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Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century, Carol C. Kuhlthau, Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2007. 188p. $40 (ISBN 13: 978-1-59158-435-3)
Today, many raise serious questions about educating the next generation for living and working in a democratic, information- rich, global society in America and around the world, and Guided Inquiry offers some solutions. It recasts inquiry learning by proposing an alternative to rote, mechanical repetitions and boring training for standardized tests and goes beyond ideology to describe steps to achieve the goal of successful, authentic learning situations. Inquiry learning reshapes schooling from that of the solo classroom teacher working in isolation to professional librarian and teacher teams involved in integrated instruction. Guided Inquiry presents a convincing plan for the instruction of pre-K-16 students so that they gain new confidence, competence, and expertise while acquiring information literacy skills.
The authors are three educators, a mother and her two daughters, with inquiry at the center of each of their specializations. Their shared authorship is evidence of the value of collaboration and models a community-of-learners environment. Kuhlthau, professor emerita at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University, is active today in The Rutgers Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries. She has conducted more than 20 years of research on the information search process (ISP). This process, which can be applied to both children and adults, provides the theoretical underpinnings to support this new practice of guided inquiry as outlined in her books on the topic (Kuhlthau, Teaching the Library Research Process, 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 1994 and Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services, 2nd ed.,Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004). Maniotes, a national board...