Information literacy in a web-scale discovery world - a case study of user experience vs content at Sheffield Hallam University, UK

When introducing a web-scale discovery system to students and staff at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), we needed to rethink our approach to how we taught information literacy in this millennial, Net Generation age. Library staff needed to re-evaluate how to introduce information literacy to students and allay faculty staff fears of "dumbing down" the library experience. Although much literature exists on teaching information literacy, not much exists on the way that information literacy can be taught in a web-discovery world. The librarian’s traditional role of content gatekeeper is perhaps contentious, but well acknowledged. This paper argues that this focus is no longer relevant, and that a shift in focus toward a first class user experience of accessing content must be made.

We provide an historical overview of information literacy teaching at SHU, and describe how the introduction of web-scale discovery system made us challenge our existing methods of supporting students with information literacy teaching and online help resources.

The paper demonstrates how we moved away from the traditional information literacy teaching approach of focusing on content towards providing a first class user experience of content access, and how we used Shoshin, a Zen Buddhist concept, to help us along the way.