Gender and the Politics of Information: Reflections on Bringing the Library into the Classroom

New technologies offering different ways to generate and access information, as well as revolutionary changes in how (and why) we communicate, led to an effort to reconceptualize the nature of library instruction. Combining some key tenets of the information literacy movement with core feminist principles and critical theoretical approaches, two academic librarians created a course designed to explore the changing nature of information and to explode the myth of its neutrality. Through discussion of the development of the initial course proposal, the creation of the syllabus and the structure of the class, a case is presented for altering (and expanding) the role of the librarian in the classroom.