INCORPORATING LIBRARY & INFORMATION COMPETENCIES
INTO THE NURSING CURRICULUMPrepared by librarians from Health Information Access for Rural Nurse Practitioners,
a three-year project funded by the National Library of Medicine
Curriculum Development / Assignment Examples / Faculty-Librarian Collaboration
One goal of educating nurse practitioner (NP) students is to prepare them to be knowledgeable practitioners equipped with skills for acquiring new information in their pursuit of lifelong professional learning. To be successful as students and practitioners in the "information age," they must be equipped with the appropriate knowledge and skills to help them locate and use information. Library and information competencies are the foundation for their success as students, practitioners, and lifelong professional learners.
Librarians from Health Information Access for Rural Nurse Practitioners have developed a list of library and information competencies recommended for all students enrolled in one of the six Minnesota NP education programs. These competencies include knowledge and skills in areas such as searching online databases and the web, evaluating print and electronic resources, and utilizing library services.
These competencies serve as a self-assessment tool for nurse practitioner students, helping them identify their strengths and weaknesses, and leading them to skill-building tools to help them improve their skills. But the competencies are also important to librarians and faculty members who wish to incorporate library and information skills into the curriculum.
This guide is designed to help faculty members and librarians learn more about how to incorporate information literacy and competencies into the curriculum. It identifies selected resources and provides examples from real-life experiences.
Some of our other pages may also be useful as you think about incorporating library and information competencies into the curriculum:
Library and information competencies for NP students
Information literacy for NP students
Curriculum exemplars to integrate competencies into the NP curriculum
Selected information literacy & competencies resources
Health Information Access for Rural Nurse Practitioners homepage
Tips for Teaching with Technology (University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill)
Resources and Tools (TWIST, University of Iowa)
Checklist for Measuring Assignments for Information Competencies (California State University, San Marcos)
Guidelines for a Successful Information Literacy Assignment (California State University, San Marcos)
Designing Effective Assignments for the Distant Student (University of Minnesota Libraries)
Designing Assignments That Can be Effectively Supported by the Libraries (University of Minnesota Libraries)
Resources for Teaching Information Literacy in Your Classroom (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Byrne Colling, Kathleen (1999). "Nursing Students 'Surf' the Web: Resources for Patient Teaching," Journal of Nursing Education 38(6), 286-8.
Curriculum Exemplars for Integrating Library and Information Competencies into the Nurse Practitioner Curriculum (Health Information Access for Rural Nurse Practitioners)
Librarian-Faculty Teaching Technology Partnerships (University of Arizona)
Spring 1999 TWIST Courses (University of Iowa)
General Education Information Competencies (California State University, San Marcos)
Library Research Survival Skills Treasure Hunt (California State University, Monterey Bay)
Information Resources and the Library (California State University, San Marcos)
"Librarian and Faculty Partnerships for Distance Education," by Holly Heller-Ross
"Redefining Roles: Librarians as Partners in Information Literacy Education," by Helene Williams and Anne Zald
TWIST (University of Iowa)
Librarian-Faculty Teaching Technology Partnerships (University of Arizona)
Comments and suggestions are welcome! Direct your comments to Karla Block.