Fall 2014

COURSE DESCRIPTION: How can we best help people with their needs for information? In this course, we will focus on the skills needed to successfully interact directly with individuals from diverse populations in the course of helping to fulfill their needs for information. We will approach this topic from a number of different directions, including information professional practice and information behavior theory. The course will touch on the following topics: collection development, reference services, user education, information literacy, search strategies, and policies and ethics of the information profession. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1. Demonstrate an appreciation of the role of institutions in generating and disseminating information to users. 2. Demonstrate awareness of the core values, ethics, social responsibilities, and information policy issues that affect the profession and users ' lives and the roles of professional associations in supporting them. 3. Analyze the effect of technologies on resources, service delivery, and uses of collections and information resources. 4. Explain the role of information services in supporting the lifelong learning of diverse populations. 5. Analyze models and theories of user behavior and understand how they can inform the practice of serving the information needs of users from diverse populations