Atla Annual 2024

The last decade has seen major shifts in culture, the information landscape, and library instruction. For most of that time, librarians have focused on helping students question information sources, in part a reaction to the rise in misinformation and disinformation, and in part in response to specific requests from our communities who look to the library as a source of “good” information. Yet, students are still not critical enough of external information that aligns with previous beliefs, and hypercritical of external information that does not, reinforcing polarized thinking. This session will contend that there has been a paradigm shift in the information environment and among our students, specifically that our students’ struggle with evaluating authority may stem from over-critical approaches to research and increasing lack of trust in expertise. If this is true, continuing to teach heavily deconstructive approaches is not only unhelpful, it may contribute to the issue.
This session will invite attendees to consider specific trends in cultural discourse and in higher education and how they might be creating such a paradigm reversal. It will explore the philosophical ramifications of hypercritical approaches and demonstrate how they result in behaviors similar to but not quite the same as a lack of critical thinking. Finally, it will offer a generative approach to information literacy instruction that:
-Offers understanding to students who are seeking neatly packageable answers to complex questions while navigating information overload and resulting cognitive fatigue in a polarized information environment.
-Considers whether we can position the library as a place to pursue understanding rather than an arbiter of ultimate authority, and how this might help students ask more generous (and information literate) questions.
-Activates wonder and curiosity to curate a more stable and sustainable approach to learning for comprehension rather than correctness.

In this presentation we will go over some practical uses of Generative AI for classrooms and for the library. We will begin by discussing prompt engineering and then move to uses in the classroom and, lastly, for the library.

Politics and religion: two topics we’ve been taught to avoid discussing at the dinner table. And they are certainly fraught with risk in educational settings, as well. New headlines break daily on the consequences of educators saying the right thing (or the wrong thing); too much (or too little) around these subjects. This supercharged environment leads those who are paying attention to steer clear of such topics. Ironically, the continued avoidance of these matters helps to ensure a future that is just as fraught and supercharged, as yet another generation of college students is left to navigate these topics on their own without guidance from the very faculty to whom they’ve entrusted so many other areas of their personal and professional development.

Religion continues to hold a central role in American society despite the academy’s efforts to render it peripheral in American higher education. Furthermore, college campuses have seen religion resurge, with campus student religious associations enjoying higher numbers and more diversity than ever before. Students are integrating their beliefs into their college experience outside of the classroom; why should they not be invited to do so in the classroom, as well?

Growing evidence points to an opportunity lost when faculty fail to harness closely held epistemologies that can potentially lead students to higher-level thought work and academic performance. This paper strives to bolster the efforts made by teaching and library faculty to make the most of this opportunity.

As technological advancements continue to shape the landscape of information management and access, theological librarianship faces the imperative to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) responsibly. This study explores the intersection of theology and AI, making a compelling case for the responsible use of AI in theological librarianship. It examines the potential benefits, ethical considerations, and challenges associated with implementing AI technologies in the context of theological libraries.

Today, there is a high demand for engaging and interactive teaching materials in academic library instruction to engage students and give them an opportunity to practice their learning in a self-paced learning environment. Instructional librarians strive to leverage innovative tools to captivate and educate our library users effectively, however, these often require specialized tech skills or high cost.
H5Ps (short for "HTML5 Package") can provide a free and low-tech solution to any librarian who would like to create engaging learning objects, such as interactive videos, timelines, presentations, quizzes, drag-and-drop activities, simple games, and more, without any programming skills. H5P activities can be used for active information literacy sessions, self-paced tutorials, online textbooks, and research guides.
The primary objective of this presentation is to demonstrate the process of creating an OER using H5Ps to empower the participants with the skills and knowledge needed to develop captivating teaching materials that enhance user engagement and foster a deeper understanding of information literacy concepts.
Note: If you want to work hands-on with the H5P tool in a guided environment, you will be invited to register for a follow-up ATLA workshop in early Fall 2024.