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processT has rarely included assertiveness training, self-esteemstrengthening, confidence building, or risk-taking among itsprofessional development priorities (p. 124).’’
Readers should note that Dority’s emphasis on employ-ability and her resilient optimism flies in the face of aconventional wisdom that has dictated huge barriers forprofessional who wish to change jobs between the traditionalpaths (let alone the nontraditional or independent). Perhaps thetimes are changing. Dority’s book is not rehabilitation for thesour, the cynical, or the hopeless and readers will find nosoothing or stroking for excuses or bad breaks here. Profes-sionals with looming employment issues are better served withMontgomery and Cook’s Conflict Management for Libraries(ALA, 2005); younger professionals also will want to consultGordon’s The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide (Informa-tion Today, 2006) in addition to this work. RethinkingInformation Work is highly recommended for all relevantcollections and all professionals seeking employment intoday’s workplaces.—Christy Zlatos, Manager, Hollandand Terrell Reference Services, Terrell Library Room120L, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman,WA 99164-5610 [email protected].
doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.005
Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Social SciencesStudents and Practitioners: A Casebook of Applications,edited by Douglas Cook and Natasha Cooper. Chicago:American Library Association, 2006. 277 p. $39. ISBN 0-8389-8389-8.
A plethora of example assignments, lesson plans, and courseoutlines exists within the research of librarianship. That said, acompilation of thorough cases is always an importantcontribution to the body of literature. A revisited and revisedversion of the 1995 edition, Teaching Information LiteracySkills goes beyond instruction for education students to includea variety of social science disciplines. This collection evenmakes a move beyond text-based information literacy instruc-tion, making this an innovative and well-designed casebookfrom a variety of qualified contributors.
This edition’s uniform style and structure help readers tocompare and contrast individual lessons included throughoutthe book. Even though it appears that a user would most likelyconsult individual chapters that pertained to their own duties inlibrarianship, it would do instruction librarians good to readthrough all of the lessons to see the variety and experience ineach. It should be noted that these chapters are truly more thanindividual lesson plans of the individual instruction sessions.The authors include honest reflections on what worked andwhat did not, while also offering ways to advance or improvethe instruction in the future. It was especially promising to seeso many of the information literacy instructional designsinclude more than one fifty-minute session with students. Allof these cases demonstrated strong collaborations betweenteaching faculty and librarians, as well as intensive planning.
As part of the book’s standardized organization, each lessonis correlated to specific objectives within the ACRL Informa-tion Literacy Standards to provide a framework for instruction.Each chapter includes an ‘‘Analysis of the Learning Situation’’
where one can find descriptions of teaching facilities and notesabout individual campuses. Many of the cases include specifickinds of technology used during instruction and detailed activelearning exercises for adaptation in other settings. While mostof the courses targeted in this monograph include those youwould expect in a work dedicated to the social sciences (likecommunications, education, and psychology), audiences arenot limited to undergraduates. Some lessons detail collabo-rative work geared to more diverse learning populations, suchas graduate students, international students, distance educationstudents, and teacher candidates. It should be noted as well thatthis book includes lessons that address information literacybeyond a text-based learning environment, including a well-defined lesson on visual literacy and one that focuses on dataliteracy.
As a whole, Teaching Information Literacy Skills provides avariety of opportunities for those in the social sciences andbeyond. It will also be useful for those in other disciplines asboth a way to generate new ideas in your teaching,collaborations with faculty, and formats to facilitate instructiondesign. Within the information literacy instruction literature,this is a welcome addition and likely to encourage imitators ofequal competence, clarity, and comprehensiveness.—MichelleS. Millet, Information Literacy Coordinator, CoatesLibrary, Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Anto-nio, TX, 78212-7200 [email protected].
doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2007.07.006
The Twelfth Off-Campus Library Services ConferenceProceedings, edited by Julie Garrison. Binghamton, NY: TheHaworth Information Press, 2007. 593 p. $90.00. ISBN 978-0-7890-3477-9.
Co-sponsored by Central Michigan University (CMU) Off-Campus Library Services and CMU Off-Campus Programs, thebiennial Off-Campus Library Services Conferences offer peer-reviewed presentations related to the provision of libraryservices for remote users. The Twelfth Off-Campus LibraryServices Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers thatwere presented at the 12th biennial conference in Savannah,Georgia in April 2006.
The 12th OCLS Conference presentations consists of 28Contributed Papers, three Contributed Workshops, and eightContributed Electronic Posters. Articles within each section arearranged alphabetically by author. In addition, there is aContributor Index and a general Index.
The documents in the Contributed Papers section covertopics of interest to academic librarians who provide services toremote users in a variety of learning environments, includingonline instruction, hybrid courses, off-site classrooms, andbranch campuses. Most of the examples are from library ser-vices in the United States, but there is some representation fromCanada and the West Indies.
Many of the articles deal with utilizing technology to serveoff-campus users. These range from Web site evaluation, blog-ging, orientation CD’s, course management software, the needfor e-books to downloadable resources for handheld devices.
Consistent with past volumes of OCLS Conference Proceed-ings, many of the articles treat important topics of discussion in
614 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
