Investigating the Use of ACRL Standards in Instruction Programs

Abstract

A premise underlying the ACRL standards is that these provide guidelines for the measures of accountability of library and information literacy instruction [2]. This study investigates the incorporation of the ACRL standards into instruction and focuses more specifically on the use of these standards in credit-bearing, semester long information literacy courses. A survey instrument was used to conduct this research. A link to the online survey was posted to the ILI-L (Information Literacy Instruction Discussion) listserv, which currently has 4993 subscribers worldwide. The 117 instructors who responded to the survey came from academic libraries and academic institutions, almost half of which (47%) from institutions with student populations below 5,000. The results of this study indicated that respondents largely (83%) agree with the definition of information literacy as expressed in the standards. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013.