Reorienting an Information Literacy Program Toward Social Justice: Mapping the Core Values of Librarianship to the ACRL Framework

Abstract

Since the publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education librarians have grappled with the purposes, impact, and meaning of this teaching document for their daily instructional practice, for curriculum development, and for institutional and programmatic assessment goals. A strength of the Framework is its emphasis on context, an emphasis aligned with the goals of critical pedagogy and one that acknowledges investment in specific community needs. This article reflects on an attempt to contextualize the Framework for an information literacy program concerned with social justice and student agency by connecting it with the American Library Association's (ALA) Core Values of Librarianship. Specifically, the authors mapped the Core Values of Librarianship, such as democracy, diversity, the public good, and social responsibility, to the ACRL Framework as a means to put into instructional practice our values as librarians.