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Vogel Library’s mission is to educate information-literate lifelong learners.  Our information literacy program is the flagship of that effort, but other library operations also contribute toward this goal.  The information literacy program is designed to embody leadership and visibility in promoting the library’s mission of educating students.  As such, our information literacy mission closely reflects that of the Library.  We embrace the national Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html) and that document’s definition of information literacy:  “…a set of abilities requiring individuals to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.’”

·        We believe that information literacy is so fundamental that it is an integral part of the academic experience in and out of the classroom. 

·        We believe course-integrated instruction connected with a real academic need is more effective than stand-alone information literacy courses or disconnected tours and library orientations.  

·        We believe in a planned curriculum with distinct, sequenced information literacy content that allows practice and reinforcement without duplication. 

·        We believe that our information literacy instruction and any subsequent activity must help to achieve a faculty member’s course objectives. 

·        We believe that professors and students must be guided toward the understanding that the librarians’ goals are interconnected with their own course goals and curricular needs.

·        Above all, we emphasize the teaching of concepts over skills as a means to achieve our information literacy mission of educating information-literate lifelong learners.

We also educate individual students and faculty at the reference desk and in individualized consultations by appointment.  We strive to make each of these encounters an educational experience.  In these settings we reinforce information literacy concepts from prior instruction and give students further opportunities for guided practice.