The librarian in the trench: The workaday impact of information literacy

This paper examines the way the information literacy project is functioning day to day at a number of representative undergraduate campuses in the greater New York City area. It does so by reporting on information culled from face-to-face interviews conducted with the librarian coordinating the program. The information, though anecdotal in nature, is nonetheless of considerable value, inasmuch as the personal interview appeared to elicit from interviewees the kinds of responses that were unlikely to have been so nuanced (and so detailed) in a more formal, impersonal type of questionnaire amenable to statistical analysis. Thus new insights are obtained into the manner in which library personnel are dealing with the added responsibilities the information literacy boom has conferred upon them. In addition, the answers to the series of questions asked are informally analyzed and provide a sense of the way some of the problems are being handled that have arisen as a result of the strong college-wide emphasis on achieving universal information literacy.