Keynote Speaker
Esther Grassian
Information Literacy Librarian
UCLA College Library
Los Angeles, CA
Esther S. Grassian received a Masters in Library Science from UCLA in 1969. Since that time, she has served in a variety of reference and instruction positions in the UCLA College Library. Her working title was first “Reference Librarian,” then “Reference/Instruction Librarian,” followed by “Electronic Services Coordinator,” “Instructional Services Coordinator,” “Information Literacy Outreach Coordinator,” “Interim Head,” and “Information Literacy Librarian.” Her titles reflect both her involvement with reference, instruction and technology in an undergraduate library, and the development of the modern library instruction/bibliographic instruction/information literacy movement.
Ms. Grassian taught “Information Resources,” a 4-unit UCLA undergraduate course seven times in the 1980s, in the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, Information Studies Department. She and Joan R. Kaplowitz also designed a graduate course in information literacy instruction in 1989 and have alternated teaching it each year in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Information Studies Department. In addition, Ms. Grassian designed and has taught numerous times one-unit UCLA undergraduate information literacy courses for the UCLA English Composition Department and UCLA Honors Program.
She has also held various elected and appointed positions in information-literacy-related organizations. These include serving as a member of the first ALA ACRL Institute for Information Literacy Advisory Board, as well as Chair of the ACRL Instruction Section, Chair of the California Clearinghouse on Library Instruction, South (now called CARL SCIL), and President of the statewide Librarians Association of the University of California. She also established LILi in 2005, a group of librarians from many types of libraries in California, whose mission is “…to investigate information literacy definitions, standards and instruction in California. The group will use the results of the investigation to craft effective models of lifelong, sequential information literacy instruction…” http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/10645_10667.cfm She was awarded Distinguished Librarian status by the UCLA Library in 1998.
Her publications include the first edition of Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice (2001; second edition 2009),and Learning to Lead and Manage Information Literacy Instruction (2005), as well as the forthcoming “Information Literacy Instruction” article for the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, all co-authored with Joan R. Kaplowitz. She also wrote “Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources” http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/11605_12337.cfm, “Thinking Critically About Web 2.0 & Beyond” http://www2.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/11605_12008.cfm,“Building on Bibliographic Instruction” (2004) (American Libraries, 35(9), 51-53), “Do They Really Do That? Librarians Teaching Outside the Classroom” (2004) (Change 36(3), 22-27), and “Information Literacy: Wilder Makes (Some Right, But) Many Wrong Assumptions” (2005) http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/opinions/literacy.html , Also in 2004, she and Joan R. Kaplowitz were honored to receive an ALA ACRL Instruction Section Publication Award for the first edition of Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice.
