDRC, 1999, 480p.
ISBN 978-0-07-463206-2

The e-book version can be downloaded from: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/817-1/    

Happy reading!
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Disclaimer: All contents, resources linked on this blog are © protected by the respective content creators / site owners / authors, if any. This Bolger does not take any responsibility for the authenticity of such sites / blogs /online resources / articles / books and other resources that are featured in LISOnline.

Some useful online resources on Dr. S. R. Ranganathan

Here are some useful online resources on Dr. S. R. Ranganathan that are worth checking out:

Dr. S. R. Ranganathan on @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._R._Ranganathan


S.R. Ranganathan- A Short Biography
http://www.isibang.ac.in/library/portal/Pages/SRRBIO.pdf

Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan: Brief Profile (with additional resource links)
http://w3.uniroma1.it/vrd/mathematics/I-Ranganathan.html

Autobiography of Dr S R Ranganathan
By Suresh Chandra Padhy
http://ezinearticles.com/?Autobiography-of-Dr-S-R-Rangananthan&id=2061823

Online Photo Gallery on Dr. S. R. Ranganathan (including the images of the SRR postal stamp of Govt. of India)




Disclaimer: All contents, resources linked on this blog are © protected by the respective content creators / site owners. This Bolger does not take any responsibility for the authenticity of such sites / blogs /online resources / articles / books and other resources that are featured in LISOnline.

Welcome to LISOnline!

On the occasion of the Birth Anniversary of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, the father of Library Science movement in India, this blog - LISOnline is dedicated for the professional development of LIS Professionals. This blogger will periodically try and post comments, reviews, digests, webliographies and bibliographies etc. on various information resources (research articles, books, web sites) featuring LIS field that are available online, in the public domain.

Your comments, suggestions and feedback on this blog can be mailed at: venkata.kesavan@gmail.com


R. Venkata Kesavan
August 12, 2010
Homepage at: http://rvkindia.angelfire.com/
http://twitter.com/rvkindia