Friday, September 30, 2011

WILU 2012

The WILU 2012 (major IL Canadian) conference will held at Grant MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from May 23-25, 2012.
"The Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) is an annual conference that highlights the latest the research, education, and innovations in the areas of information literacy, library instruction, and research skills. This is the 41st annual WILU conference.
This year the conference theme is “Vigour, Thrift, and Resourcefulness” which "encourages participants to reflect on how we might ensure sustainable, accountable information literacy programs that build on past successes while embracing growth and change." http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn leaves, September 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

National Information Literacy month in the USA

National Information Literacy Month 2011 BadgeOctober 2011 will be National Information Literacy month in the USA. The Governor of Massachusetts has already issued a proclamation endorsing the importance of information literacy in that state. A number of libraries are already planning events to celebrate the month. The initiative was pushed forward by the National Forum on Information Literacy in the USA. There is more information at http://infolit.org/national-information-literacy-awareness-month/
including a link to this badge, which they are encouraging people to display during the month.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

New issue of Information Research

There's a new issue of the open access journal Information Research http://informationr.net/ir/16-3/infres163.html
It is a special issue, edited by Sanda Erdelez and Stephann Makri, on opportunistic discovery of information. Articles include:
Ágústa Pálsdóttir: Opportunistic discovery of information by elderly Icelanders' and their relatives
Victoria L. Rubin, Jacquelyn Burkell and Anabel Quan-Haase: Facets of serendipity in everyday chance encounters: a grounded theory approach to blog analysis
Borchuluun Yadamsuren and Jannica Heinström: Emotional reactions to incidental exposure to online news
Makiko Miwa et al.: A method to capture information encountering embedded in exploratory Web searches
Abigail McBirnie and Christine Urquhart: Motifs: dominant interaction patterns in event structures of serendipity
Xu Sun, Sarah Sharples and Stephann Makri: A user-centred mobile diary study approach to understanding serendipity in information research
Lori McCay-Peet and Elaine Toms: Measuring the dimensions of serendipity in digital environments
Sanda Erdelez, Josipa Basic and Deborah D. Levitov: Potential for inclusion of information encountering within information literacy models
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn roses, Blackheath, September 2011

The keyword search capabilities of Twilight's Bella

In a discussion on the ili discussion list Tasha Bergson-Michelson highlighted her own post about the search capabilities of Twilight's Bella: http://searchme.typepad.com/search-me/2010/04/a-searchers-review-of-twilight-book-vs-movie-through-the-eyes-of-a-search-geek.html. I found it entertaining, and it is also an example that might be used with teens.

Monday, September 26, 2011

DREaM workshops

There is a series of workshops for the DREAM project which "aims to establish a sustainable network of LIS (library and information science) researchers". People have to commit to all three; they are in Edinburgh (Scotland) on Tuesday 25th October 2011; in London on Monday 30th January 2012; and in Edinburgh on Wednesday 25th April 2012. Each of the workshops includes a session on: a broad research approach; a specific quantitative research technique; a specific qualitative research technique; a research “practicality” (e.g. ethics, dissemination, influencing policy). For more information go to: http://lisresearch.org/dream-project/dream-event-2-workshop-tuesday-25-october-2011/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Crows on Blackheath, September 2011

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Association for Learning Development professionals in Higher Education cfp

There's a call for papers for the ninth ALDinHE (Association for Learning Development professionals in Higher Education) Annual Conference, to be held in Leeds 2-4 April 2012. The theme is Learning Development in a Digital Age: emerging literacies and learning spaces so it seems to me there should be opportunities for papers about Information Literacy!
Keynote Speakers are Professor Gráinne Conole and Paul Andrews. Proposals for paper presentations, workshops, and posters are welcomed. "Contributions should address the conference theme and focus on the many ways in which learning development operates in a digital age." Deadline for proposals is Monday November 21st 2011. Further details can be found on the website at http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/leeds12.htm

Friday, September 23, 2011

ACRL immersion programme

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is accepting applications for its Information Literacy Immersion ’12 Program. "Immersion" is an intensive residential course about teaching & managing information literacy. Immersion ’12 will be held July 22-27, 2012 at Champlain College in Burlington, USA. Details and application materials are online: http://www.acrl.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/infolit/professactivity/iil/immersion/immersionprogram.cfm The application deadline is
Dec. 2, 2011, and notifications will be issued in February 2012.
Photo by Sheila Webber: windfalls, September 2011

Call for papers for Zimbabwe school library conference

There is a call for papers for Regional School Library Seminar to be held 8-9 February 2012 in Masiyephambili College, Bulawayo Zimbabwe. It is hosted jointly by the International Association of Schcoll Librarianship and the Zimbabwe Library Association. The theme is: School libraries in Africa in the 21st century: learning from each other.
Sub-themes are: information literacy skills across (from print to ICT; national school library policy; school libraries for reading skills; regional school library cooperation in Zimbabwe/Africa cooperation; joint school/community library cooperation; mobile library service in Zimbabwe/Africa; creative ideas for school libraries with limited resources: best practices; a library in every school campaign; any other topics related to the main theme (e.g. dissemination of HIV and AIDS information in school libraries).
Abstracts should be no more than 200 words and should be submitted to Lindy Nhlapo at lnhlapo@unisa.ac.za and to zimlanec@gmail.com The deadline is 31 October 2011. "Conference presenters and participants will come from Zimbabwe (bulk), SADC, Africa and beyond."
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn sky, September 2011

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Horizon report: Technology Outlook: UK Tertiary Education 2011-2016

Earlier this month The New Media Consortium and JISC published Technology Outlook: UK Tertiary Education 2011-2016. I have regularly reported on the annual publication of the main Horizon report, but I had missed that they also periodically publish more specific ones. You can find a link to all the reports on the JISC/ Horizon wiki at http://jisc.wiki.nmc.org/home. There have been 3 Australia-New Zealand Horizons, there have been a couple on "K12" (schools), and also ones on Museums and the Iberoamerican perspective.
For the UK higher education one they mainly adopted a delphi approach, working with a small group from the education/technology field. The wiki I linked to above also has additional resources and discussion, and people are encouraged to add material in various ways.
I was just alerted to this today, by a blog post from Peter Miller so I have only skimmed the wiki and report superficially, but that won't stop me from making a few comments. One is that it is definitely worth looking at, to learn and (in the UK anyway) to gauge the kind of assumptions and priorities that underly the report.
Unsurprisingly, there is a good deal of overlap between the main Horizon 2011 report (published at the start of the year) and the UK one. Cloud computing, which is one of the "one year or less" items in the UK report is an underpinning element in the main report. The highlighted technologies are: One year or less - cloud computing, mobiles, open content, tablet computing; 2-3 years - game-based learning, learning analytics, new scholarship, semantic applications; 4-5 years - augmented reality, collective intelligence, smart objects, telepresence.

Again unsurprisingly technology is centre stage, so (in my opinion) the need to (for learning and teaching applications) approach things from the learning need (rather than some technological requirement) gets a bit lost sight of.

I was also rather surprised that (for something aimed at the tertiary sector) the evidence and references were generally not that substantial e.g. quoting a Huffington Post article by James Gee instead of his books or articles that made the same point. Although the report is looking to the future, there is really quite a lot of research (if small scale) into use of innovative technologies in learning and learning management: at any rate there are a lot of peer-reviewed articles and some theses, and it has certainly got beyond the point where you have to rely solely on trade, conference and news sources. I suppose that I might notice this particularly because I'm marking Masters dissertations at the moment, and looking for the quality of evidence that is cited, but in that I'm probably not atypical as an academic. A good number of my students are doing small scale investigations in the area of social media or gaming.

Just to get in a final point, unfortunately this UK report doesn't discuss the relevance of information literacy (though, interestingly, the Australian one does!); however the need for educators and students to have "digital media literacy" is emphasised. As far as I could see "digital media literacy" is not defined, but it does seem to include some elements of information literacy.

If you want to go straight to the UK report it's at http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Technology-Outlook-UK.pdf. Also the wiki is well worth investigating, as already mentioned.
Photo by Sheila webber: autumn blooms, September 2011

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Social Networking for Information Professionals

Social Networking for Information Professionals is an aggregator site created by Judy O'Connell using http://www.scoop.it/, which presents items from feeds from blogs etc. in a bold layout. http://www.scoop.it/t/social-networking-for-information-professionals
Recently highlighted items include an online book, Web 2.0 Tools in Education: A Quick Guide by Mohamed Amin Embi
http://www.flipsnack.com/flips/07a0e734cb005effc2467a0b9q223583
Photo by Sheila Webber: first apples off the tree

Social Media week

I only just realised we are 3 days into Social Media Week, an initiative involving 12 cities worldwide. As well as a lot of twittering etc. there are many events being livestreamed, and since the cities are scattered around the globe, there is something going on at most times of day.
Home page: http://socialmediaweek.org/
Livestream video http://www.livestream.com/socialmediaweek
This is the Tagxedo picture created from Social Media week's Twitter identity, it seemed the thing to do

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The revised SCONUL 7 Pillars: session in Second Life

When: 21st September 2011, 12 noon SL time (8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/3bw7bte for times elsewhere)
Where: Infolit iSchool, in the virtual world, Second Life (SL). You need a SL avatar and the SL browser installed on your computer, to participate. Go direct to:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/129/242/22/

What: Sheila Webber (Sheffield University Information School) will present the revised version of the SCONUL 7 Pillars of information literacy, a model developed in the United Kingdom. Revised copies of the 3D version of the SCONUL 7 Pillars will also be made available. Sheila will also say something about how she uses the 7 Pillars in teaching. The website for the Pillars is http://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/seven_pillars.html

This is a Centre for Information Literacy Research event.

Monday, September 19, 2011

LILAC cfp opens

The call for papers for the LILAC 2012 conference is open. This is the major information literacy conference in the UK, and it will take place 11-13 April 2012 in Glasgow, Scotland. The call for papers will close at 5pm on 11th November.

The themes are: IL and the digital future; IL research; Supporting the research community; Transitions: from School through to Higher Education; IL and employability; Active learning and creative pedagogical approaches.
Proposals can be for: short or long papers, symposia, Teachmeet presentations, posters.
More detail at http://lilacconference.com/WP/call-for-papers/
Photo by Sheila Webber: the "colour of information literacy" using http://thecolorof.com/#find, which searches for images on Flickr and layers them one on top of the other to get the picture. Most pictures end up redder than this. I'm not sure exactly how it finds the images: I don't think it can be using the tags, as it found only a few on a tag I've used with hundreds of Flickr images; it looks like it goes on title.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

LOEX call for proposals

The USA's major information literacy conference, LOEX, has a call for proposals for the 2012 annual conference, which will be held in Columbus, Ohio, USA, 3-5 May 2012. The theme is: Energize! Accelerate! Transform! Proposals are due on Friday, November 18, 2011. Currently the call is for presentations or workshop sessions (later there will be a call for posters - mostly just open to students or interns - and lightning sessions)
"Successful proposals will model best practices, provide useful information that participants can use at their libraries, showcase effective and innovative practices, support collaboration, and be as applicable as possible to a wide range of academic institution types." There are 7 tracks:
- Cocktails: Engaging students with active learning
- Salads: Reaching diverse populations
- Entrees: Developing your teachers and your programme
- Combo platter: Collaborating.
- To Go: Learning on the go, anytime, anywhere
- Chef’s Surprise: Pursuing cutting-edge trends in teaching and learning
- Dessert: Measuring the effectiveness of programs and learning
Full info on the website at http://www.loexconference.org/breakoutproposals.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Whisky tasting at the i3 conference, June 2011

Friday, September 16, 2011

Events in Columbia and Missouri

Maryland Information Literacy Exchange (MILEX) holds its fall (autumn) conference on 28 October 2011, at the Loyola Graduate Center, Columbia, MD, USA. The title is: How You Teach is What You Teach: Best Practices in Information Literacy. For more info go to their website: http://www.milexmd.org/ They have a wiki with presentations from some former meetings at http://milexmd.pbworks.com/w/page/20920372/FrontPage

The Brick & Click Academic Library Symposium organised by Northwest Missouri State University, USA, is on 4 November 2011. This includes some information literacy sessions. "Now in its 11th year, the Brick and Click Libraries Symposium is a one-day event featuring concurrent and lightning round sessions that explore cutting-edge technologies, practical solutions, and timely topics. The Symposium supports the academic information needs of both on-ground (brick) and online (click) students, library professionals and paraprofessionals." http://brickandclick.org/

I was alerted to both these events by a discussion on the ili discussion list.
Photo by Sheila Webber: yellow border, September 2011

International Forum on Media and Information Literacy & Fez Declaration

I should have reported before that an International Forum on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) was held in Fez, Morocco, 15-17 June 2011 through partnership between UNESCO, the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University (Morocco), the Islamic Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO), the Arab Bureau of Education for the Golf States (ABEGS) and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and other partners.
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31456&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
They produced the Fez Declaration on Media and Information Literacy as a result of the forum. They assert that "today’s digital age and convergence of communication technologies necessitate the combination of media literacy and information literacy in order to achieve sustainable human development, build participatory civic societies, and contribute to the consolidation of sustainable world peace, freedom, democracy, good governance and the fostering of constructive intercultural knowledge, dialogue and mutual understanding" and make various recommendations: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/news/Fez%20Declaration.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tracery, September 2011

Thursday, September 15, 2011

LYRASIS online seminars on information literacy

27-29 September 2011 Practical Approaches to Information Literacy. (10:00 - 12:00 (think this is USA Eastern time) Cost: $230 members /$280 non-members "This three-day [3 x 2 hours] distance education class offers strategies for working more actively with faculty and students to change library learning environments — both physical and virtual — in ways that will more actively engage students in the research process."
11-12 October 2011 Using Technology in Information Literacy Programs . (2:00pm - 4:00pm) Cost: $170 / $220 "In this four-hour class, which will be offered in two-hour increments for two successive days, students will explore a wide range of technology that will help put any information literacy program on the map."
LYRASIS is "the nation’s [USA's] largest regional non-profit membership organization serving libraries" More info on the website at http://www.lyrasis.org
Photo by Sheila Webber: Plants, cemetery, September 2011

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Mick Healey's learning and teaching bibliographies

Mick Healey is a prominent academic in the education field, and he maintains a number of useful resources on his website; bibliographies and links. These include
- Active learning and learning styles: a selected bibliography
- Linking research and teaching: a selected bibliography
- The scholarship of teaching and learning: a selected bibliography
- Engaging students in research and inquiry: case studies
He also has a research instrument to download (aimed particularly at those taking an inquiry-based approach with their students): The student experience of teaching, research and consultancy – questionnaire
http://www.mickhealey.co.uk/resources
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bright autumn sky, September 2011

Monday, September 12, 2011

i3 conference presentations

Some of the presentations from the i3 conference (held in Aberdeen in June) are on the conference website at http://www.i3conference2011.org.uk/
They include:
Dr. Marian Smith and Dr. Mark Hepworth "Young people: A phenomenographic investigation into the ways they experience information"
Fredrik Hanell "A situated view on Information Literacy: epistemological issues and practical solutions through analysis of participatory media in learning environments"
Professor Eero Sormunen and Leeni "Wikipedia articles as a genre for authentic learning-by-writing assignments"
Photo by Sheila Webber: another autumn anemone, September 2011

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Grampian Information Conference 2011

On 10th November 2011 the Grampian Information Annual Conference will be held in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Conference theme is "Information: Skills for Learning, Work and Life. As you would expect with that title, there are a number of information literacy sessions:
Creating a structure without walls: the Welsh Information Literacy Framework (Cathie Jackson, Senior Consultant: Information Literacy, Subject Librarian –
Law, Cardiff University, Wales)
Learning Skills for Research: Information Literacy Skills of Incoming University Students (Anne Carr-Wiggin, Manager of the NEOS Library Consortium, University of Alberta, Canada)
Information Literacy - a practical toolkit for the future (Sue Cromar and Helen Adair, Aberdeenshire Library and Information Service/Aberdeen City Libraries)
Programme is at http://grampianinfo.wufoo.com/forms/grampian-information-conference-10-november-2011/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Mixed border, September 2011

Friday, September 09, 2011

Guide to Teaching Information Literacy: 101 practical tips

A new book is:
Blanchett, H., Powis, C. and Webb, J. (2011) Guide to Teaching Information Literacy: 101 practical tips. Facet. Price: £49.95. Price (to CILIP members): £39.96
ISBN: 978-1-85604-659-6
http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=659-6

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Marketing: Librarians as web search experts

There is a Google webinar on 13 September, 11am US Pacfic time (which is 7pm UK time), presented by Mary O’Kelly and Colleen Lyon: Marketing: Librarians as web search experts. "Librarians at Grand Valley State University offered a workshop to faculty called Using Google Like a Librarian. The deceptively simple idea of teaching faculty how to Google resulted in some of the most popular workshops the library has ever offered. Presenters will share their workshop content, talk about why it is so important for all librarians to teach their user groups about Google, and will leave time for discussion among participants."

To Register:
1. Go to https://google.webex.com/google/onstage/g.php?d=966747045&t=a&EA=tashabm%40earthlink.net&ET=c4d1a143fafb647bd709cd6db7597a1d&ETR=c872d06671861365879c13d93c2889bf&RT=MiM0&p
2. Click "Register".
3. On the registration form, enter your information and then click "Submit".
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rose and fly, Hailsham, August 2011

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Polish translation of IL guidelines

Kompetencje informacyjne w procesie uczenia się przez całe życie Wytyczne have just been published: a translation into Polish of the Guidelines on Information Literacy for Lifelong Learning
by Jesús Lau. The translation team was: Ewa Hajdasz, Matylda Filas, Justyna Jasiewicz, Renata Piotrowska, Ewa Rozkosz, Grzegorz Winnicki, Zuza Wiorogórska.
http://www.sbp.pl/repository/SBP/sekcje_komisje/komisja_ds_edukacji_informacyjnej/Wytyczne.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn anemones, September 2011

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Online information literacy

Mark Hepworth, a faculty member in the Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, recently posted to the lis-infoliteracy discussion list to say that he had been evaluating "e-learning sites for information literacy". "70 Higher Education (HE) sites and 7 from the workplace, were identified and screened, 30 were evaluated in-depth" The ones that came top were:
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/skills/ University of Sydney, Australia
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Divisions/Academic/Library/information-skills/infoskills/index.html University of Newcastle, Australia
University of Leicester, United Kingdom (the link that Mark gave seemed to have been changed: there are various tutorials etc. linked from this page http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help
http://skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/ University of Leeds, United Kingdom
https://pilot.library.qut.edu.au/index.jsp Queensland University of Technology, Australia
http://www.open.ac.uk/safari/ Open University, United Kingdom
To quote Mark again "Very few e-learning packages helped people with thinking skills, such as critical analysis, synthesis etc. of information found in articles, Web pages, books etc. or navigating and extracting information efficiently" He will be publishing more information in due course in his blog at http://markhepworthsblog.blogspot.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: red rose, August 2011

Monday, September 05, 2011

ALT-C (elearning conference) papers

Papers from the 2011 ALT Conference are available full text at http://www.alt.ac.uk/alt-c-2011/pubs. This is a major e-learning conference in the UK. These papars are not to do with information literacy, but could be of interest to those concerned with elearning. An example title is "Learning Through Online Discussion: A Framework Evidenced in Learners' Interactions" by Yvonne Bain.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rose hips, September 2011

Thursday, September 01, 2011

LILAC 2012

The UK's major information literacy conference, LILAC, will be held at Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland, 11-13 April 2012. The twitter presence is http://twitter.com/#!/lilac_2012 and the LILAC website is at http://lilacconference.com/WP/ although there is no further info about 2012 at time of writing
Photo by Sheila Webber: In Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, 2006