From its inception, Project Information Literacy, with Alison Head at its helm, has produced insightful and thought-provoking studies. In preparation for sunsetting their College Study, Head announced a new report, “'The Project Information Literacy Retrospective: Insights from more than a decade of information literacy research, 2008-2022' , authored by PIL Team members Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, Steven Geofrey, and Margy MacMillan. This 22-page report summarizes the entirety of PIL's research on college students for the first time, all 14 years and all 12 major studies. To measure the impact of our collective work, we have conducted a unique computational citation analysis. Tracking down more than 2,100 citations to PIL studies, our analysis shows the geographic and disciplinary reach of our research in three interactive information visualizations.”

The authors write, "For more than a decade, the research team published reports from the front lines focusing on students’ encounters with information as captured in their own words. This corpus of research not only provided insight into how students use information for academic work, but also moved beyond this common focus for information literacy research by widening the lens to see how students conduct research in everyday life.” I found PIL’s combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods and findings to be compelling reading. Some of the quotes from students and the conclusions drawn by the researchers in this series of reports had a significant impact on my own thinking about students and their relationship to information.

Head’s plenary talk from the CNI Spring 2017 meeting “What Today's Students Have Taught Us" can be found here: YouTube: https://youtu.be/a0ep6XAbUjQ Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/212821471

Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director Emerita Coalition for Networked Information