Agriculture to Zoology

Most faculty in science departments recognize the importance of preparing their students to find, organize, and analyze scientific literature, and to effectively communicate and discuss scientific issues. Employers also look for science graduates with those skills and who demonstrate good written and oral communication abilities. Many college courses, however, tend to be either content courses where good writing skills are required but not taught, or writing courses in which only general research and critical thinking skills are emphasized. As much as we would like students to access library information and to write clear scientific prose, the reality is that often they cannot do either effectively.
Agriculture to Zoology describes a new paradigm with a conscious integration of information literacy activities with subject-specific content. Collaboration between librarian and subject discipline faculty is especially important, and is an essential element of successful integration of information literacy principles in the science classroom. Working together to develop appropriate and relevant library assignments in science classes fosters a collegial relationship between the discipline faculty member and the librarian, and allows each to recognize the other''s strengths and specializations. Faculty-librarian collaborations make for more effective instruction overall and decreases the feeling-common in many places-that librarians are irrelevant, or at best tangential, to the instructional mission of the university.


Specialized focus on information literacy in the life science disciplines, rather than information literacy in generalDiscussion of library instruction, featuring methods, tools, and assignments to engage students in different areas of the life sciencesChapters on specific life science subjects will highlight traditional as well as non-traditional sourcesComparison of information literacy in the sciences from an international perspective