Visual Literacy Education in LIS Programs: A Survey

In today’s world, visual competence plays an increasingly important role. Proficiency in visual literacy is an essential competency in various fields, including marketing, design, education, and journalism. The competency to convey messages effectively, attract audiences, and promote engagement is crucial for success in these industries. At the university level, visual literacy is an essential competency for university students studying visual communication. A lack of sufficient visual literacy leads to several key challenges. Research indicates that most university students in China do not have sufficient visual literacy competencies. However, there has been a dearth of scholarly inquiry looking specifically into the visual literacy competency standards of students studying visual communication design in China despite its close association with visual literacy. The study aimed to evaluate the visual literacy competency of students majoring in visual communication design in Shanghai, China, through interviews. The interview questions utilised in this study were developed based on four visual literacy standards created by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). This study includes the competencies to determine visual materials needed, efficient image retrieval, interpret visual materials’ meanings, and evaluate image credibility when performing visual artworks. The study’s results indicate that students face difficulties in analysing and evaluating images due to their limited exploration of images related information, background, technology, and design elements. Consequently, they encounter challenges such as an inability to distinguish authenticity and judge reliability. These findings are valuable for the curriculum development of students majoring in visual communication design.

Visual literacy is essential for 21st century learners. Across the higher education curriculum, students are being asked to use and produce images and visual media in their academic work, and they must be prepared to do so. The Association of College and Research Libraries has published the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education , which, for the first time, outline specific visual literacy learning outcomes. These Standards present new opportunities for libraries to expand their role in student learning through standards-based teaching and assessment, and to contribute to campus-wide collaborative efforts to develop students' skills and critical thinking with regard to visual materials.

Academic Library Residency Programs and Diversity Julie Garrison (bio) Since the 1940s, academic and research libraries have offered post-masters' residency programs (called internships, residencies, or fellowships interchangeably) to provide professional training and mentoring for new librarians entering academic library careers. Those who participate in residencies tend to appreciate the experience and find that it supports individual career growth. They report gaining useful knowledge, marketable skills, and professional connections. They also derive benefits from growing their networks, participating in professional-level work and meaningful projects, and experiencing the academic library culture.1 By the early to mid-1980s, residency programs began focusing on recruitment of minority librarians. Initially, these programs were inspired by affirmative action, a United States government policy that supported members of disadvantaged groups who had suffered discrimination. More recently, residency programs shifted to addressing the desire to grow a workforce more representative of society in general.2 Despite these efforts, however, change has been slow.3 Residents and Librarians: Still Predominantly White In 1997, Julie Brewer surveyed 230 prior post-master's residents. The majority of survey participants were white women, overrepresenting "the older, larger residency programs in government libraries." Only 19 of the 109 respondents stated they had taken part in a program "targeted to racial and ethnic minorities."4 Another survey of residency programs in 2013 more narrowly focused on evaluating residencies for librarians of color. It explored "the general structure of residencies, such as the number of residents in a cohort, efforts to promote diversity, and professional skills." Of the 68 who responded, nearly 40 percent (26) were white, and 84.8 percent identified as female.5 While the number of respondents from racially or ethnically diverse backgrounds in both surveys was small, each suggested that residencies attracted individuals who would not have otherwise considered academic librarianship as a career choice and succeeded in retaining professionals in library-related positions. [End Page 405] An examination of American Library Association (ALA) demographic data and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) information indicates that the library profession remains predominantly white (86.7 percent according to the ALA in 2017, 87.8 percent per the BLS in 2019) and overwhelmingly female. While diversity has improved since the 2006 ALA membership report, in which 89 percent of members identified as white, the needle has scarcely moved toward building a more representative profession.6 A review of who received master's degrees in library and information science suggests that graduates have not increased in diversity either. A comparison of 2011 and 2017 graduation rates reported by the Association of Library Information Science Education (ALISE) shows that the percentage of Hispanic graduates doubled (6.2 percent in 2017 compared to 2.96 percent in 2011), but those from other racial groups increased by less than 1 percent. Given that fewer individuals graduate from LIS programs, the number of underrepresented minorities entering the profession remains nearly static. One caveat to these data is that both years report a relatively large pool of "unknown" and "international" students, and in 2017 an additional 2 percent (150) identify as "two or more races."7 The ACRL Diversity Alliance In 2014, when Jon Cawthorne became dean of libraries at West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown, he attempted to breathe new life into residency programs by forming the Diversity Alliance, a group of academic libraries that pledged to offer residencies to underrepresented groups. In addition to establishing a new institutional residency program at WVU, Cawthorne recruited like-minded institutions to do the same, growing a network of residencies aimed at supporting professionals from diverse backgrounds in "getting the experience they need to be successful in the academic library world." In 2016, the Diversity Alliance partnered with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to further expand its reach and broaden residency opportunities.8 For decades, ACRL had studied and analyzed opportunities for adding to the mix of ethnic and racial groups in the library profession. It had developed guidelines and stated its commitment to diversity in its strategic plans. It had produced reports with recommendations for advancing diversity efforts, and it had embraced the goal of recruiting a more representative workforce within academic libraries. The ACRL...

Visual Literacy

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate student visual literacy skills using the newly designed visual literacy framework and visual literacy (VL) scale.Design/methodology/approachIt includes a newly designed framework, a self-reporting questionnaire and a scale to evaluate an individual's VL skills and overall competency. The self-reporting questionnaire consists of 13 items with a five-point Likert scale.FindingsThe newly developed VL skill scale assessed the Fiji students’ competency (i.e. identify, understand, evaluate and communicate using visuals). The mean for the 13 items on VL skills showed average results, but 46.33% recorded high visual literacy competencies. The multiple linear regression analysis outcomes showed all 13 skills demonstrated significant contributions to becoming visually literate.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this study is that the questionnaire is self-reporting, so the evaluation can be highly rated. The implications are that relevant stakeholders will be able to devise strategies and content to improve visual literacy in Fiji.Practical implicationsImages are playing an important role today, especially after COVID-19, which forced the education system to go online. Online learning involves a lot of visuals, and as such, visual literacy is important to students so that they can successfully learn online. This paper brings out the important aspects of visual literacy, which needs to be understood by the students.Social implicationsIn society, everything involves visuals. This paper introduces a visual literacy scale and a visual literacy tool to measure the visual competencies of individuals. If people understand the components of visual literacy, then visual competencies of the people will also improve.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one on evaluating visual literacy competencies in Fiji and also in the South Pacific. The visual literacy tool is also new to the world.

Library Investment Index – Why is it Important?

ALISE is 101 years old. That's old by any measure. We have been celebrating the first hundred years, happily rejoicing in our longevity and congratulating ourselves on still being a vibrant and relevant association. We are more than halfway to our goal for the ALISE Centennial Fund and it is not too late to contribute. We are grateful to the all the donors to Centennial Leadership Gifts of over $3200i, the Leadership Gifts of $500-$3200ii, and for the Supporting Gifts. It is very affirming to know that our association is loved and supported.In the January 2015 issue of JELIS, Diane Sonnenwald wrote a great piece on Looking Back, Moving Forward that included current commentaries on some of our seminal and classic articles, reflecting on accomplishments and challenges to library and information science education. She summarized that social challenges are more complex now, that information access to scientific data requires digital curation and we have new ways of interacting with cultural information. In addition, higher education continues to change to meet the demands of increasingly diverse stakeholders. All of which leaves us with challenges and opportunities for the future of education in library and information science.The ALISE mission states that we promote innovation and excellence in research, teaching and service for education and scholars in Library and Information Science and cognate disciplines internationally through leadership, collaboration, advocacy, and knowledge creation (ALISE, 2014, emphasis mine). Our vision emphasizing that we are a global leader brings to our attention that although we state we are international in scope, the reality is that we have a long way to go. I encourage you to look back at Diane's words in JELIS Vol. 56, No.1, January 2015 as she makes such a cogent argument for why thinking globally is good for all of us. What better way to start the next 100 years than with a renewed focus on expanding our association to include our international colleagues.Past-president Clara Chu has served this mission well. She has been instrumental in securing our place in IFLA and making sure that the United Nations included literacy and access to information as one of the rights of individuals worldwide. She served as ALISE's 2015 IFLA representative, attended the IFLA conference in Cape Town and the 2016 IFLA National Committee Conference meeting to help plan the Ohio meeting in 2016. She represented ALISE at the US Caucus meeting, voted at the IFLA General Assembly and attended the Closing Ceremony. She also organized the ALISE members dinner get-together. This year Clara did that work jointly with the Chinese American Librarians Association, and tweeted about the event.Also, at the IFLA Section on Education and Section on Library Theory and Research meetings there was discussion about an IFLA 2016 satellite meeting (i.e., IFLA pre-conference) focused on Quality of LIS Education (i.e., accreditation). Seamus Ross and Patty Overall-Montiel, serve on the Standing Committees of these Sections, respectively. The planning committee has contacted Clara Chu and Lynn Connaway to assist and once the committee is set, they will be approaching ALISE about co-sponsoring the conference.An IFLA pre-conference focused on accreditation will fit perfectly with the work accomplished by a joint committee of ALA's Executive Committee and ALISE's CARE (Committee on Accreditation Reform in Education). To date there have been several important actions from these groups. First, the ALA Executive Board approved the change in the process of appointment of members to the ALA Committee on Accreditation, as described below:The Task Force made three additional recommendations related to the process of appointment and the composition of the committee:1.That the composition of COA includes a designation for one position to be held by a Dean/Director/Chair of a library or information science program. …

Images pervade our daily lives (Garcia-Sanchez, Sanchez, and Isla 2015; Kedra, 2018). Nevertheless, students often lack the skills necessary to move beyond passive receivers of visual messages, and visual literacy programs are not a priority within the educational system (Lundy and Stephens 2015). As visual images become more and more the predominant form of communication. we address the issues mentioned above by presenting a visual literacy framework for educators that can be used in the evaluation and development of literacy intervention programs. However, for this propose, we have centred on animation movies, because animation films are engaging (Mallinger and Rossy 2003; Thurn 2016). An extensive review was performed on visual literacy literature of the last ten years. As a result, we offer some guidelines for teaching multimodal literacy in the context of class. Although students live in a visual world, they tend to show a low level of visual literacy and critical thinking. In this sense, animation movies have a specific language, which creates particular visual messages, and leads to the use of cinematography techniques, images and sounds to tell a story. Thus, we conclude and argue that visual literacy awareness significantly improves when we master a specific vocabulary. Our findings led us to outline a more precise method for teaching and improving our training in visual literacy and critical thinking skills. It is crucial to create and implement a curriculum to improve visual literacy. Visuals allow us to assess new levels of learning experiences, which enriches our real understanding.

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu. Jo Henry is a student in the Library and Information Studies Program at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Here she reports on the wide variety of marketing options academic libraries in North America are using to revive reference services. The University of North Carolina Greensboro's Library and Information Studies program (http://lis.uncg.edu/) was organized as a formal department in 1928. The first Master of Library Science degree was conferred in 1978. This ALA accredited MLIS program prepares students to work in areas of specialization in public, academic, special, or school librarianship and is offered on both the main campus of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro as well as at the campus of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. ******

PurposeThis paper seeks to offer a rationale and practical suggestions for the integration of visual literacy instruction and information literacy instruction practice and theory.Design/methodology/approachThe paper aligns visual literacy and information literacy competency standards, revealing connections and opportunities for practical integration during library instruction and traditional classroom instruction.FindingsOn analysis of 11 visual literacy competencies, three exhibit a strong relationship with the ACRL's Information Literacy Competency Standards.Practical implicationsThe paper provides guidelines for teaching and learning scenarios that may be used in a library instruction session or as part of a course curriculum.Originality/valueThe paper advocates the alignment of visual literacy and information literacy competencies as a method for connecting multiple literacies in information literacy instruction.

The Mission of "Little Star":Juana Manrique de Lara's Contributions to Mexican Librarianship Phillip Jones (bio) In the wake of the Mexican Revolution and after a year studying library science in the United States, Juana Manrique de Lara returned to Mexico City to begin work as library inspector for the Federal District. The story of her life and career in public and children's library service and library education is an historical narrative of both her emerging profession and her nation. This study focuses on Manrique de Lara's formative years (1899–1925) as she acquired an education and began her life's work in the midst of Mexico's prolonged civil war and subsequent reconstruction. Foremost, this study is a tribute, intended to share what too few librarians, even in Mexico, know: Juana Manrique de Lara helped establish librarianship in Mexico and passed her enthusiasm for the profession to a generation of librarians. Every society of the West today needs a certain number of doctors, magistrates, soldiers, and librarians—to cure their citizens when sick, to administer justice to them, to defend them, and to make them read. —José Ortega y Gasset, "Misión del bibliotecario" You have no idea of the enthusiasm I had, the love I felt for my profession. Indeed, it was my life, and they paid me. —Estela Morales Campos, "Entrevista: Juana Manrique de Lara" In the summer of 1924 and in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, twenty-seven-year-old Juana Manrique de Lara returned to Mexico City fresh from a year of study at the Library School of the New York Public Library to begin work as inspectora de bibliotecas (library inspector) for the Federal District. Manrique de Lara's mission, so well articulated over the course of her nearly forty-year career, was to recognize and respond to the needs of Mexicans of all ages for reading and for public libraries. In the midst of civil war she acquired an education, forged a career, and [End Page 469] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Juana Manrique de Lara, first professional librarian of the Departamento de Bibliotecas. In Estela Morales Campos, Educación bibliotecológica en México, 1915–1954 (Mexico City: UNAM, 1988), 97. made lasting contributions to librarianship in her homeland. The depth and reach of Manrique de Lara's work are reflected in her professional passions, which first encompassed children's library service, expanded to public library management, and then found tandem expression in teaching library education and as a government-appointed library consultant. Remarkably, as a young professional she succeeded by both conforming to and defying bureaucratic practice to bring children's library service, public libraries, and library education to the federal government's attention in the midst of and following the Mexican Revolution. There is very little scholarship that mentions Manrique de Lara and even less that examines her life and work in any depth. Accordingly, piecing together Manrique de Lara's early life and career is a challenging task. To do so, one must draw from a limited number of articles or sections of monographs, a single interview, contemporaneous government sources, and Manrique de Lara's own writings, almost all of which are Spanish-language materials published in Mexico and found in few public, university, or research libraries across North America. The foremost scholarship on Manrique de Lara is the work of Mexican library historian Martha Alicia Añorve Guillén, whose master's thesis led to two published articles on Manrique de Lara's contributions to the federal [End Page 470] government's library programs and to children's library services during the 1920s. Her conclusion, based on close comparisons of Manrique de Lara's early articles and Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) documents, is that although no official attribution was ever made, we can infer that the SEP heard and incorporated Manrique de Lara's suggestions into its now-landmark library planning between 1920 and 1924.1 Ample, yet not abundant in number, Manrique de Lara's own writings comprise the most compelling testament to her life, work, and ideas. With the exception of children's stories...

This study aims to examine the effects of digital science scrapbook on students’ science visual literacy. Digital science scrapbook was designed to teach junior high school students, and the instrument was designed to measure the level of visual literacy before and after the treatment. This study employed a quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design. The population was junior high school students. The convenience sampling method was chosen to carry out the pilot study on 25 students in SMP 9 Salatiga. The visual literacy course was based on the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards. The differences in visual literacy levels were measured through 30 items of the visual literacy test. After conducting paired sample t-test on the data, differences between pretest and posttest were found. From the findings, significant differences in pretest and posttest scores were found. It can be concluded that digital science scrapbook is effective to train digital literacy in science. The novelty of this research is the use of digital science scrapbook on students’ science visual literacy.

Future engineers need an education program that can provide them with the breadth of knowledge necessary to be knowledgeable and productive contributors to both the workplace and to society. In short, engineers need information. Unfortunately, most technical science courses don't require assignments that involve information research. It is even more unfortunate, that due the heavy technical nature of their curriculum, students are often only exposed to these information retrieval skills a few times in their college career. The Association of College & Research Libraries and the American Association for Higher Education endorsed Information Literacy Competency Standards for higher education to describe essential skills that a student should possess to effectively identify the need for and utilize information. These standards correlate with several of the ABET evaluation criteria. This paper both examines these relationships and explores the need for engineering students to master information competencies.

Studies suggest that course-integrated information literacy instruction is an effective way to enhance the quality of student research. However, many political science professors are unfamiliar with the growing information literacy movement in higher education today, with strategies for integrating information literacy into their courses and assignments, and with opportunities to collaborate with librarians beyond requesting a 50-minute library instruction session for their classes. This paper addresses these issues, beginning with a discussion of the emergence of information literacy as an important discourse in higher education today and a description of the Association of College and Research Libraries' “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” It then reviews relevant literature on library instruction and librarian/course faculty collaboration, illustrating that effective information literacy instruction requires that librarians and course faculty work together beyond “one-shot” library instruction sessions. Collaboratively developed research assignment sequences are posited as an effective way for librarians and political science professors to work together to enhance lower division students' information literacy competencies. Finally, the paper provides a practical example of a collaboratively developed assignment sequence for a lower division American Government class that is mapped to the “Information Literacy Competency Standards.”

This column examines the Association of College & Research Libraries' new Framework for information literacy for higher education and Information literacy competency standards for higher education in the context of professional practice.