More SL & IL connections

I've been digging in the literature trying to find someone who had tried incorporating service learning and information literacy in upper-division subject specific courses. I'm not sure how this article escaped my attention for the last year - perhaps it's because it is outside of the library literature. "Reinventing the box: Faculty-librarian collaborative efforts to foster service learning for political engagement," was published in the Journal for Civic Commitment in January 2010 by Marcia Hernandez and Lorrie A. Knight at University of the Pacific. Hernandez and Knight certainly give food for thought, as there are few references to information literacy in undergraduate service learning courses. They describe what I have attempted to verbalize since I began my journey with service learning: "Information literacy and service learning have a synergistic relationship. The learning goals of SL can be enhanced by intentional inclusion of information literacy in the curriculum to foster a broader understanding of the relationship between agencies and the communities they serve based on the social, political and historical issues at play" (Hernandez & Knight, 2010). The authors outline research assignments and how they were tied to the service learning activities in the course, and make suggestions for future partnerships among faculty and librarians to incorporate information literacy in service learning courses.