Paradoxes of Media and Information Literacy: The Crisis of Information
By Jutta Haider and Olof Sundin (Routledge, 2022)
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
In a new book, two Swedish LIS researchers lay out a series of “paradoxes” that face librarians and others who struggle to align their media and information literacy programs with the needs of the present moment, drilling deeply into issues that practitioners will find familiar – and enormously challenging.
by Emily Thompson
Studio Librarian, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library
and
Theo Rhodes
Assistant Professor of Psychology, State University of New York at Oswego
Abstract
Current students are very familiar with their handheld devices, but they are often thrown into productivity applications with very little instruction due to the assumption that digital natives are already proficient. This study focused on students’ abilities using PowerPoint to create and execute a presentation. We conducted an A-B comparison with a “one-shot” instruction session by a librarian in between. After analysis by a group of objective observers, we saw a statistically significant improvement in the post-intervention slides. This implies that it is helpful to give students lessons in common productivity applications, with a possible new direction for library instruction.