Let\u27s Have a Party: Information Literacy Instruction as an Empowerment Strategy

Is it a crazy idea or an innovative pedagogical strategy to turn an information literacy instruction (ILI) session into a party? Joy Kim, Curator of the Korean Heritage Library at the University of Southern California, implements this approach every semester to welcome Korean students to USC campus. Considering the success of her program, perhaps more instruction librarians should take time to organize information literacy welcome parties. International and minority students experience more alienation on campus than average students. Effective ILI often minimizes this sense of alienation felt by these two groups. International students find services available in American libraries are different from what libraries offer in most foreign countries. Minority students are often the first in their family to attend college, and therefore unfamiliar with the university environment and academic libraries. ILI delivered to international and minority students prepares them to claim the academic library as their own territory. While these two groups of users share commonalities, they also differ in considerable ways. It is important for instruction libraries to understand these commonalities and differences, so as to provide most effective service to each group. Let\u27s get together to enable an intellectual exchange between instruction librarians who serve primarily minority populations and/or international students. We hope that by sharing our experiences, participants will identify best strategies for information literacy instruction for international and minority students on their own campuses