Does Information Literacy Lead to Transferable Information Problem Solving Skills on the Job?

(A Commentary Based on the Project Information Literacy Initiative, 2012)

Steven Fleisher, Academic Librarian, Outreach & Instruction
National University, Spectrum Library
San Diego, CA
Abstract
For at least two decades academic librarians have offered instruction on the theoretical level,
hoping to create effective word researchers. They seek to solve the perennial problem of how
to find source work for the formal assignment. In the 1990s we introduced our patrons to online
databases, and in the early 2000s we introduced the virtual librarian (no need for our questioners
to travel), and then we had to ascertain how to make complex searching strategies
understandable now that we had gained a contingent of academic e-mail customers.
Fast forwarding to 2015, we now need to retreat from our theory and emphasize employability.
We cannot depend upon social media to replace our service. We are literature specialists who are
trained to locate credible and reliable academic information. But we are also expanding our
service to consider patrons career intentions.
This study considers a new iteration of library instruction, and seeks to follow a very specialized
form of library literature in the areas of information literacy, and its applicability to graduates
entering the workforce.

Keywords: Library Literacy, Information Literacy, Information Solutions, Career Success,

College Graduates, Workplace Success, Employability, University Libraries (Academic), Library
Research.

Introduction
Our library teams exist to facilitate a successful experience in the library instruction setting. We
hope to re-imagine faculty assignments, but also want to create cohesive training for the thesis
candidate, and equip him or her with the skill necessary to compete in the working world.
A special Project Information Literacy Research Report, by Alison Head (2012) retold the
interview highlights of 23 employers and 33 recent college graduates. Most graduatessaid
they found it difficult to solve information problems (in the workplace), where unlike college
personal contacts often reaped more useful resultsthan online searches (p. 2). While
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networking is an important skill in the workplace, does this statement seem to indicate that some
college graduates lack formal research trainingi.e. relying on search engines, rather than being
proficient with research subscriptions described during a typical library instruction?
For a practical explanation, I turned my attention to University of Kent (Canterbury, Kent, UK)
which describes the fundamental steps of IDEAL: Identify, Define the problem, Examine the
options, Act on a plan, Look at the consequences. This is the Careers and Employability
Services advice for problem solving. The goal of this model is for the preparation of the
recruiter meeting. Is the professional librarians challenge then to somehow translate a literacy
instruction into formal or professional writing, or to impart the critical search strategies to the
student who then decides how to apply such strategy in the future?
Academic librarians are now deliberate as to why they are teaching scholarly research skills. It
is no longer enough to show how to open a homepage and access a database. Theories are
applied, along with the need to evaluate results before they are used for a bibliography. This role
is clearly defined by The University of Adelaide, set forth in their six standards (Graduate
attributes and information theory), according to Australian and New Zealand Information
Literacy Framework, 2004. The universitys instruction activities yield a set of defined
competencies, which can ultimately benefit the graduate as he/she seeks employment.
The Internet (Information Superhighway)
As we approach the quarter-century mark of unlimited data thanks to the Internet: how do we
proceed when it is not always easy to bypass inaccurate information? Walsh (2011) introduces
us to the multi-literacy instruction conceptA Pew survey reports that 45 percent of U.S.
Internet users make major life decisions based on information they acquire from the Internet
(Horrigan, 2006). He reminds us that this media might post any statements, regardless of
verification. Undoubtedly this has led to the wide use of Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc.), where students might forget that information can be uploaded without a strict need to
document all source work. It then becomes the library instructors job to train in the evaluation
of sources consulted for a written assignment.
Our Role as Library Liaisons
We can cement your research goalsby providing simple definitions for peer-reviewed
literature; by highlighting where to find professional research; and keeping you abreast of what
has changed on our homepage. We want you to spend time evaluating results, not extra time
navigating the library to find where the top subscriptions in your field are. We invest several
weeks in developing each research guide for academic departmentsnot to be a one-stop center;
but rather an outline of advice particularly for the new researcher. We accord ourselves an equal
amount of time in edit sessions, updating the information.
Research Inventories
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Our continued goal as professional librarians should be to lead the questioner to academic
research. We are looking to include modern modes of information delivery (Adobe Connect,
mobile phone, eCollege); these more technological methods frequently are faster, but do not
excuse the need to instruct on the importance of locating and evaluating scholarly works for
appropriateness; the researcher also needs to discern between verified sources and websites (i.e.
homepages that have not been verified for copyrights, authorities on the subject/author
credentials, and reporting accuracy). How do we impart that the bibliography (works cited page,
references section) is actually the most important part of the formal research project)? And can
we serve a group virtually as well as we do in-person or onsite?
This research paper is open-ended: Can formal (or informal) information literacy sessions
translate to success in the workplace? Are prospective employers expecting applicants to possess
a full inventory of where to search for court cases, intellectual property laws, annual or quarterly
reports or marketing case studies? Is our evidence based more upon professional library
associations websites, or on specially-commissioned reports written by organizations such as
Project Information Literacy? And perhaps the most important consideration is whether we are
measuring researching skills for jobs that are academic appointments, as opposed to employment
that traditionally would not require library literacy (customer relations, retail, accounting,
property management, travel-related services, etc.)as librarians we need to be realistic about
the real market value of our training sessions.
Employer Requirements
Resolving oneself as a librarian, who wants to teach skill sets that will prove successful beyond
the thesis project is a major feat. There are not enough empirical studies that show whether the
hard work and training modules designed for the library instruction session actually prepare our
new graduates for the workforce. Some current cases--though difficult to locate--suggest that
prospective employers are more interested in reasoning capabilities, mostly tied to writing and
research skill rather than technological savvy.
Hart Research (2013) surveyed 318 employers. The lion's share of the participants (93%)
concurred, that communication and complex problem solving are more important than the
college major. Approximately the same high number wanted ethical judgment and integrity, as
well as intercultural skills. More than three quarters of those surveyed indicated the importance
of learning outcomes that reflected problem solving and communication (written/oral). These
employers felt that current practices such as research pursuit and the use of evidence-based
(peer-reviewed) analyses contribute to workplace success. Those of us, who are instruction
librarians, strive to train students (and faculty) in the necessary steps of obtaining formal or peerreviewed studies; this is our ultimate goal though usually not easily obtainable.
The Hart (2013) study reiterated that there is an importance with respect to graduates possessing
a liberal arts background. Perhaps in my case the challenge ensues; I have worked with MBA,
HRM, MPA and now project management and engineering candidates for several years.
Traditionally their areas of academic pursuit do not include regular research or formal writing
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requirements within their standard coursework. We may have eight weeks (sometimes twelve) to
bring the thesis candidate to the peer-reviewed/academic level of gathering research (i.e. the
literature review).
From the business librarian's viewpoint, Hart Research is a long-awaited effort as it seems that
many MBA and MA's in human resources candidates have long left behind the liberal arts and
the special skill set required for this type of degree. Many BBA candidates did not enroll in
advanced literature, foreign language or social science courses. These courses more often than
not had formal writing projects as components of the final exam. We therefore should not be
disappointed or dismayed when we need to spend extra instruction time to ensure that our
master's candidates are able to produce high-quality research, bibliographies and thesis
manuscripts.
The Naming Convention
Many of us have experience with the faculty who refers to advanced library instruction as an
"orientation" which might lead one to believe that these faculty members do not make a
correlation between an instruction session and a learning outcome (why we are teaching the
session, and what we have measured as the expected results after a group participates in our
presentation). Add to this the numerous names assigned to these activities by Harris & Millett
(2006), such as information literary, literary theory or fluency theory and it is apparent why the
professor defaults to the more basic title. With this being said, are we addressing the immediate
needs of the professor who has increasingly more time limitations, and forsaking the subject
research the participants need to write a well-informed piece in the name of trying to realize
strategic learning outcomes? The authors remind of the need to make the distinction: "If library
instruction advocates call information literary by other names, do they define the practice of
what they do in distinctive ways (p. 521)?"
Fluency might have a more complex meaning in the context of Harris & Millett's study,
especially when considering their reference to Hannelore Rader who defines the fluency theory
as the navigation of information structures...which will include the library, media, computer
literacy, the Internet and research ability. To explore Rader's explanations one would need to
decide exactly how many "structures" could be part of a library instruction set of outcomes. We
are running against a time clock in almost all instances; frequently a window of 45-60 minutes in
order to complete our training sessions, known as one shot. Any Part 2 (or 3) can be a
luxury in a university system.
The Instruction Participants
Most participants attend a librarian's lecture because this is perceived as a course requirement
(many professors require an online quiz be completed after attendance, either in-person or
virtually). But are these students also thinking about translating this new skill set into a
professional job requirement? Are academic research skills going to be used in the workplace,
or does the usual social networking convention (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or search engine suffice
when a higher-level answer is needed?

Steven Fleisher | 2014

Our instruction audience can be diminished if professors only seek us for orientation purposes,
although we do have a select number who specify assignment requirements which we can
directly write in to our research guides or PowerPoints.
A panel at the Hawaii Library Association Conference from the University of Hawaii System
Lee, Au, Myhre, Oshiro & Woodsdiscussed topics which have created an uphill battle for the
academic librarian (not only for thesis purposes, but for (future) advanced capability in the
workplace). Applicable comments included: The erosion of book skills; Employees not able to
locate an answer if it cannot be found using a computer (Project Information Literacy finding);
Why it is necessary to use a dictionary (especially in law research); and The 12 adjectives used to
describe how students feel about research. Although this panel is comprised of specialists in
scholarly research training, the members realized that many patrons lack basic library knowledge
despite the efforts of past instruction facilitators.
The Career Seeker
The primary audience for this PIL study was the person transitioning from the university setting
to the workforce. When asked how valuable the near-graduate considers library instruction or
literacy to be, the honesty certainly tells us where our instruction-writing efforts need to be
improved or augmented:
If I am going into a trade entry level position with a non-specific degree (i.e. history), nearly
every single thing that I learned in school was useless. However, if I have the skills to find
information within my field then theoretically I have the same skill as my co-workers. I
developed these skills by understanding the concepts of peer-reviewed literature, scholarly, etc.
(P. Ballo, personal communication, November 3, 2013).
Our reward comes about when our mentees apply for advanced degrees and seek us to be
recommenders; now we are moving the mentee to the next level of academic and professional
writing: I realized that to get a Masters Research Project accepted and then passed by a
faculty board of computer science and engineering professors, it was going to take more of a
refined, scholarly approach. In both of the academic programs in which I was enrolled (i.e.,
Master of Science in Technology Management, January 2011 and the Master of Science in
Information Systems, October 2011), the following outcomes were required: Demonstrate
quantitative analytical and critical thinking skills; Identify, prioritize and select relevant
solutions in solving complex problems and processes; Apply global mindset and a detailed
knowledge of subject matter. I learned how to formulate solid research goals through locating
and evaluating scholarly works for appropriateness. I have found them to be quite useful in the
real world. So, yes, the formal and informal information literacy sessions do translate to success
in both the workplace and in other academic settings. I used these newly acquired skills daily to
successfully apply to law school (C. Lindsay, personal communication, January 26, 2014). (It is
probably safe to assume that most librarians do not train future law school applicants).
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And still proving the ideal that science majors need to possess research skill and state results
formally as the arts or humanities student would be accustomed, is another candid response:
For future employment, (as biology major), most of the job opportunities that will be available
to me will consist of doing research. Not just field research but academia research as well. A
professor or publisher isn't going to want 10 papers with all of the same sources. Also, one of the
questions asked was, "are prospective employers expecting applicants to possess a full inventory
of where to search for court cases, intellectual property laws, annual or quarterly reports or
marketing case studies?" I think the answer is yes. Especially in high positions jobs such as law
and politics, I believe that employers do expect their employees to come into the job knowing
those skills (D. Burris, personal communication, December 29, 2013).
As a frame of reference, Meghan Casserly (2012) of the Forbes Staff included three libraryrelated objectives which appeared on the 10 skills that will get you hired in 2013 list:
Complex problem solving (we expect this when researching chapters 3 and 4 in the thesis;
Judgment and Decision-Making (we review this when evaluating the proper academic works to
use from a ProQuest, EBSCO or GALE search); Active Listening (we observe this when
delivering an instruction sessionwe want the proper questions to arise at the conclusion; or,
look for thought-provoking ones not previously considered).
Nigudkar (2011) identified report writing skills, confidence and accounting skills as important
factors in gaining employment in the areas of finance, management and engineering. In this
regard we face an uphill battle since many of our MBA and MS candidates do not possess
academic researching backgrounds, unless they have already earned a humanities degree or
completed a minor in one of the humanities or social sciences.
Kondratenko and Salem (2012) administered an employer expectation survey for professional
competencies. Their focus group consisted on top- and middle-level managers in the San Diego
and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Both presenters are academic librarians whose questions
contained research theory terms: they reported that these skill sets were deemed as not very
important in the hire of MBA degree holders:

Index navigation
Presentation skills
Distinguishing between scholarly and trade matter
Credibility of the author
Citation conventions and copyright adherence

It would be interesting to conduct further studies using the Kondratenko and Salem models,
questioning hiring authorities on the East Coast.
The Ingenuity of PIL
As academic librarians we are usually steeped in theoryhow to design the PowerPoint; what
searches to include with high-minded terms; mention Boolean operators; demonstrate research
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databases. Project Information Literacy Initiative though, reminds us to step back and first
admire our work, but to favor listening to our job seekers or professional school applicants who
are now involved in marketing themselves in real-world situations. We are not the focal points,
but our graduates are and we want to model future presentations around what helped them. We
are not above removing conventional materials from our PowerPoints, if they are not preparing
our learners for future job success.
Oftentimes we are not current with technological innovations such as Springshare LibGuides (
Springshare LLC 2007-2013), course management systems or the newest library catalog. PIL
shows us that we are okay; instruction audiences still need to know the traditional library setting
and its sources in order to succeed academically and professionally. According to Head (2012),
her panel findings suggested a shift is occurring in the workplace with respect to the utilization
of non-digitized informationthey may be disappearing with each passing year as new college
hires join the workforce. PIL also reported that employers expected hires to possess low-tech
research competencies (p. 26). Or similarly, stating the ability to effectively communicate
orally and in writing could be construed as ancient requirements (Bauerlein, 2010, Employers
Want 18th-Century Skills, para. 7). Bauerlein closes his blog with a comprehensive line
delivered by his actuary brother: Anyone who can write is a major asset in business.
Employers may not be impressed solely by high-tech qualifications. Bravo for these honest
assessments of how prospective employers view the book-in-hand skill imparted by the
traditional librarian to the newer researcher. Maybe we are not dinosaurs, and our opinions
might count when training students how to complete formal writing using an academic
monograph and compiling a bibliography. We can actually be thought of as scholars.
Our ROI
In this economy of diminishing staff and in many cases library dollars, can we point to our return
on investment if the following conditions are not met?

Sufficient attendance at a library instruction session

A high percentage of participants progressing to the thesis course level
A high-quality thesis manuscript
The properly-weighted selection of scholarly/academic and professional resources in the
references or works cited section
The ability to defend a manuscript to an advisors panel
Preparing the scholar for future publishing opportunities

The answer cannot be based upon dollars if you are working as an academic librarian. We are
constantly in a trial-and-error phase where instruction is concerned. Do we opt out of the
PowerPoint presentation, in favor of the LibGuide ( Springshare LLC 2007-2013) or do we
create a special tutorial to be viewed online? These have become our usual questions.
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As a library liaison my only true evaluation is sitting for graduate thesis observations. I consider
the success to be based upon the quality of the academic reference section. If the masters
candidate has proven himself/herself as an expert in the fields literature, the instruction or
consultation experiences are deemed as being successes. This is customarily a process that
requires up to a twelve-week commitment, depending upon the departmental requirements set by
the university. And there have been several occasions where thesis courses or entire degrees
were discontinued for economic purposes.
We as librarians can contribute to future career success if we are not bombarded with, or
pressured by social media and mobile applications, and if we are encouraged by our employers to
continue teaching formal research methods. The undergraduate and graduate audiences need to
remember that we ourselves are attending training as products are updated in order to provide a
high level of technical assistance, in addition to the academic information that we review to bring
to each instruction session.
Our success in contributing to the workplace is dependent upon word-of-mouth and our
employers who believe in what we do.

Steven Fleisher | 2014

References
Bauerlein, M. (2010, March 9). Employers want 18th-century skills. In Brainstorm - The
Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/employers-want-18th-century-skills/21687
Casserly, M. (2012, December 10). The 10 skills that will get you hired in 2013. In
Forbeswoman. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/12/10/the-10-skills-that-will-get-youa-job-in-2013/print/
Harris, B. R., & Millett, M. S. (2006). Nothing to lose: "Fluency" in information literacy theory
and practice. Reference Services Review, 34(4), 520-535. doi:
10.1108/00907320610716422
Hart Research Associates. (2013, April 10). It takes more than a major: Employer priorities for
college learning and student success: An online survey among employers conducted on
behalf of: The Association of American Colleges and Universities. Retrieved December
22, 2013, from http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sp13/hartresearchassociates.cfm

Head, A. J. (2012, October 16). Learning curve: How college graduates solve Information
problems once they join the workplace. In Project Information Literacy. Retrieved
August 29, 2013, from
http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_fall2012_workplaceStudy_FullReport_Revised.pdf

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Kondratenko, S. & Salem, L. (2012, April). Developing leaders through information literacy.
Poster session presented at CARL Conference, San Diego, CA.
Lee, A., Lari-Anne, A., Myhre, S., Oshiro, W., & Woods, R. (2013, November). From the front
lines. Presented at HLA: Teaching library instruction & information literacy , Kapolei,
HI.
Nigudkar, A. (2011, April 13). What Employers Want? In Financewalk.com. Retrieved
September 23, 2013, from http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Avadhut_Nigudkar
Hoyer, J. (2011). Information is social: Information literacy in context. Reference Services
Review, 39(1), 10-23. doi: 10.1108/00907321111108088
Problem Solving and Analytical Skills (n.d.). In Careers & Employability Service. Retrieved
August 29, 2013, from http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/problem-solving-skills.htm

The University of Adelaide. (n.d.). Graduate attributes and information literacy. In University
Library. Retrieved August 29, 2013, from
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/guide/infolit.html
Walsh, J. (2011). Information literacy instruction: selecting an effective model (pp. 154-155).
Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing.

Steven Fleisher is an academic librarian who recently hit the 25-year mark of experience. He has
been employed as a bibliographer, director (Atco, NJ; San Diego, CA), outreach librarian,
reference and instruction librarian, and liaison (public administration, business and management,
and engineering). He has also been a speaker and presenter at university symposia and other
professional seminars, since 2007.
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Steven holds a bachelors degree from New York University in Hebrew Language and Literature
and Classical Civilization, a masters from Rowan University in Librarianship, a professional
librarians certification, and was certified as a virtual librarian.

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