Recent articles: cultural capital; assessment and professional legitimacy; financial literacy

The latest issue of open access publication College and Research Libraries (volume 80, No 5, 2019) includes the following:
- Reframing Information Literacy as Academic Cultural Capital: A Critical and Equity-Based Foundation for Practice, Assessment, and Scholarship by Amanda L. Folk. "Within the past decade, academic librarianship has increased its focus on critical librarianship and assessing student success, as well as undergoing a complete reconceptualization of information literacy. However, our assessment and scholarship related to information literacy and student success largely neglects the persistent racial and social-class achievement gaps in American higher education. This article draws upon a critical social theory commonly used in higher education research—cultural capital—to consider the ways in which information literacy as threshold concepts may enable or constrain success for students whose identities higher education has traditionally marginalized. Finally, Estela Mara Bensimon’s equity cognitive frame is introduced to consider the ways in which we can ground our practice, assessment, and scholarship in our professional values of equity and inclusion."

- A Seat at the Table: Information Literacy Assessment and Professional Legitimacy by Robert Detmering, Samantha McClellan, Amber Willenborg. "This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity and use assessment to legitimize that identity, both personally and at the institutional level. While this suggests that assessment has the potential to elevate the status of librarians on campus, the interviews also highlight ongoing professional and organizational tensions that hinder assessment efforts and inhibit librarian agency. The authors recommend more transparent communication, among other strategies, to address these challenges."

- Library Support for Student Financial Literacy: A Survey of Librarians at Large Academic Institutions by Lauren Reiter, Bronson Ford
Go to https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/issue/view/1132/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Circular Quay, Sydney, Australia, July 2019