SILC Information Literacy Portal – share your instruction materials!

The SUNYLA Information Literacy Committee invites you to contribute to the Information Literacy Portal, a repository of instructional materials hosted through SOAR. The portal was created to support SUNY librarians in enhancing information literacy instruction across campuses by providing access to lesson plans, learning activities, assessment tools, and other teaching resources.

We know that librarians are doing impactful work every day, and we would love to help showcase and share those efforts. Submission form link

We welcome submissions such as:

  • Lesson plans
  • Video tutorials
  • Slideshows (.pptx)
  • Learning activities
  • Brightspace modules (SCORM packages)
  • Assessments and rubrics
  • Other instructional materials that support teaching and learning

Submission Requirements

To ensure materials can be openly shared and adapted, all submissions must:

  • Be licensed under a Creative Commons license that permits adaptation and revision (CC BY, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-SA).
  • Include only content for which you hold the rights, or that is covered by a compatible open license.
  • Use images that are Creative Commons licensed or in the public domain.
  • Follow accessibility best practices. We cannot share inaccessible materials over SOAR.
  • When possible, please submit editable formats (such as .docx, .rtf, or .pptx) rather than PDFs to encourage adaptation and reuse by colleagues.

Your contribution can help colleagues save time, spark new ideas, and strengthen information literacy instruction throughout SUNY. Contributors of accepted materials will receive a certificate of appreciation.

Thank you for helping us grow this shared resource.

Note: The submission form is a Google form that requires a login. If you cannot login but want to contribute, please contact Jocelyn Ireland (JIreland@mvcc.edu) or Nicole Westerdahl (nicole.westerdahl@oswego.edu).

Join Us for our Next Community Conversation

SILC Community Conversation:  Nuanced Conversations about AI

March 25, 2026

11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Teams link:  https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/25369486106610?p=VQuHyoAuqqH0ZETQQQ

SILC will host a community conversation on Nuanced Discussions about AI on March 25.  Please join SUNY AI Fellows for the Public Good Allison Hosier (SUNY Albany), Michelle Malinovsky (SUNY OCC), and Lauren deLaubell (SUNY Cortland) to discuss how you are approaching AI in your info lit instruction, conversations across campus, and in your own professional development.  Strategies, questions, and big feelings welcome.                                                                                                                 

Promoting nuance:  Students sometimes have an “all or nothing” attitude toward AI.  The constraints of common instruction models can create an oversimplification of nuanced issues, e.g., evaluation checklists, “Wikipedia is bad,” etc.

·         How can we move beyond “all or nothing” in conversations about AI, while also honoring diverse perspectives and ethical stances? 

·         What significant nuances should we be trying to capture in our conversations and instruction about AI, if we can? 

·         What strategies or activities have worked to help students gain a better understanding of the core concepts of GenAI? 

Ongoing professional development:  As our own workload grows and our staff and resources shrink, how can we sustainably support our own ongoing professional development? 

·         How are you finding time (or struggling to find time!) to “keep up” with the exponential expansion of GenAI and AI tools, both within and outside of our library resources?

·         What supports or programs exist on your campus/library for this that you think would serve as a good model to others?

·         Are there ways that AI has enhanced our information literacy teaching, despite the constraints we often work under? 

·         What are the opportunities for our research services to evolve and change?

Registration is not required.

Microsoft Teams meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/25369486106610?p=VQuHyoAuqqH0ZETQQQ

Meeting ID: 253 694 861 066 10

Passcode: bz2j9AU7

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Phone conference ID: 832 851 993#

SILC Spotlight: Advancing AI Literacy Working Group

Today we’re spotlighting our Advancing AI Literacy Working Group. Their 2025-2026 charge is:

  1. Developing assessable student learning outcomes that align with the Fall 2026 revisions to the SUNY General Education Information Literacy Competency and other curricula.
  2. Developing a collection of curated and original instruction activities aligned with existing information and AI literacy frameworks.
  3. Promoting conversations and resources about information and AI literacy across SUNY, among librarians and beyond.

Current members include:

  • Lauren deLaubell (Co-Chair)
  • Ken Fujiuchi (Co-Chair)
  • Fred Berowski
  • Natalia Estrada
  • Jocelyn Ireland
  • Richard Kovarovic
  • Brian Kvet
  • Helen Lane
  • Erin Larucci
  • Megan Palmer
  • Anthony Reda
  • Adam Saunders

Stay tuned to learn more about their work!

SILC Annual Instruction Showcase Registration

Registration is now open for the SUNYLA Information Literacy Committee (SILC) annual Instruction Showcase on Monday, January 13, 2025 from 10:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. via Zoom. Our presenters will inspire you as you gear up for the spring semester! Presentation topics include AI literacy and research tools, culturally responsive teaching, unresearch projects, and more.

This event is free, but registration is required. Please register at https://oswego-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMofumvrjsiH9KoKDTfKdQfe7gYk7oJSKoH. Once you are registered, you will receive an email confirmation with the Zoom meeting link. 

The full program can be viewed here.

SILC Community Conversation – 10/30

Please join us on October 30th at 1pm to discuss the new proposed competency for the SUNY general education requirements and how it may affect our future instruction. For details on the proposed updates to the gen ed requirements, you can see the revised discussion draft here.

Some questions to think about for the conversation:

  1. What is your campus doing to promote civic dialogue?
  2. What role do you think the library has to play in the civic discourse GE requirement?
  3. What can librarians do to prepare for the new civic discourse requirements (i.e. professional development opportunities, partner with campus groups)?

Check your email for the Zoom link, and see you there!

If you have not received emails from the SUNYLA or SILC listserv, please reach out to Megan Benson or Jocelyn Ireland!

SILC Community Conversation – 10/2

Please join us on October 2nd at 1pm to discuss the proposed update to SUNY Information Literacy general education requirement and how it may affect our future instruction, as well as discussing the impact of artificial intelligence on information literacy more broadly.

Some questions to think about for the conversation:

  1. Should AI literacy be taught separately from information literacy?
  2. How is your campus going to approach addressing the SUNY GE AI update?
  3. How can SILC support this work?

Check your email for the Zoom link, and see you there!

If you have not received emails from the SUNYLA or SILC listserv, please reach out to Megan Benson or Jocelyn Ireland!

SILC Community Conversation – 4/19

Graphic that says Bridging the Gap: High School to College; April 19th, 9am-10am.

Please join us on April 19th at 9am to discuss how we can help bridge the gap from high school to college for our students. Have you had successful partnerships with local schools? Do you have tips for making connections with school librarians? Are there ways to bring high schoolers to your campus? 

Bring all conversation and questions to the Community Conversation on April 19th at 9am!

Check your email for the Zoom link!

SILC Community Conversation – March 29th

Join SILC on March 29th at 9am for a conversation about what we can do when difficult topics come up in the instruction classroom. Below are some questions to think about surrounding this topic that may guide the conversation. If you have personal experiences that you’d like to share, feel free to bring those as well.

Check your email for the Zoom link!

Questions to Guide Discussion:

  • Is tension in the classroom something you avoid?  When can it be productive, or necessary?
  • How do you handle sensitive/divisive topics in the classroom (if students bring them up as research topics/if it comes up in sample searches/talking about fake news, etc)?
  • Does politics have a place in the library instruction space?
  • How do you make your classroom feel like a safe space?
  • “Trauma-informed instruction” is a concept that is gaining more traction in teaching spaces; how does it affect library instruction?