NCLA Con 2025

In information literacy sessions, librarians will often begin at the library's homepage to discuss research and available resources. Using the library as the starting point, however, can decontextualize how the library fits into the larger information world that students interact with on a daily basis. This in turn makes it harder for students to understand how to approach searching the library databases for information, especially as first year students. By recontextualizing how information is organized and located, we can recognize and build upon how students primarily seek information online, and aim to reinforce life-long savvy searching behaviors across the internet. At Appalachian State University, all first year students are required to take an introductory writing course, Rhetoric & Composition (RC) 1000. In this presentation, I will discuss alternative lesson plans that three of us piloted and adapted for library instruction in several sections of an instructor's RC1000 course across different semesters starting in Fall 2023. From the pilot sessions, the lessons were adopted into other RC1000 courses sections and expanded. These two RC classes provide the foundation of Appalachian State University's Vertical Writing Curriculum, which is designed to provide scaffolded writing experience with an information literacy component each year of an undergraduate's academic career. Therefore, it is highly important to our information literacy program to be well integrated into these courses as they also are meant to set students up for research as they then transition into their majors.For background, the traditional RC1000 information literacy lesson plan discusses different source types, credibility, and keyword searching before diving into the library's homepage for a search demonstration through App State's discovery system. The new alternative lesson plan instead aims to approach instruction through starting with a setting that students are familiar with, the open web, before going into the library resources. This foundation then helps to describe the databases using the language of the internet and web searching. To do this, we focus on how the internet functions through exploring the ways search algorithms work, and how information is "layered" within the internet. Once this foundational knowledge is established, we can then contextualize searching in both databases and search engines. Additionally, this recenters the role of the librarian from mainly explaining databases to being experts in how information is organized and how this impacts the way we find information. Over time, this class has shifted in response to student feedback and instructor needs, with options to include discussions of social media, AI, and information ethics. I include the process from our first sessions to the current curriculum, noting the iterative process of teaching, learning, and student-driven decision making. I'll note what has and hasn't worked, and what has resonated with students throughout the different iterations of the sessions through showing student feedback and takeaways. I hope attendees will walk away from this session with ideas on how to situate the library within a larger information context to aid in student understanding both within and outside of academia.