Print

Print

On behalf of the ARLIS/NA Publications Committee, I am pleased to announce the release of a new ARLIS/NA Online Publication. Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines, for the first time, compiles a list of core information literacy skills for college and university students in arts and design curriculums. Divided into basic, intermediate, and advanced skills in each discipline, this set of competencies is an invaluable aid to librarians as they strive to define and delimit information literacy skills for students in design disciplines.  These competencies are intended to facilitate a systematic means of integrating information literacy skills into the core curriculum of design students, as well as to open lines of communication with faculty as to how competencies can be integrated into specific course goals.

The authors (Jeanne Brown, Jane Carlin, Edith Crowe, Maya Gervits, Susan Lewis, Alan Michelson, Barbara Opar, and Jennifer Parker) developed Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines with previously established information literacy standards at its foundation. The ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education as well as specific standards in other disciplines such as: Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology were consulted in the creation of these standards.

ARLIS/NA is pleased to be able to offer this new Online Publication free of charge to ARLIS/NA members as well as to any interested parties. The publication can be accessed from the ARLIS Website at: http://www.arlisna.org/resources/onlinepubs/informationcomp.pdf or simply select “Online Publications” from the “Resources” tab at the ARLIS Website (http://www.arlisna.org/).  You can easily navigate this resource by activating the "Bookmarks" feature of the pdf file.
 
The Competencies
These newly formed competencies in the design disciplines (including architecture, architecture history, art history, studio art, landscape architecture, interior design, fashion, and planning) detail general skills for each discipline as well as discipline-specific competencies dealing with core reference sources as well as information types.
 
Excerpt from Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines:
 _______________________________________________________________________


B. Basic skills for architecture students

Be able to:
·        Use the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals to locate articles on discipline-specific topic,
·        Use call numbers representing the major fields that are included in architecture studies: architecture (NA),
                     landscape architecture (SB), planning (HT), construction (TH), and interior design (NK) to browse,
·        Find images using a variety of sources (library print sources, the Internet, licensed databases such as ARTstor),
                 - Illustrating fundamentals of visual perception and design.
                      - To incorporate into a discipline-specific product.
                      - To group into study sets.
·        Find materials on specific buildings and architects,
·        Identify and retrieve information on precedents,
·        Use sources like the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects to locate additional information such as the name of the  
                      architect or style when only the building name has been provided,
·        Identify appropriate campus sources (library and non-library) for architecture information on the locale or
                      campus buildings,
·        Select terminology resulting in an effective database search, using discipline-specific vocabulary,
·        Apply copyright guidelines to the use of images in paper and web assignments.
_______________________________________________________________________

Credits
The authors of these competencies are librarians from a variety of design disciplines that have been working since early 2005 to develop a fluid set of competencies to which updates, amendments, and revisions can easily be added.
 
The Authors are:

Organizer and Committee Chair: Jeanne Brown, University of Nevada Las Vegas

Architectural Competencies: Jeanne Brown, University of Nevada Las Vegas
Planning and Fashion Competencies: Jane Carlin, University of Cincinnati
Art History Competencies: Edith Crowe, San Jose State University
Architecture History Competencies: Maya Gervits, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Interior Design Competencies: Susan Lewis, Boston Architectural Center
Landscape Architecture Competencies: Alan Michelson, University of Washington
Architectural Technology Competencies: Barbara Opar, Syracuse University
Studio Art Competencies: Jennifer Parker, University of Colorado at Boulder
 

Kraig Binkowski
ARLIS/NA Professional Resources Editor
 
Head Librarian
Reference Library and Photograph Archive
Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel Street
P.O. Box 208280
New Haven, CT 06520-8280

Phone: 203.432.2846
Fax: 203.432.9613
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.yale.edu/ycba
 __________________________________________________________________ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]