Information Literacy Program Earns National Honor for CSU Fullerton

Cal State Fullerton has been awarded a Best Practices honor from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) for its efforts to foster information literacy.

Collaboration among the university's Pollak Library, Faculty Development Center and Academic Affairs Division led to the award.

Launched last spring with first-year funding from a California State University system grant, a two-year, comprehensive program was developed and implemented to encourage, assist and support academic departments in enhancing and integrating information literacy within their curricula. The focus of these efforts ranges from basic information gathering to critically evaluating information from such sources as the Internet.

"Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning," said Suellen Cox, library instructional coordinator who directs the program. "It is an intellectual framework common to all disciplines, all learning environments and all levels of education. The CSUF Information Literacy Program is designed to prepare students to be competent information-seekers and lifelong-learners in the expanding digital world," she added.

Twenty academic departments participated in the program's initial year, and 25 more are participating in the second year. The costs of the second year's activities are being borne by the university.

A CSUF team will make presentations about the program as invited speakers at two national conferences - on May 10 in Michigan before the Library Orientation/Instruction Exchange, a national organization advocating library instruction issues, and June 11-13 at the ACRL conference in Atlanta. A division of the American Library Association, the ACRL is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher-education community, and to improve learning, teaching and research.

Media Contacts: Suellen Cox, library instructional coordinator, (714) 278-4619 or scox@fullerton.edu

Gail Matsunaga, Public Affairs, (714) 278-4851 or gmatsunaga@fullerton.edu