Concise Guide to Information Literacy, 2nd Edition

by Scott Lanning

A student's textbook and an instructional reference for the second edition of Concise Guide to Information Literacy is both. It teaches students what information literacy is and why it is an important skill to develop―for their schoolwork as well as for success in life outside of school. The guide covers major areas in the information literacy process, including locating, evaluating, and applying information successfully. It also gives professors, teachers, and librarians a flexible text that can serve as the basis of a course in information literacy or research skills, a basic research guide for any information literacy course, or a supplemental text. This second edition has been reorganized for greater ease of use based on the information literacy models consulted. All chapters have been fully updated and now include extended coverage of the topics that appeared in the first edition; additionally, a new chapter on managing information has been added.

199 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 27, 2017

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read ONE chapter (Chapter 2) for class and it was a nightmare. I have no desire to read any other part; fingers crossed that my professor doesn't assign any other readings from this book. "Concise," meaning brief yet comprehensive, and it was anything but.

Do you remember writing papers and unnecessarily using "can not" instead of "can't", "will not" instead of "won't", to bring your word count up? There's lots of that, making it needlessly wordy. Grammatical errors everywhere. Words missing from sentences. Run-on sentences. Abstract nouns are used as verbs. Cognitive theories are incorrectly defined - as though the author read the theories but didn't totally comprehend them, and proceeded to reword them so as not to plagiarize the sources cited.

The Pathways Model is referenced in this publication, and paraphrased all throughout this chapter, but not actually cited anywhere, so I'll add it here. Pathways to Knowledge and Inquiry Learning

I don't mean to be so negative, but the fact that this publication is being used as a student textbook and instructional reference in a college setting - when it reads as though it were written by a high school-level student - is utterly baffling to me. I don't think the editor ever bothered to look it over.

This may pass as a 'self-improvement' read for those who are into such things, but I would not recommend this to anyone looking for a concise scholarly resource.

[Melissa]

Every single person in the US should read this book by the time they can vote.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second edition of the book is considerably worse than the first. Where the first was truly “concise” (and affordable for students) the second is padded and in place bloated, raising the price and reducing the usefulness. Where the first chapter to the first edition was clear and easy to follow, the first chapter to this edition could be used as an example for students of how NOT to write an Introduction. This has resulted in the fact that our students find it much harder to do the homework using this edition. An example of this is the first question for chapter 1: “How does data become information. Give at least one example.” Using the first ed, they can answer this by taking one or two clear sentences from the first paragraph, then using the one example from the next one. In this edition, they have to wade into the middle of the chapter to find a definition that never states exactly the answer to the question, and a visual example that is impossible to put into print. ALA is gouging students for more money with this edition, while making instructors’ jobs even harder.