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PLO 5 — Demonstrate Information Literacy and Technological Agility
Introduction
Information literacy and technological agility are the core of the backbone of contemporary library work. I learned to navigate information ecosystems, while evaluating sources with cultural and ethical awareness, and adapting technologies to meet the needs of diverse users. This PLO illustrates how information professionals must think critically about both the possibilities and limitations of technology, while recognizing that tools are never neutral but deeply embedded in social, historical, and political contexts. I gained a nuanced understanding of how information and technology intersect to shape who is empowered, represented, or excluded in the digital age.
5.1 Exercise expert information literacy skills including the ability to identify information needs, search, evaluate, produce, and use information ethically.
Spanning my coursework and practice, information literacy played a role serving as a foundation for community-responsive and ethically grounded work. In IST 612, I engaged in an extensive historical fiction genre study, which engaged in the evaluation of multiple sources across cultural and historical contexts while interrogating how narratives serve as tools of meaning-making, identity formation, and pedagogical engagement. This assignment demanded precise information needs assessment, source evaluation, and reflective integration of cultural scholarship, especially when discussing oral history translation, ancestral memory, and global storytelling traditions.
Information literacy was central to my Library Community Issue Analysis in IST 672, where I processed health equity data, policy history, news coverage, and demographic reports to examine the ongoing racism affecting the Seneca Nation in Buffalo. This required an evaluation of governmental documents along with cross-source verification, and the utilization of evidence to articulate inequities without appropriating or flattening Indigenous experiences. My analysis relied on interpretation of public health data, community narratives, and historical accounts to situate the broader problem of cultural erasure and the need for institutions, including libraries, to respond responsibly to community-identified needs.
5.2 Apply knowledge of user information behavior in various contexts.
Understanding information behavior requires attention to the ways communities seek, interpret, and make meaning from information, notably when navigating structural marginalization. In my Analysis of children’s and youth services, I examined how young readers engage with booktalks, story selection, and interactivity. The assignment highlighted children’s reliance on elements including guidance, affective cues, and narrative resonance when choosing materials, and that librarians should be responding with developmental awareness, cultural competency, and the ability to translate narrative content into accessible channels for discovery and learning.
5.3 Employ research methods to investigate important questions; collect, analyze, evaluate, and communicate data; and interpret results from studies in library and information science and cognate fields.
Research methodology appeared throughout my program as both a formal and applied praxis. In my Library Community Issue Analysis and Strategic Plan for the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (IST 672), I engaged in research using demographic data, public health reports, governmental documents, and media analysis. Processing these findings involved identifying and comparing relevant data while identifying and interpreting historical patterns of systemic racism in order to propose actionable library responses. The strategic plan centered data and community-informed reasoning to justify goals, identify threats and opportunities, and articulate the long-term necessities of people-centric interventions.
Research methodologies also shaped my analysis of library access effectiveness (IST 616), where evaluation of signage, physical layout, and assistive technologies required observational assessments and environmental scanning, met with the documentation of barriers affecting users with disabilities. These practices were necessary in identifying inequities and developing evidence-based recommendations for improvement.
Similarly, in my research of digital audio preservation (IST 715), I engaged with historical instances, technical documentation, and cultural analysis to elaborate on how technological evolution has shaped contemporary preservation needs, while displaying competency across humanities and technological domains by tracing the histories of recording devices, deterioration patterns, and contextualizing archival ethics in relation to practices within the realms of public memory.
5.4 Engage, evaluate, and deploy various technologies ethically and critically.
My work across the program called for critical engagement with technologies, and especially those that shape access, preservation, and equity. In my analysis of cloud service providers (IST 615), I evaluated Proton Drive’s security features, data privacy considerations, and considerations for long-term digital stewardship. This required an evaluation of encryption protocols, user interface design, and ethical dimensions concerning vendor selection for libraries and archives. Interrogation of how proprietary systems align or conflict with community-centered values required my engagement with technology as an actor within broader sociotechnical systems.
In a similar thread, my digital audio preservation history piece called for an understanding of the technological evolution from analog cylinders to digital formats, including ethical stakes of format obsolescence, accessibility, and ultimately cultural memory. This assignment stressed that technological adoption is not a neutral practice: choices around file formats, digitization workflows, and access platforms shape whose histories endure, and just the same, whose risk disappearance.
Learning Transfer
PLO 5 has strengthened my capacity to approach information and technology as dynamic, iterative, and relational practices. I carry forward critical evaluation of emerging tools, recognizing their potential both to expand access, and if implemented unreflectively, to reinforce systemic bias. My work demonstrates how culturally informed information literacy can serve as a pathway to community empowerment, and how ethical technology choices can preserve histories that might otherwise be lost. I draw on these insights to design learning environments, preservation workflows, and access systems that are transparent, user-centered, and justice-oriented. Ultimately, technological agility is a commitment to ensuring that innovation serves people, especially those at the margins of traditional information structures.
Evidence
IST 612 - Genre Study
- Youth services, Community Advocacy
IST 615 - Analysis of a Cloud Provider
IST 616 - Access Effectiveness
IST 672 - Strategic Plan (Buffalo Erie County Library)
- Library Community Issue Analysis
IST 715 - Digital Audio Preservation Practices & History