Knowing when information literacy has succeeded

Students in an advanced undergraduate chemical engineering class received an assignment to write a laboratory manual on how to manufacture a product using fermentation. When two students from the same class approach me about the same topic, I do feel that a class may be necessary. This is the response that I received from the professor:


The students in my ChE 476 class said that they have heard your lecture before. Some of them said that they heard it several times before, so that it would be superfluous to repeat it again to this class. I will keep it in mind, however, for my future classes.

Thank you for your willingness to help; I greatly appreciate it

This means that the training that the students received in an earlier class was transferred to another course later in the curriculum. This is anecdotal evidence that information literacy has succeeded. By being superfluous, I would be doing more harm than good by boring students and possibly creating some dislike toward me and the library. That would certainly be counterproductive.

I told the professor that any student in that class could see me privately if he she needed more assistance in doing the search or locating the documents.