Loading Examples to Further Human Rights Education

Abstract

ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS OFTEN STRUGGLE against the limited amount of time we have with students relative to the learning goals we have for information literacy. In addition, we serve as guest instructors in our typical course-integrated instruction sessions. We are challenged to engage the library’s information literacy curriculum while at the same time focusing on the learning goals of the course in which the instruction is integrated. While this is already a complex set of considerations, I would like to propose that we intentionally address additional learning outcomes through the examples we select for demonstrating search strategies and tools. My conviction that we should take this opportunity emerged in a human rights education graduate seminar in which the professor emphasized individual responsibility for collectively supporting “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” By “loading examples” through thoughtful selection of terms and resources, librarians can pursue human rights education, which is well-aligned with campus learning goals for multicultural awareness, global perspectives, diversity, and so on.Ope