Baruch Professors’ Article
Selected Among Top 20 of 2007 by ALA
June 28, 2007 - The Library Instruction Round Table of the American Library Association has selected an article by two members of Baruch College’s Newman Library faculty as one of the top 20 publications of 2007 in the area of information literacy/library instruction. Professor Louise Klusek, head of reference, and Professor Jerry Bornstein, deputy chief librarian for public services, authored “Information Literacy Skills for Business Careers: Matching Skills to the Workplace,” which appeared in the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship 11.4 (2006): 3–21. Their analysis of the Department of Labor’s O*Net database demonstrated the relevance of information literacy skills to real-world work activities. The following abstract describes the goals and methodology of the article.
“Information Literacy Skills for Business Careers:
Matching Skills to the Workplace”
ABSTRACT. Librarians, college educators, and accrediting agencies are placing increased emphasis on promoting the development of information literacy skills in their students. At the same time, the business community has acknowledged the importance of the “knowledge worker.” The problem is that corporations do not yet formally recognize information literacy as a core competency for their workers, even though these same corporations do in practice require information literacy skills on the job. We examined the job profiles of 21 business and finance occupations in the Department of Labor’s O*Net database to find out if the skills and work activities associated with these jobs demand an information-literate worker. Our research found that information literacy skills are in fact valued in the workplace and are an integral part of the work activities demanded by those occupations.