Merging Silos: Collaborating for Information Literacy

Abstract

Collaborating across disciplines can create additive teaching-learning benefits by bringing together expertise, knowledge, and training from various perspectives. However, there are challenges to effective collaboration that need to be articulated and understood by the partners to develop a useful learning product. In this project, nurse educators and health sciences librarians developed workshops for nurses practicing in community settings. Issues that surfaced reflected a division of content and presentation style along discipline lines. Bringing together expertise involved identifying basic content to present and eliminating extra details, setting the context for learners using a practice example, and alternating handoffs to cover content and practice applications. Effective collaboration requires mutual understanding of discipline-specific information "silos" and shared negotiation of teaching and learning goals.