Teaching librarians

October is National Information Literacy Month. Stevens librarians are taking this month to attend freshmen experience courses to teach students how to evaluate, access, and use information ethically. Recently, we have seen a rapid rise in the amount of information available, but there’s also been an equal rise in misinformation, perhaps even more so now due to social media platforms. Stevens librarians hope to empower students with the critical thinking and research skills necessary to combat misinformation in the digital age. 

Information literacy objectives have been a part of the freshman experience curriculum since 2011. However, Stevens librarians have been instructing research sessions for at least 30 years. Professors from the College of Arts and Letters will often invite a librarian to teach the class-specific information and research methods. This is especially crucial for students to learn during their formative years as an undergraduate. It is these foundational methodologies and instructions that will underpin all future research and education students’ endeavors—whether it be in college, their career, or their personal life. 

In today’s modern society, there is a misconception that anyone with access to the internet has all the information disposable to them at the touch of their fingertips. Discovering the information you need is not as easy as coming up with a keyword and entering it into a search engine, that is if you hope to get quality content. Search engines like Google do provide a lot of information, but reliable sources, like academic journals, newspapers, and books, are increasingly put behind paywalls. So, while some people thought the internet would make libraries obsolete, it is quite actually the opposite—libraries and librarians are invaluable resources to a community. Like Romel Espinel, Web Services Librarian, said, “This is where a library is critically important to the university community because librarians curate, collect, and subscribe to quality information sources that support the educational mission of the university.” Stevens librarians are committed to ensuring students have access to reliable sources and have the know-how skills to formulate proper, educated, opinions about the world.