When to Teach It and When to Trash It: Library Terminology, Instruction, and Content Strategy
- Conference Year
- Online Northwest 2017
- Session
- 3
- Type
- Breakout Session
- Presenters
- Adrienne Alger, University of Montana, Missoula
- Abstract
When should jargon be trashed and when should it be taught? We conducted an undergraduate survey of library terminology on our library’s website. Terms with less than 60% comprehension were brought to a committee of instruction librarians to determine which jargon is worth eradicating and which is worth saving for the sake of research and information literacy instruction. Saved jargon will be worked into the library website’s new content strategy, editorial standards, library guides, and instruction guidelines, so that librarians can make important terminology more meaningful and less confusing to students.
- Learning Outcomes
- Identify terminology used on the library website that students are unfamiliar with or incorrectly define.
- Embed meaningful terminology into librarian-led instruction and emphasize the use of terminology in live instruction and instruction materials.
- Strategize & synchronize library content across digital and physical channels.
- Seek methodologies which treat our users more like students and less like consumers: instead of indiscriminately scrapping unfamiliar jargon, recognize that terminology we use in libraries supports the world of research we are introducing to students.
- Links