Colgate University Libraries’ Information Literacy Curriculum

Specific Goals & Objectives

These activity and class-specific goals and objectives are derived from Colgate University Libraries overall Information Literacy Goals and Objectives.  The Libraries’ overall Information Literacy (IL) Goals and Objectives are themselves based upon the ACRL Information Literacy Standards.

First-Year Library Orientation

• Awareness of key library information services.
• Awareness of librarians’ ability to support student work.
• Knowledge of the physical layout of the libraries.

First-Year Seminar (FSEM)

• Use reference works such as subject-specific encyclopedias
• Develop researchable questions
• Move from research question to effective key word searches
• Distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly sources
• Distinguish between reference, secondary, and primary sources
• Become familiar with general-purpose academic databases such as Academic Search Premier and JSTOR
• Be aware of more specialized academic databases (which one(s) depends on content of FSEM)
• Be able to find books and other material through the catalog and physically in the library 
• Learn how to do interlibrary loan
• Understand the basics of citations and references
• Learn how to use Zotero

Core Communities & Identities

• Reinforce basic concepts and skills objectives of the FSEMs, particularly those associated with the early stages of a research project as this is often where students have the most difficulty
• Gain critical visual, spatial, and/or other literacy skills depending on the nature of a class’s specific assignments