People commonly construct knowledge out of information stored and acquired in everyday life. Certainly I do this in my own life, as I use what I already know for most tasks in my workplace and ask coworkers or my supervisor(s) when I become aware of an information gap relevant to my job. Formal education is intended to rapidly provide information assumed to be of worth or interest, but according to constructivist views of learning education must still be actively assimilated into a framework of understanding by the student. This is often facilitated by engaging the same basic senses by which people often assimilate information: sight and hearing most commonly; touch, smell, and taste less so. This is accomplished through textbooks but also with aids and props in class, labs, or materials on reserve.

Written language’s capacity to transmit ideas and analysis is still critical to education, even if advancing digital technology makes image and sound much more available and portable, with plain old text all the less appealing. However, text is still indispensable in humanities and engineering courses, especially for describing ideas and analysis. Even so the spatial arrangement of text in a Powerpoint presentation is still as relevant as it was on overheads or the chalkboard, and can be particularly useful in comparing and contrasting the traits of entities, processes, or ideas.

In this paper I will describe my experiences observing lectures and interviewing instructors in an upper-level undergraduate history course and a introductory undergraduate chemical engineering course. These classes were offered at a major Midwestern public research university. I will then discuss a volume of interest to me because its relevance to an academic field dear to my own heart, religious studies, even if the issues of greatest relevance for information transfer suggested in this work may sometimes be rather implicit.

Synthesis of Courses Investigated

Both courses made use of primary sources, but in accordance with their respective fields. Thus the history course made ample use of readings selected by the professor from books of his choice and apparently placed on electronic reserve, including many period pieces. These were found in such works as The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays by Richard Hofstadter (1965) and Case Closed by Gerald Posner (1993). The engineering course made use mostly of reports and statistics about energy generation, usage, etc., including a large U.S. Department of Energy report. These resources were made available online through courseware (e.g., Blackboard). Both made use of images collected from the Internet for their Powerpoint presentations. In the history case images of historic photos or posters were used in class, whereas in the engineering course most images were stylized diagrams of thermodynamic systems or photos of electric power plants of various types. A schematic diagram showed the relationship of various forms of energy on earth to the sun. The engineering professor admitted that a major source of materials for his courses is conference presentations of individuals, at least as long as these presentations are freely available on the internet. The history professor also mentioned that in the next class session he would be playing the War of the Worlds radio broadcast that caused such a stir in the early 20th century.

The history professor made more explicit mention of the library as it was more directly related to his didactic processes; his course reserves were presumably managed through the library. He mentioned the help of reference librarians as students worked on paper assignments for which they were required to have more than one primary and more than one secondary source to achieve an A. The engineering professor made no use of the library for this course. Indeed he made little physical use of the library generally, though he did mention getting articles electronically which I suspect is made possible through the library’s proxy server.

Problems and Concerns

While neither professor mentioned particular high or low moments in student completion of assignments for these courses, the history professor related that he was able to persuade a publisher to return a book of interest to print and secure the right to make the whole text available online (presumably only to his students). The engineering professor related that duplication of research, due at least in part to graduate students’ difficulties with literature searching, happens more often than he (or likely the department, to say nothing of grad students) would like to admit. He also mentioned that students’ use of corporate information in research projects is stymied by fear of those corporations of litigation (the students are not given the access they once would have been allowed).

Discussion

Both professors obtained content for use in their coursework from outside the library system. In the history professor’s case this was mostly images for PowerPoint presentations; most other course content seems to have derived from texts made available through reserve, but films and audio clips used came mostly from personal collections. The engineering professor, as already suggested, derives much of his course material from outside the library system, including government reports such as the DOE report mentioned earlier, but also corporate reports such as those of petroleum companies.

The university’s library system appears to be meeting the needs of the history professor quite well; it provides historical resources for student research and maintains the course reserve system for his courses. The most obvious thing the system can do for him is maintain relevant photo, audio and video collections of anything not known to be in the public domain to ensure it will be available for his courses.

The situation with the engineering professor appears more complex. Making sure relevant reports, say, from the DOE, are available would seem to be important but with so many documents online it might not be critical. On the other hand the library could be certain that those documents not made available online if any are acquired through the depository function of the system or through other means, and there might be good reason to collect corporate and industry reports and analysis and the proceedings of conferences. There is clearly a great need for bibliographic instruction for engineering graduate students, especially by subject specialists in engineering fields. This seems the only kind of instruction that will be acceptable to this professor, but if the expense of such a specialist means reduced research duplication incidents and faculty see the library as useful and relevant, the university and the library system should both benefit.

Information Transfer in Religious Studies

One of the reasons Americans once knew much more about religion is that it permeated their society at that time. Prothero (2007) argues:

Historians once imagined that education was confined to the formal instruction offered in schools. We now know that education occurs whenever human beings teach and learn—that the province of education extends to homes and religious congregations, newspapers and almanacs, libraries and museums, theological tracts and political pamphlets, camp meetings and revivals, social reform organizations and religious denominations, Sunday schools and workplaces. (p.65)

Moreover,

In early American households children learned to read and write on the laps of their parents…. This was an era of oral reading, which means not only that people read aloud in groups but also that children learned to read via the ears and the mouth as much as the eyes—through both recitation and memorization. (Prothero, 2007, p. 65)

This suggests that religion was to a much greater extent woven into daily life, and thus religious information was processed along with other information into the construct of what people knew. With religious information presented so early and often, and taught in ways that engaged multiple senses and faculties, it is not surprising early Americans knew so much, even though as Prothero admits, “The religious literacy that Americans possessed was Protestant literacy of a sectarian sort” (p. 64).

What led to the decline of religious literacy? To summarize Prothero’s (2007) explanation, the Second Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century saw the rise of evangelicalism, a religious trend favoring feeling and emotion over the Puritan focus on textual exegesis (p. 89-92). Prothero went on to provide a list of developments that contributed to Americans' religious illiteracy, especially concerning religious specificity and difference. This list included: desire for non-sectarian schools for the sake of national unity (p.93-96); the inability of Protestants and Catholics to agree on which Bible should be used in public schools (p. 96-98); the secularization of public schools (p. 98-101); the turn of higher education to practical subjects rather than theology, and the “collapse of religion into morality” (p.104) (p. 101-105); and the broad, if not universal, acceptance of the evangelical model of Christianity in American churches (p. 105-112). Subsequent events saw Protestants, Catholics and Jews making common cause (“Judaeo-Christian America”) against Communism during the Cold War, and Muslims joined with them to make up “Abrahamic America” even before September 11, 2001 (p. 112-117). But these ever broader understandings of America’s religious basis have a disadvantage; traditions set aside their own specificity in order to get along. Prothero writes, “Although this new Abrahamic model describes America’s religious landscape more accurately than the old “Judeo-Christian” model, it too sacrifices religious literacy at the altar of tolerance” (p. 115). Some Catholics, Presbyterians, and confessing evangelicals have resisted these trends, insisting doctrinal correctness is still fundamental to their identities, but the trend has largely continued. Even American practice of yoga is “scandalously secularized” (p. 120).

When for whatever reason textual and linguistic activity is laid aside, as in the enthusiasm for right brain thinking which Mann (2001) warns about, analysis can be expected to suffer, as the loss of nuanced detail renders different phenomena less distinguishable. What then, ought America to do according to Prothero (2007)? His final chapter is devoted to showing that required Bible and “world religions” classes are both constitutional and desirable in high schools (p. 132-139) and that undergraduates should have required exposure to religion courses (p. 139-140). He related that such required religion courses, as in public schools, should respect the boundaries between religious studies and normative theology (p. 140-141) and should not be confused with character education (p. 141- 143). Prothero’s plan will require compromise:

The Secular Left will need to yield on the dogma that religion has no place in the public square. The Religious Right will need to give up its desire to use the public schools for proselytizing purposes (p. 147).

The final portion of the book's reference information is transferred via a glossary of terms and Biblical references that Prothero (2007) feels are important for the development of religious literacy in America. “When it came to preparing this list, the key question was: What does one need to know to understand and participate in religiously inflected political public debates?” (p. 149) Entries include traditions like “Catholicism,” people like “Dalai Lama,” and Biblical references like “David and Goliath.” By his own admission, it “does not try to duplicate the information you might learn in a Religion 101 course” (p. 149).

Prothero (2007) claims his agenda is civic, not theological (p. 143). While I am willing to believe that is his purpose, the nostalgic tone of his description of early religious life in America and apparently dismissive attitude to more recent developments in American religiosity suggest otherwise, even if this is not Prothero's intention. His work may have benefited from a clearer distinction between non-intellectual and newer religion and the American tradition of anti-intellectualism which is inimical to religious literacy, even if both phenomena are related and reinforcing. Prothero's proposed solutions have a great deal of merit, though I have my doubts upon reflection as whether his proposed high school courses could be made mandatory. His course on the Bible strikes me as a particularly sticky wicket, because to focus on literary and historical influence without speaking about historical context seems to invite controversy all over again. Or is the historical clock to be set later for this purpose so that questions of date, inspiration, etc. can be avoided?

I agree with Prothero (2007) that better awareness of religion is in order, however, and I am enthusiastic about his world religions courses and the ideal of unbiased instruction about religion that motivates academic religious studies. Religion courses use glossaries like the one he includes in his book, and I’ve seen the method of setting religious traditions side by side with respect to major themes used to apparently good effect. Here the spatial organization of chunks of information about a tradition facilitates assimilation by the student in relation to themes of common human concern: What is ultimate reality? What is its relationship to the individual? What happens when we die? The traditions’ “answers” sitting side by side facilitate comparison and contrast. In this way data about religious traditions can be used to construct an awareness of enduring worldviews of human experience.

In conclusion, librarians can facilitate the information transfer process when open communication exists among faculty, student, and librarian. Just as Prothero (2007) suggested a better awareness of religion is needed and possible, a better awareness of information literacy is needed and possible. While faculty may profess to be satisfied with the level of services and collections, if they are not using library opportunities, then students are likely following suit and authoritative information is not transferred effectively. Communication channels can be opened between faculty and librarian liaisons or subject specialists via faculty interview and classroom observation to better assess information needs and seeking behaviors. This proactive behavior may change perceptions of librarians and libraries. When a framework of understanding equates librarians as experts in their field, as opposed to mere custodians of resources, academic library collections and services may become more useful and relevant to university teaching and research. While many academic libraries are physically placed in a central location on campus, librarians will assume a central role in university life when they choose to promote information literacy and support information transfer in all academic disciplines.

Reference

• Mann, T. (2001). The importance of books, free access, and libraries as places—and the dangerous inadequacy of the information science paradigm. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(4), 268-281.
• Prothero, Stephen. (2007). Religious literacy: What every American needs to know—and doesn’t. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.