Feeling Our Way: Emotional Intelligence and Information Literacy Competency

Introduction Information literacy (IL) continues to be a major area of focus for academic librarians. Even as forces of change in the form of severe budget reductions, loss of positions, shifts in collection management, and changing technologies, have hit libraries hard in the early 21st century, their commitment to providing high quality IL instruction remains strong. An examination of recent strategic plans from academic libraries reveals continued emphasis on the teaching role of librarianship with organizational units dedicated to IL instruction and student engagement.1 IL initiatives across campuses have moved well beyond the traditional face-to-face instruction session and now librarians deliver instruction in a variety of styles, varying in length, format, and emphasis. As IL instruction initiatives have developed, many librarians have centered their efforts around the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) IL standards,2 with emphasis placed on teaching the skills outlined in the standards, diversifying the delivery methods with new technologies, and assessing learning outcomes. Less attention has been paid to understanding IL in a broader context as a set of skills or abilities at least partly influenced by dimensions of a student’s personality, learning style, or level of cognitive development. There is benefit in examining IL from a wider lens. A greater understanding of the individual dimensions within a student as a developing, growing learner can inform approaches to the practice of delivering IL instruction that may more soundly resonate with students, meeting them where they are in their cognitive and emotional development. In this paper, we explore IL from this wider lens, examining relationships between affective dimensions of a students’ personality and IL competency.