Editor’s Welcome

Megan Lowe, University of Louisiana at Monroe

With this, Codex’s fourth issue, we tried something a little different – a themed issue. This issue’s theme is information literacy, an issue unquestionably near and dear to librarians’ hearts. So much of what librarians do sustains, promotes, supports, and/or otherwise relates to IL. The concept itself is rather simple: in order to be a smart consumer and producer of information, one needs the right skill set. It's *how* one acquires and applies that skill set that is rather complicated.
Theoretically, ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education covers all the bases with regards to what students should be able to do once they’ve had IL instruction. However, the Standards don’t – and I think shouldn’t – provide explicit best practices for how these competencies should be communicated to students. That determination should be made at the local level, because every campus, every library, every student and student body, is different, and meeting the needs of a particular campus community can only be determined by those working and interacting with that community. 
However, the studies and experiences related in the literature regarding how libraries determine and address the needs of their particular communities are a wealth of information. One can find inspiration for assignments, approaches, assessment – literally every aspect of information literacy – that can be adapted and applied. Furthermore, one needn’t reinvent the wheel. This is particularly useful with the push to combine pedagogy and technology in the IL teaching framework, and particularly in the face of dwindling budgets and painful cut, time crunches and staff reductions. 
So, to that end – that is, saving time and money, making the most of people-power, and identifying new and fresh ways of enhancing existing information literacy programs – Codex presents this themed issue. Inside you will find an article examining the use of LibGuides in information literacy; one discussing the benefits of controlled subject headings searching (versus the standard keyword search); and one looking at embedded literacy programs which combine instruction with outreach. This issue’s annotated bibliography looks at information literacy literature from 2011. And there is a veritable smorgasbord of materials reviews examining resources for information literacy. 
So dig in – find inspiration, find solutions, find new ways of thinking about and approaching information literacy. Perhaps you’ll find something that will prompt new initiatives at your library, in turn producing new research, new studies, which will make their way into the literature (…perhaps via Codex!) and help someone else! 

Megan Lowe, Editor