front cover of Data Literacy in Academic Libraries
Data Literacy in Academic Libraries
Teaching Critical Thinking with Numbers
Julia Bauder
American Library Association, 2021

We live in a data-driven world, much of it processed and served up by increasingly complex algorithms, and evaluating its quality requires its own skillset. As a component of information literacy, it's crucial that students learn how to think critically about statistics, data, and related visualizations. Here, Bauder and her fellow contributors show how librarians are helping students to access, interpret, critically assess, manage, handle, and ethically use data. Offering readers a roadmap for effectively teaching data literacy at the undergraduate level, this volume explores such topics as

  • the potential for large-scale library/faculty partnerships to incorporate data literacy instruction across the undergraduate curriculum;
  • how the principles of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education can help to situate data literacy within a broader information literacy context;
  • a report on the expectations of classroom faculty concerning their students’ data literacy skills;
  • various ways that librarians can partner with faculty;
  • case studies of two initiatives spearheaded by Purdue University Libraries and University of Houston Libraries that support faculty as they integrate more work with data into their courses;
  • Barnard College’s Empirical Reasoning Center, which provides workshops and walk-in consultations to more than a thousand students annually;
  • how a one-shot session using the PolicyMap data mapping tool can be used to teach students from many different disciplines;
  • diving into quantitative data to determine the truth or falsity of potential “fake news” claims; and
  • a for-credit, librarian-taught course on information dissemination and the ethical use of information.
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logo for American Library Association
The Reference Guide to Data Sources
Julia Bauder
American Library Association, 2014

front cover of Supporting Diversity through Collection Evaluation, Development, and Weeding
Supporting Diversity through Collection Evaluation, Development, and Weeding
Erika Barber
Assoc of College & Research Libraries, 2024
The College Library Information on Policy and Practice (CLIPP) book series from ACRL provides college and small university libraries analysis and examples of library practices and procedures.
 
Supporting Diversity through Collection Evaluation, Development, and Weeding: CLIPP #48
contains a thorough literature review and bibliography, analysis and discussion of survey results, and sample library collection development policies; diversity, equity, and justice statements; and a harmful content policy.
 
There are emerging practices for evaluating collection diversity and for diversifying collections via acquisitions, but the question of how collection diversity factors into weeding—either in theory or in practice—has not been thoroughly explored. CLIPP #48 provides a comprehensive survey of how diversity-enhancing collection management practices have filtered into the day-to-day work of average small and medium-sized academic libraries, and offers models for library workers who want to incorporate diversity concerns and policies into collection management practices. 
 
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