Publications

Recent reports and publications from the Project Information Literacy Team and related research on issues of information literacy and the digital age.

PIL Research Reports

"Balancing Act: How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library during Crunch Time," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Research Report, University of Washington's Information School, October 12, 2011 (Two different versions available: Text with appendices: 72 pages, PDF, 6.1MB version or Text without appendices: 54 pages, PDF,6 MB).

"Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Progress Report, University of Washington's Information School, November 1, 2010. (Two different versions available: Text with appendices: 72 pages, PDF, 5.8MB version or Text without appendices: 41 pages, PDF, 5.49MB).

"Assigning Inquiry: How Handouts for Research Assignments Guide Today's College Students," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Progress Report, University of Washington's Information School, July 13, 2010 (41 pages, PDF, 2.14MB).

"Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy First Year Report with Student Survey Findings, University of Washington's Information School, December 1, 2009 (42 pages, PDF, 3 MB).

"Finding Context: What Today's College Student Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Progress Report, University of Washington's Information School, February 4, 2009 (18 pages, PDF, 864 KB).

PIL Research Articles and Editorials

"College Students Eager to Learn but Need Help Negotiating Information Overload," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, The Seattle Times, June 3, 2011 (2 pages).

"How College Students Use the Web to Conduct Everyday Life Research," by Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, First Monday, April 2011, vol. 16, no. 4, (23 pages).

"How Today's College Students Use Wikipedia for Course-Related Research," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, First Monday, March 2010, Volume 15, Number 3 (16 pages).

"Add 'Research' to the Education's Traditional Three Rs," by Michael B. Eisenberg and Alison J. Head, Seattle Times, Guest Column, May 2, 2009, (1 page).

"Information Literacy from the Trenches: How Do Humanities and Social Science Majors Conduct Academic Research?" Preprint publication by Alison J. Head, College and Research Libraries, September 2008, vol. 69, no. 4, (39 pages).

"Beyond Google: How Do Students Conduct Academic Research?" by Alison J. Head, First Monday, July 2007, vol. 12, no. 7, (11 pages).

Podcasts, Webcasts, and Interviews

"Research Chat: Information Scientist Alison Head on Student Habits," by John Wihbey, Journalist's Resource: A Research Portal and Curated Database, January 26, 2011 (164K).

"Searching for Context: Modeling the Information-Seeking Process of College Students in the Digital Age." A Webcast with Alison Head, who is a Berkman Center & Library Innovation Lab Fellow and Lead Research for Project Information Literacy. A contextual model of how students search for course-related and everyday life information is presented, plus four take-aways from PIL's ongoing research are discussed, January 10, 2012 (1:15 minutes).

"Alison Head on What Students Do in Libraries." A podcast interview at Harvard Law School's Innovation Library with David Weinberger about PIL's 2011 study and how students manage and control technology during crunch time, December 6, 2011 (26 minutes).

"Michael Eisenberg: How Students Manage Technology and Multitasking." A Webcast by Michael Eisenberg, who discusses Project Information Literacy findings and what we can learn from the ongoing study of college students, including discussion of PIL's study about how students manage technology during the final weeks of the term. Presented at the University of British Columbia's Irving K. Barber Centre and hosted by the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies and the School Library Day Colloquium on Nov. 2, 2011 (1 hour, 23 mins.).

"Information Literacy: The Most Basics of Basics." A Webcast by Michael Eisenberg. A comprehensive overview of essential skills for the information age, current information literacy challenges, and opportunities for educators. Presented at the first Your School Library online conference, "Transforming School Libraries with Web 2.0," June 2009 (34 mins.).

"Google Scholars?" Interview with Alison J. Head, First Monday Podcast, February 2008 (5.3 MB, 15:22 mins.).

PIL in the News

"Study of the Day: Yes, Students Know When to Put the Tech Away," by Hans Villarica, The Atlantic, October 21, 2011.

"Reading the New Report from Project Information Literacy," by Barbara Fister, Library Journal, April 7, 2011.

"More College Kids Stumped on Research Papers," by Rachel Solomon, NPR Seattle affiliate KPLU, March 23, 2011.

"Course Assignments Fail to Train Undergraduates for Research in the Digital Age," Education-Portal.com, August 6, 2010.

"Information literacy: A Call to Action," by Sharon Weiner, College and Research Library News, July/August 2010, Vol. 71, Number 7 (1 page).

"Research Assignment Handouts Give Students Meager Guidance," by Kelly Truong, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 27, 2010.

"Assignments: Being Clear about What Matters," by Barbara Fister, Inside Higher Ed, July 22, 2010.

"Blind Faith | Peer to Peer Review," by Barbara Fister, Library Journal Newsletter, July 15, 2010.

"Students Use Wikipedia Early and Often, Study Shows", by Mary Helen Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 16, 2010 (1 page).

"Professor Michael Eisenberg Talks Critical Thinking Today," HowDo.Us Interview with Mike Eisenberg, Co-Director and Co-PI of Project Information Literacy, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of Washington Information School, March 2010 (2 pages).

"Information Literacy: A Neglected Core Competency," by Sharon A. Weiner, Educause Quarterly, Vol. 33, Number 1, 2010. (The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license.)

"At the Last Minute", by Joe Janes, Technology column, American Libraries, April 2009, p. 26, (1 page, PDF, 275 KB) (Used with ALA permission).

PIL Smart Talks

"Smart Talks" is an occasional series produced by PIL. We provide interviews with leading experts about PIL's findings and their thoughts about the challenges of finding information and conducting research in the digital age.

"Smart Talks" are open-access. No permission is required from PIL for re-use, though we ask that this source is fully cites each interview you may use.

"Jeffrey Schnapp: Envisioning Bibliotheca 2.0: One of the Most Exciting Design Tasks of Our Era," Project Information Literacy, no. 10, January 18, 2012.

"Russell Poldrack: May I Have your Attention? The Brain, Multitasking, and Information Overload," Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 9, October 12, 2011.

"Sandra Jamieson and Rebecca Moore Howard: Unraveling the Citation Trail," Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 8, August 16, 2011.

"Lee Rainie: Why New Media Are Becoming Your New Neighborhood," Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 7, June 8, 2011.

"Nicholas Carr: The Age of Perpeptual Distraction," Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 6, April 4, 2011.

"Howard Rheingold: Crap Detection 101: Required Coursework," Project Information Smart Talk, no. 5, January 3, 2011.

"Dale Dougherty: Web 2.0 and the Social Context of Learning," Project Information Smart Talk, no. 4, November 1, 2010.

"John Palfrey: Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age?," Project Information Smart Talk, no. 3, September 1, 2010.

"Andrea Lunsford: Writing and the Profound Revolution in Access," Project Information Smart Talk, no. 2, July 12, 2010.

"Peter Morville: Search and the Paradox of Choice," Project Information Literacy Smart Talk, no. 1, June 1, 2010.

Related Information Literacy Research

"Easing Our Download Overload," Jerry Large, Seattle Times, August 7, 2008. Based on conversation with Mike Eisenberg.

"Information Literacy: Essential Skills for the Information Age," by Michael Eisenberg DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, March 2008, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 39-47.

"It's All About Learning: Ensuring That Students Are Effective Users of Information on Standardized Tests," Michael Eisenberg, Keynote speaker at the Gale/Linworth Education Issues in Education Forum at the American Association of School Librarians Annual Conference, Library Media Connection, March 2004, p. 22-30.