Ringling Library
Dr. Dan Williford is Research and Instruction Librarian at the Alfred R. Goldstein Library, Ringling College of Art and Design, in Sarasota, Florida, where he has worked since March 2024. His responsibilities include research consultation, information literacy instruction, curriculum development, faculty collaboration, and undergraduate research support in the visual arts, design, and humanities.
This page describes Dr. Williford’s professional work at the library. It is part of his personal website, not the library’s official website.
Research consultations
Dr. Williford provides individual research consultations for students and faculty at Ringling College.
Research instruction and faculty collaboration
Dr. Williford collaborates with faculty to design and deliver information literacy instruction within undergraduate courses. His teaching uses discussion, case studies, and research activities to examine how information is produced, organized, circulated, and interpreted.
Recent instruction has examined artistic expression, political speech, social media, and the authority of information sources.
Undergraduate teaching
In addition to library instruction, Dr. Williford teaches courses at Ringling College as instructor of record.
Literature and Media Studies, Fall 2026. The course examines literature, film, and other media through questions of adaptation, representation, ideology, and interpretation. Course materials include L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), the 1939 MGM film, The Wiz, and Wicked (2024).
Writing for Digital Media. The course addresses writing for digital platforms, audience analysis, digital storytelling, critical information literacy, and the use of generative AI tools. Students develop portfolios of writing for digital environments.
Critical information literacy and curriculum development
Dr. Williford’s pedagogical research considers how critical information literacy can be integrated into arts education. It treats students not only as consumers of information but also as producers of cultural materials whose work circulates through institutional, commercial, and technological systems.
Workshops
Critical Information Literacy. Fall Workshop Week, Alfred R. Goldstein Library, November 3, 2026. For faculty, staff, and students. The workshop addresses information authority and its implications for research, teaching, and creative practice.
Publication
Williford, Dan. “From Maker to Meaning-Maker: Rethinking Art Students as Cultural Researchers Through Critical Information Literacy.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. Forthcoming.