On behalf of the University of Michigan’s SI 641 / EDCURINS 575 : Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning class, I invite you to download a copy of our 170+ page book, Information Literacy in the Wild.

In this book, we share our experiences doing observations, teaching, and online resource creation related to information literacy in public libraries, K-12 classrooms, K-12 school libraries, college classrooms (online and face-to-face), academic libraries, educational outreach projects, the natural history museum, and more.

As their professor, I couldn’t be more pleased with their honest, unvarnished looks at what’s working in information literacy and what isn’t. So much of library literature is written as if there’s never a problem — everything goes off without a hitch. Ooh, doesn’t that make us jealous? But what I love about the deft hand of these writers is that they lift the veil and show you when the boat rocked and then what they did to right it.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of our classmate Kristel Wieneke, we did a limited print run (shown above) for friends and family courtesy of the the University of Michigan Library’s Espresso Book Machine.

But we’re releasing it for free in digital format for everybody else!

You can download it for your eReader for free here:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/115254

Or you can download it in a formatted-for-print PDF here:
http://bit.ly/infowild

So if you want to know what happened when a bird unit flew into a Physics classroom, what Lady Gaga has to do with synthesis, what it means to use a chainsaw to cut cake, what a Tyrannosaurus rex has to do with information literacy, or what database-a-phobia is, we hope you’ll download our book.

Then share your feedback with us!
informationliteracyinthewild [at] umich [dot] edu

(And that’s not all … they also created some amazing IL online resources … but I’ll save sharing some of those for another day.)

PS - To learn more about the Espresso Book Machine, check out this video!

This semester, in our Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning class, we’ve talked about a lot of issues concerning information literacy in all its analog and digital forms. Two hot points of discussion have focused on teaching with objects and synthesis.

So when I heard about this project from our colleagues elsewhere on campus, in which students took recycled tires and seatbelts from junked cars and converted them into sandals. This, I think, is the creative thinking that the ISTE NETS*S are looking for, where disparate problems can be attacked via a single solution.

An abundance of discarded tires filling landfills + discarded seat belt webbing + need for satisfying projects that can be completed by someone with basic/entry skills + pride in Detroit (the Big D) = innovation.

That’s synthesis, right? A cool example to share with students.

U. Mich. Product Design Class’ Treads Motor City Sandals - Core77 via kwout

The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History has a cool event called ID Day. On that day, patrons are invited to bring in shells, rocks, minerals, and more, and they can get expert help in identifying them. What a cool way to connect visitors to the museum’s expertise!

Exhibit Museum via kwout

It got me thinking … what could school libraries offer that would showcase their expertise while solving parents’ inquiry, information literacy, and technology questions?