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Studentsnowhaveinformationprocessingbehaviorscharacterizedbyrapidshiftsinattention,less reflectionandfailuretodeploymetacognitiveprocesses,preferringactivitiesthatbringimmediate rewards for their information needs, even if the quality of the information they obtain is low. Consequently, they run into significantdifficulties in the selectionandcritical evaluationof the information they findduringuniversity learningactivities.This articlepresents two information literacytraininginitiativesaddressingtheseissuesattheUniversityofPadova(Italy):oneinacourse ineducationaltechnologiesofferedaspartofasecond-cycledegreeprogram,andtheotherintwoof theuniversitylibrarysystem’strainingfacilities.Thetrainingworkshopssoughttobecomplementary, coveringboththesearchengineandthelibraryOPACapproachtoinformationseeking. KeywoRD Critical Thinking, Information Flow, Information Literacy, Internet Information Overload oNLINe INFoRMATIoN FLowS: ACCeSS AND eXCeSSeS Inaveryfewyears,theamountofinformationavailablehasrisensharply:itisestimatedthatthe human-createdinformationintheworldnowexceeds300exabytes(300followedby18zeros),while onlyfiveyearsagotherewerejust30exabytes.Thus,90%ofthedataontheInternettodayhasbeen createdafter2016,andover2.5exabytesarecreatedeveryday(IBM2016).Thisincrease,however, isnotdrivenbywebpagesalone:textdigitizingandindexingwithprojectssuchasGoogleBooks havemademillionsofbooksavailableonline,withinterestingside-effectsontheevolutionofthe conceptofcopyright(Castro&DeQueiroz,2013)aswellasinfacilitatingintertextualprocesses:for ahugenumberofbooks,infact,GoogleBooksdisplaysscansoftheoriginalpagessothatpassages ofatextcanbequotedwithouthavingtoownadigitalorpapercopy(Parks2014). More than 3 million Google searches are conducted worldwide each minute of every day (Schultz,2018):thoughtheInternethasthusbroughtanenormousincreaseinourabilitytoaccess information,thishasnotbeenmatchedbyaparallelincreaseinourabilitytoprocessanddealwith it.Consequently,wesufferfromatrueinformationoverload(Jones,Ravid,&Rafaeli2004:Melinat, Kreuzkam,&Stamer2014;Roetzel,2018).Tomakemattersworse,mostinformationontheWeb International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence Volume 9 • Issue 3 • July-September 2018 28 isbynatureunstructuredandthemethodsusedtofinditcannotbeconsideredequivalenttothose typicalofastructuredsourcesuchasadatabaseorlibrary(Taylor&Dalal,2014).Indeed,theusual interactionwithasearchengine takesplace througha fewkeywords,withoutbeing limited toa specificdomainofknowledgeorsupportedbycategoricalselection. CoGNITIVe eFFeCTS oF INTeRNeT INFoRMATIoN oVeRLoAD: MoRe TIMe oR MoRe ATTeNTIoN? Againbecauseoftherapidpaceoftechnologicalprogress,wehavenotbeenabletodevelopaset ofcodifiedandculturallyembeddedpracticeswhichcanhelpuscopewithinformationoverload. Fromacognitiveviewpoint,thereareobjectivelimitsonourmind’sinformationprocessingcapacity (Eppler&Mengis,2004),astheflowofinformationthateachofusdealswithmustbeselected, organizedandassessedinordertobeabsorbed.Butthisentailsamajorcognitiveeffortthatoften causessignificantadverseimpacts(MisraandStokols2012).Youngpeoplewhoaredigitalnatives, forexample,haveinformationprocessingbehaviorscharacterizedbyrapidshiftsinattentionandless deliberation.Theythusengageinmultitaskingbehaviorsthatleadtoincreaseddistractionandpoor self-control,preferringactivitiesthatbringimmediaterewardsfortheirinformationneeds,evenif thequalityislow.Recentneuroimagingstudiesappeartoconfirmthatthesebehaviorsareassociated withstructuralchangesinthebrain(Loh&Kanai,2016).Interestingly,itseemsthatthemultitasking requiredinvideogamescanimproveattentioncontrolperformancebymodifyingfrontal-parietalbrain circuitry.Thissuggeststhatexposuretodifferentformsofmultitaskingcanhavedifferenteffectson cognition(Bavelieretal.,2012). Animportantdistinctionshouldbemadeconcerningtheflowofinformation:lookingactively forinformationisonething,whilebeingsubjectedtoitisanother(Jackson&Farzaneh,2012).This differencehasbeenvividlyexpressedas“pulling”informationorhavinginformation“pushed”to you.Aradiooratelevisionblaringsomewhereinthesurroundings,theadvertisingonwebpagesof socialnetworksthathasnothingtodowiththecontentwearefocusingonareallexamplesofpushed informationthatisdifficulttoavoid(Fengetal.,2015).Theproblemisaggravatedbythefactthat wecanusetheWebwithmobiledeviceswhosesmallscreensposeobstaclestousinginterfacesthat manageinformationefficiently(Walsh,2012;Ghose,Goldfarb&Han,2012).Allofthisisapowerful distraction,thebackgroundnoiseofoursociallifethatinmanycasescangeneratewhathasbeen termedanattentiondeficittrait(Hallowell,2005),expressedinlessabilitytopayattentionandan uncontrolledincreaseinthetimespentlookingforinformation. Inthissituation,timeislessimportantthan“attentioncapacity”(Anderson&DePalma,2012), whichisoneofthefundamentalfactorsthatinfluenceswhetherweareabletoselecttheinformation thatisinfactnecessaryandrelevanttous(Levitin,2014).TheEuropeanCommission(2014)hasbegun toaddresstheproblem,callinginitsOnlifeManifestoforeffortsto“protectattentionalcapabilities”, notingthattheyarea“finite,preciousandrareasset”andthat“therighttofocusourownattention isacriticalandnecessaryconditionforautonomy,responsibility,reflexivity,plurality...”(Floridi, 2015,12).Accordingly,learningtotakeeffectivemeasuresthathelpussetattentionthresholdsis veryimportant,andrequiresthataspecificgroupofcompetencesbeacquired. INFoRMATIoN LITeRACy AS A PILLAR oF DIGITAL CoMPeTeNCe TRAINING: THe eURoPeAN DIGCoMP FRAMewoRK InformationLiteracycanbedefinedasthesetoftechnicalandmethodologicalcompetencesthatenable anindividualtoknowwhereandhowtosearchforinformation,filteritand,aboveall,evaluateit appropriately(Head&Eisenberg,2010).Allstudentsshouldbetrainedinthesecompetences,which willbeusefultothemduringtheireducationandindailylifeinordertoavoidformsofinformation overload at the cognitive level (Khalid, Saeed, & Syed, 2016) or of information anxiety at the 10 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/complementary-informationliteracy-training-practices-in-university-teaching-andacademic-libraries/218162?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Educational Leadership, Administration, and Technologies eJournal Collection, InfoSci-Knowledge Discovery, Information Management, and Storage eJournal Collection, InfoSci-Select, InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Library Science, Information Studies, and Education, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Communications and Social Science. 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Complementary Information Literacy Training Practices in University Teaching and Academic Libraries