Month: April 2011

Get familiar with Information Literacy

Information Literacy (and you’ll find a million variations of definitions) is  one’s ability to find information, verify its quality, and understand how and when to use it properly. Sound confusing? Kind of a “know about knowing” riddle?

A book about to hit our shelves, Using Technology to Teach Information Literacy, is a compilation of real-world examples of how people are being taught info literacy in classrooms. That makes this a great resource for faculty members, BUT! by understanding how other students learn, it could be a really powerful tool for students.

Information Literacy is valuable for all disciplines in understanding how you can research, stay current, and be well-versed and accurate in your own discipline.

A look at our plastic usage

A few years ago, it seems a strong shift was made from plastic water bottles to aluminum. The big scare, whether or not justified, was that there may be cancer-causing agents in some plastics. It’s not hard to think of other interactions people have in daily life with plastic items, and not all bad. Author Susan Freinkel wrote Plastic: A Toxic Love Story after evaluating her own dependencies on plastics, and researched the history, production, risks, and benefits. Freinkel’s discoveries are eye-opening. Even if one disagrees with some of her findings, the history behind the rapid growth in synthetic material use is enough to make anyone look at the world a little differently.

Find out who got your windshield

Birds are starting to show up again. Granted some didn’t go away, but as the cold leaves Johnson County, more and more of our feathered friends come out of hiding. Some are beautiful, others boring, all willing to ruin a perfectly washed car.

So whether you’re looking to find out what beautiful creature you saw atop a fence post, or what menacing demon you caught fleeing the scene of the crime, The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds, by (you guessed it!) Richard Crossley, is ready to help you! Over 500 pages of bird-identifying illustrations and information can make you the Bird Expert you may not have known you wanted to be.