ILILE High School to College Transition Initiative

The Institute for Library and Information Literacy (ILILE) is working on an initiative to establish working relationships between academic and high school librarians to ease the transition of high school students to college.  A group of academic and high school librarians have been exploring how they might address transition issues.  From these initial discussions, two working groups have been formed.

Working Group 1

This group is developing a series of Web-based modules that will highlight the differences between high school and academic libraries and will outline the expectations of college-level work. Colleen Boff, the First-Year Experience Librarian at Bowling Green State University, has already developed a tool called Pathways to Academic Libraries that addresses some of these needs and provides a solid starting point for discussion (see http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/pal/ ).  Colleen and Mary Lee Jensen, ILILE Board Member from Kent State University Libraries, are serving as the leads for this working group.

Working Group 2

This group is exploring the professional environment of high school and academic librarians so that we might utilize existing structures to build collaborative relationships.  Specifically, they seek to identify the organizations, agencies, networks, of these groups and how to take advantage of existing communication channels.  Barbara Schloman, ILILE Board Member from Kent State University Libraries, is the lead for this group.

Related Projects

TRAILS-9

A related ILILE project is the development of an online tool to measure the information literacy skills of 9^th graders.  Called TRAILS-9 (Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills), it is being designed as a Web-based tool that can be used by teachers and librarians. Questions will be based on the information literacy components in the Ohio content standards and Information Power. The plan is to test questions in the spring and have the tool ready for an initial trial in fall 2005. 

To stay informed of progress on the project, join the discussion forum for “TRAILS-9” at the ILILE Website (http://www.ilile.org/ ). 

KSU Libraries High School Outreach Program

The Libraries at Kent State University are developing an outreach program to foster successful student transitions from high school to college. The goal is to work with local high school librarians and teachers to offer a positive introduction to academic libraries and college-level work. To support this effort, the Libraries have designed a classroom specifically for high school class visits. Sponsored in part by ILILE, the classroom can support group or independent work and is fully equipped with technology including video conferencing capability. More information about the program can be found at http://www.library.kent.edu/highschool .