Syracuse iSchool professors’ project honored by American Association of School Librarians

Syracuse iSchool professors’ project honored by American Association of School LibrariansJuly 30, 2009Margaret Costello Spillettmcostell@syr.edu

Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) professors Marilyn Arnone and Ruth Small‘s project, S.O.S. for Information Literacy, was recently named one of the Top 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

“This is the first such award by AASL, and we are very pleased to be included among this prestigious group of sites,” says Small.

AASL selected its list of 25 sites based on several criteria, including the site’s ability to foster innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. The S.O.S. site ranked among the best in curriculum sharing and for being user-friendly and encouraging a community of learners to explore and discover.

Founded in 2000, S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a free, Web-based multimedia resource for K-16 educators. The site contains lesson plans, handouts, videos and other teaching material for information literacy that has been carefully reviewed through a comprehensive quality control system to ensure the resources are of high caliber. Arnone has received numerous grants for S.O.S. for Information Literacy, most of which have come from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), including the latest grant, a National Leadership Grant awarded in fall 2008.

Currently, the project is in its final stages of development so that it can be expanded to include high school- and college-level educators. S.O.S. for Information Literacy is also working with the Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP) on an IMLS grant to update the national curriculum standards for the 21st century learner to meet AASL guidelines. Small and Arnone are also hoping to expand S.O.S. in the future to include public library youth program activities.

Other members of the S.O.S. team include Senior Project Consultant Abby Kasowitz-Scheer G’96, G’98, who is program head of instructional services at Syracuse University Library, and Technical Director Thomas Hardy of Data Momentum, who works on all aspects of site design, development and implementation.

For more information about S.O.S. for Information Literacy, visit http://informationliteracy.org/. To see the other websites named in AASL’s Top 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, visit http://ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aboutaasl/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25.cfm.