Sadie Davenport earned her MLIS in 2022, and is now an associate librarian at California Northstate University, a small, private university near Sacramento, California. Sadie has an educational background in the health sciences and humanities. She is an active member of the professional groups ACRL and RMMLA, as well as the Warped Spacers, a science fiction writing group based in Sacramento.
Information literacy, data literacy, and critical thinking are essential skills for anyone connected to the digital world. These skills are taught in classrooms, but are limited by time, resources, and availability. This is where libraries come in. Since libraries are freely available to the public, librarians can provide low-pressure, individualized assistance to help patrons realize the importance and relevance of these literacy and thinking skills in their everyday lives. Common, relevant library resources include: one-on-one tutoring, online research guides, tutorial videos, webinars, and workshops. This poster will explain and describe an online research guide I created as a librarian at California Northstate University, called “Essential tools for online research.” This research guide is geared toward students, but is available to the public, and includes links to free resources that can help anyone improve their information literacy, data literacy, and critical thinking skills. I will explain how I designed the guide and what resources are included in it that can be relevant inside the classroom and beyond. I will also offer insight for finding other library guides and creating library guides, and will provide links to other free, publicly available digital resources available. My goal is for viewers to feel empowered and self-reliant in their development of information literacy, data literacy, and critical thinking skills.
