Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Libraries professor and undergraduate research assistant deliver  keynote presentation at the 2025 Illinois Information Literacy Summit

May 8th, 2025

On May 2, Rachel Fundator, clinical associate professor at Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, and Margaret Collins, undergraduate research and pedagogy assistant for the Institute for Information Literacy at Purdue, delivered the keynote presentation at the 23rd annual Illinois Information Literacy Summit in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The Summit, co-hosted by the College of DuPage Library and DePaul University Library, gathers librarians focused on information literacy education to share insights, successful practices, and future directions for improving and expanding the impact of their educational work. This year’s theme encouraged attendees to consider ideas for adapting their information literacy educational practices to be more resilient, sustainable, and relevant to learners in light of significant changes and uncertainties in the current information environment. 

Professor Fundator and Collins presented “Experiential Information Literacy: Infusing Student Partnerships into Higher Education” and discussed how the Institute team is adapting its information literacy work in response to the challenges and needs of today’s information environment. They proposed experiential information literacy, an approach that empowers learners to navigate today’s dynamic and complex information environment by having them partner with librarians on information literacy research and instruction. 

Fundator and Collins spotlighted two signature programs within the Institute that exemplify the experiential information literacy approach: Student Partners for Information Research and Literacy (SPIRaL), an undergraduate research program, and Partners for Algorithmic Literacy (PAL), a student-faculty learning community that enables the creation of algorithmic literacy activities. Both programs demonstrate how librarians can simultaneously innovate their educational practices to support meaningful student learning about today’s information environment, broaden the community invested in information literacy, and welcome students as partners, explorers, and decision-makers in information literacy research and education. Collins shared her experiences as a former SPIRaL researcher and this year’s undergraduate research and pedagogy assistant, and described the unique affordances of these experiential information literacy opportunities to enable college students to learn about how information shapes individuals and society. Summit attendees were invited to consider how they might tailor experiential information literacy to address the information literacy goals of their libraries and adapt their practices to support long-term student learning around information literacy.