Does IL Make the Wrong Assumptions? / Kitchen Analogy comment

This session focused on a discussion of Stanley Wilder's critique of informaton literacy instruction as published in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. The conversation focused on all the points one might expect w/ a group of experienced librarians and IL instructors, and I'll leave it to someone else to blog further on what they may have found helpful. Basically we all agreed that Wilder makes some good points but is largely off the mark in his views and assumptions re ILI and how it's done.

One part of the conversation focused on the wide variety of backgrounds and competencies new seminary students have, and how we can avoid patronizing or insulting our students who already do have considerable IL skills, while figuring out who those students are who need more help.

One speaker mentioned an analogy he'd found helpful to use in beginning IL sessions...unfortunately I didn't make note of the originator of the analogy........but I think lots of us found it helpful, so I thought I'd post it here. Hopefully someone who was taking better notes can say who it was who made the comment and who he credited w/ originating the analogy.

The analogy is of cooks and kitchens. Even if you are a skilled cook, if you're asked to prepare a dinner in a strange kitchen you will have difficulty and be very frustrated, b/c you don't know where tools are kept in that particular kitchen--where to find them, or their particular idiosyncracies. No mater how good a cook you are, you need an orientation to the new kitchen to cook in it effectively. Similarly, even if a student comes to us w/ good research and critical thinking skills, they still need to learn how to find and use the tools in *our* theological "kitchen"--what are the primary databases and sources in our discipline, and how does one find and use them?

Gillian
Gillian R. Barr
Del Mar, CA