UPDATE: Please note that as of 5/1/2016, the Library no longer offers the EBM service. This post is retained for archival purposes only.
Students from the U-M School of Information and School of Education recently authored a book entitled Information Literacy in the Wild. The book contains a collection of essays based on the students’ experiences during their field work studies for SI 641/EDCURINS 575: Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning, taught by Clinical Assistant Professor Kristin Fontichiaro. Professor Fontichiaro compiled and edited the volume, which features a foreword by SI Dean Jeff MacKie-Mason.
Initial plans were for an e-book format only, but one of the students, Kristel Wieneke, suggested the class also produce a print version using the Library’s Espresso Book Machine. Kristel works part-time in MPublishing, assisting the manager of Library Print Services with print-on-demand and EBM orders, so she was very familiar with the machine and its capabilities. After the class’s enthusiastic response, Kristel designed and created the book’s cover, and oversaw the file upload and printing process.
Each student decided to purchase at least one copy. Most of those orders were printed in advance, but on the last day of class, the students came to the Shapiro library to watch the final copies of their book being printed on the machine. According to Professor Fontichiaro, “The process of preparing a manuscript for publication requires that writers process and synthesize what they have learned and then communicate it with others. These skills are essential steps in the shift from student to professional practice.”
The book is freely available at Smashwords in several eBook reading formats. A free download in PDF form is available at http://bit.ly/infowild. As of 1/5/12, the title is available in Kobo and Barnes & Noble’s Nook bookstores, as well.
Although Information Literacy in the Wild has been available less than a month, it’s already been downloaded more than 600 times from Smashwords, and has well over a thousand hits on the bit.ly URL.