Teaching Information Literacy and Library Skills to Online Nursing Students: A Selected Annotated Bibliography

Abstract

Enrollment in online nursing programs has increased significantly in the last several years, due in part to the Institute of Medicine’s 2010 Future of Nursing report, which called for higher levels of training and education for nurses. Returning nursing students often face multiple challenges, including lack of confidence in their research and technology skills, which are necessary to succeed in evidence-based practice fields such as nursing. Because libraries are a primary resource for research and evidence-based practice, librarian liaisons have an important role to play in ensuring nursing students can skillfully access and evaluate the information they need to succeed in both their education and profession. Emergent themes in this bibliography include embedded librarianship, nurse educator/librarian collaboration, adaptability and flexibility with new and emerging technologies, and collaboration with instructional designers. The primary audience for the bibliography is nursing and health science liaison librarians, but distance learning, outreach, and instruction librarians may also find it useful and applicable to their specializations.