7.1 Final Words

You have now read a book about teaching information literacy, with the aspect of learning, academic formation, and the use of technology deeply ingrained. In the 21st century, the librarian’s role in higher education goes beyond providing students with tools for searching and citing. In fact, we firmly believe that learning, academic formation, and technology are vital aspects of information literacy teaching, and as librarians with an interest in teaching and care for our students, we should do what we can to make our few teaching lessons as useful as possible. This is not an easy task to achieve without a background in education or pedagogy. Therefore, in this book, we have had strong focus on not just how to provide students with useful learning strategies, but also on discussing the learning process itself, i.e., how we learn, as well as a focus on the normativity of information literacy. We have also reflected around the importance of the acquisition of academic values, how we can help students identify their motivation for being in academia, and how this, together, might lead them to act in line with existing norms and conventions. And we have talked about how technology might contribute to the overall quality of, and accessibility to, our teaching.

As voiced by several organizations, including UNESCO, information literacy is an imperative skill in modern society. The Prague Declaration states that Information Literacy “is a prerequisite for participating effectively in the Information Society, and is part of the basic human right of life long learning”.¹ Reflecting on the power of these skills should be enough to make any librarian proud to be assisting citizens on the road to becoming information literate.

7.2 The Road Goes Ever On and On²

Now what? Do you get out there, trying out some of the points we have focused on in this book? Or do you sit down with the next book on information literacy? Yes, you will probably—and hopefully—do both. Information literacy is a concept constantly in flux along with the rest of the library world, and we encourage not only library schools to increase elements of modern pedagogy in library training, but librarians already working in higher education to keep abreast of advances and new results in educational theory. Further, with online teaching and access to big data, gradually more results on students’ developing information literacy (or not) become available.

We believe that libraries should be at the forefront in advocating information literacy for everyone, and we therefore strongly encourage you to continuously nurture your interest and your eagerness to improve your information literacy teaching.

To end this book, we quote an unpublished paper by Shulman (2002, p. 3)³: “One of the most powerful motivations for change is looking in the mirror.” This holds for students. And it holds for us.