Schiller’s Library Department, a tool to build critical thinking and fight misinformation

Did you know that our Library Department is comprised of the SIU Digital Library with over five hundred thousand digital items (e-books, peer-reviewed journals, market journals, newspapers, magazines, audio-visual materials, and financial reports) and our 4 campus libraries? All of these are free for our students.

Our Global Librarian, Vilma Silva Butym, and her team of campus librarians - John Sturm (Heidelberg), Odile Alaphilippe (Paris) and Beatriz Ovejero (Madrid) are on a mission to help students benefit from this critical resource to develop literacy skills.

What’s in it for you?

With the amount of information at your disposal from your phone and computer, you may wonder why you should be interested in acquiring literacy skills at all.

Well, precisely in this age of excess of information, fake news and hate speech, it is more important than ever to know what sources you can trust and where you can find the information to help you advance in your studies and develop critical thinking and research skills, so you can work with information independently of the media or format it is in

There are multiple benefits for Schiller students to use our library resources, some of them: 

• Improves Probability of Student Academic Achievement and Success
• Provides Daily Academic Support for Research Assignments
• Provides High-Quality Academic Resources
• Supports Reading and Information Literacy Skills Development (critical thinking and research skills development)
• Encourages Curiosity, Problem Solving and Innovation
• Provides the Best Place to Study

How can you benefit from it?

Librarians provide daily academic support to Schiller students and faculty on a request basis.  Also, they have created a set of activities to promote literacy skills, some of them listed below:

• IN-CLASSROOM LIBRARY VISIT PROGRAM (offered monthly in all 4 campuses)
• ONE-ON-ONE INFORMATION LITERACY TRAINING SESSIONS (offered daily upon request in all 4 campuses by Campus Librarians & Global Librarian)
• MONTHLY GLOBAL WEBINARS ON INFORMATION LITERACY TRAINING INCLUDING APA SESSIONS (Global Librarian)
• MONTHLY LOCAL APA WEBINARS (Campus Librarians)

What’s next?

Schiller is supporting the Global Media & Information Literacy Week 2022 led by UNESCO. On 18^th of October, we will do the online global workshop - 'Engaging Schiller Students in Media information Literacy through Active Experiential Learning' - during which students will learn about media and information literacy and take a leading role in sparking critical reflection and discussion. You will receive all the details soon!