Creating and Maintaining an Information Literacy Instruction Program in the Twenty-First Century,

Now ask another question: What do you call your program? According to a study of multicultural, multilingual organizations, the adaptation and consistent use of common language improves group cohesion and increases the frequency of communication (i.e., the number of personal interactions) (Lauring and Selmer, 2010). Common language usage, including simplified and controlled vocabularies, allows for communication to pass more quickly and accurately. As a result, shared language works to “improve the clarity of communication among professionals in the same line of work” (Thrush, 2001: 290). Librarians are well versed in controlled vocabularies and conventional thesauri, yet when it comes to nomenclature regarding instruction and information literacy, we may not be modeling librarianship’s best practice.