Patrick Rudd and Shannon Tennant's presentation discussed the partnership between the two librarians and teaching faculty on a DEI grant to explore issues of information privilege with students in first-year foundation classes.
Elon librarians Patrick Rudd and Shannon Tennant presented at the 4th annual Core Forum in Minneapolis, Minnesota from Nov. 14-16.
The Core Forum is the annual conference for the American Library Association’s newest division, Core: Leadership, Infrastructures, Futures. It brings together decision makers and practitioners in libraries that focus on the following areas:
- Access & Equity
- Buildings & Operations
- Leadership & Management
- Metadata & Collections
- Preservation
- Technology
Patrick Rudd, coordinator of library instruction and outreach services and Shannon Tennant, coordinator of library collections, presented some of their recent work in a session titled “Investigating Information Privilege with First-Year College Students: A Partnership Between Librarians and Teaching Faculty”.
Rudd and Tennant’s presentation discussed the partnership between the two librarians and teaching faculty on a DEI grant to explore issues of information privilege with students in first-year foundation classes. In these class sessions they investigate existing systems of information collection and dissemination, with the premise that these systems are often inequitable and potentially harmful. The instruction sessions inform students on how data algorithms play into information distribution, the reasons for missing and marginalized perspectives in published research and privilege in access to information. The presentation demonstrated how their instruction sessions have made Elon students more successful in finding and evaluating information.
Tennant also examined how her experience with the grant directly relates to her role in library collections, since technical services librarians at other institutions do not often participate in library instruction. This work allowed her to share her expertise in electronic resource acquisition and collection development with students and teaching faculty, as well as show how the principles of critical cataloging in metadata and classification are relevant to all library users.