SLIS Professors Heidi Julien and Lisa Given recently presented a paper titled "Student-Centered Information Literacy Instruction: Gathering the Evidence" at Library Research Seminar V, hosted by the University of Maryland in Hyattsville. The paper reports results to date of a longitudinal study examining information literacy skills and development of students transitioning from high school to undergraduate studies on campus. In addition to Drs. Julien and Given, the study team includes Kathleen De Long and Anne Carr-Wiggin of the University of Alberta Libraries, Susan Barker from the Department of Secondary Education, and MLIS student Research Assistants Jorden Smith and Dana Ouellette. Financial support for this study was provided by The Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund at the University of Alberta.
In addition, SLIS doctoral student Shelagh K. Genuis presented a paper titled "Making Sense of Evolving Health Information Mediated by Formal and Informal Information Sources: Navigating Uncertainty in Everyday Life" based on her dissertation research about women's information behaviour during the menopause transition. Shelagh's conference and travel was supported by: 1. Institute for Museum and Library Services, LRSV Fellowship for Students 2010 and 2. Myer Horowitz Graduate Student Travel Award 2010 (Faculty of Education, University of Alberta). Lisa Given also presented a paper titled "Using Skype as a Research Tool: Lessons Learned from Qualitative Interviews with Distance Students in a Teacher-Librarianship Program" based on Kristie Saumure's dissertation research, which she defended successfully in May 2010.
The Library Research Seminar conference is hosted triennially, and brings together a diverse community of scholars from academia and practitioners from libraries and archives who are interested in research that informs policy-making, decision-making, and best practices.