Encouraging students' lifelong learning through graded information literacy assignments

Purpose The paper seeks to argue that one of the ways librarians and library information literacy sessions can have a positive impact on students’ lifelong learning is to create and mark assignments. Design/methodology/approach If library information literacy sessions are to have a positive impact on students' lifelong learning, it is necessary to clearly define and delineate the term “lifelong learning” into its three components of cognition, behavior and information seeking skills. The three components are not linear, but intertwine. Multiple information literacy sessions must cognitively engage students to realize they have a learning need. Findings Information literacy instruction librarians are often overwhelmed with requests for 50‐minute one‐shot library classes which have questionable results in regards to student learning. Instead of having a marginal impact on thousands of students per year, information literacy librarians should use their time and resources by creating graded assignments with multiple IL classes and consider abandoning the 50‐minute one‐shot sessions. However, multiple IL sessions and marking assignments will take time. Originality/value By creating graded assignments, information literacy instruction librarians would have a close collaborative relationship with classroom faculty to reach perhaps fewer students but have a greater impact on students' information literacy and lifelong learning.