A critical librarianship approach for teaching patent searching: Who becomes an inventor in America?

Critical Pedagogies and Critical Information Literacy in STEM librarianship: A Literature Review

“…While power relations are just under the surface in this article, the various user groups who he suggests might be left out of design projects carried out by North American engineers are all marginalized. Zwicky and Stonebraker (2021), noting the lack of critical teaching of intellectual property issues in libraries, present data on the demographics of patent holders to spark reflection about how structural inequalities related to gender, race, and class are not only reflected in the landscape of patents but embedded in the high cost and complicated process of registering a patent. Students are asked to explicitly consider how the US patent does and does not "support social justice" (p. 125).…”

“…Bringing discussions of power to bear on the classroom space itself was less common in the literature, though this is also an important aspect of CPs. Several authors discussed how their own privileged identities, including that of professional librarian and teacher, create power imbalances in the classroom that must be addressed in order for students to fully participate (Brown & Bresnahan, 2022;Swanson, 2004;Zwicky & Stonebraker, 2021). Similarly, Cardoso (2010), writing on the role of the librarian in environmental education, says that the teacher must be open to learning from students and community in which they teach as well as the other way around.…”

“…With few exceptions, this goal was not assessed. Some papers sought to encourage a behavioral change primarily with regards to the immediate task at hand, such as searching the scholarly literature or patents, though they also expected that students would connect classroom discussions of information equity to other situations in their lives (Bohémier, 2019;Warren & Duckett, 2010;Zwicky & Stonebraker, 2021). Zwicky and Stonebraker (2021) also note that most critical literacy efforts in librarianship focus purely on academic materials, and that a truly activist approach must incorporate sources that are more prevalent in the world outside of academic librarianship -arguably, patents are one such source.…”

“…More informal assessment, such as post-session discussion with participants, was sometimes reported (Bohémier, 2019). Reflection was identified as an important practice for self-assessment of critical pedagogy goals (Brown & Bresnahan, 2022;Zwicky & Stonebraker, 2021), but the form of the reflection and how it was or could be translated into improved practice was not specified.…”

Addressing Business Research Needs in the Engineering Curriculum

“…Similarly, MacDonald [22] presented a case study of such collaboration more narrowly focused on the intersection of chemistry and business, rather than innovation and entrepreneurship more broadly, for supporting career search and development. Another case study described a critical librarianship approach by business librarians to teaching patent searching to students in business and finance fields [23]. This paper will add to the academic library literature by providing short case studies that outline how business research skills are being taught to engineers by business and engineering librarians at our institution.…”