Information Literacy Weblog

The Missing Link: making the connection between information literacy and an excellent student experience

2012-01-27T12:49:00.004Z

On 19 March 2012, Birmingham City University Library and Learning Resources has a conference on its City South Campus, Birmingham, UK: The Missing Link: making the connection between information literacy and an excellent student experience.
"This conference is for you if you are interested in Information Literacy and if you would like to take advantage of some professional networking opportunities. The presentations and workshops/seminars will be focussing around the three themes of the conference: Inspirations, Innovations and Collaboration. The speakers are practitioners in the field of Information Literacy or actively involved in student learning. They will be presenting their experiences on the various projects and collaborative efforts they have been involved in and will also be sharing with you some of their inspiring and innovative ideas."
More info at http://library.bcu.ac.uk/conferencemissing.htm or email libraryConferences@bcu.ac.uk
Photo by Sheila webber: apple, leaf, November 2011

Another journal special issue! Infolit policy

2012-01-26T17:44:00.004Z

Library Trends, volume 60 issue 2, Fall 2011, focuses on "Towards policy formulation" on information literacy, a special issue edited by John Crawford. This looks a very interesting issue! This is a priced journal.
- Introduction: Information Literacy Beyond the Academy: Towards Policy Formulation; by John Crawford
- Information Literacy Advocacy-Woody's Ten Commandments; by Forrest Woody Horton, Jr.
- Trapped Between a Rock and a Hard Place: What Counts as Information Literacy in the Workplace and How Is It Conceptualized? by Annemaree Lloyd
- How Information Literacy becomes Policy: An Analysis Using the Multiple Streams framework; by Sharon Weiner
- Empowerment or Instrumental Progressivism? Analyzing Information Literacy Policies; by Andrew Whitworth
- The Concept of Information Literacy in Policy-Making Texts: An Imperialistic Project? by Ola Pilerot and Jenny Lindberg
- Is There a Right To Information Literacy? A Practice in Search of a Policy; by Catherine Haras and Stephanie Sterling Brasley
- Reconnecting Information Literacy Policy with the Core Values of Librarianship; by
Heidi LM Jacobs and Selinda Berg
- A Framework for Analysing and Comparing Information Literacy Policies in European Countries; by Carla Basili
- National Information Literacy Framework (Scotland): Pioneering Work to Influence Policy-Making or Tinkering at the Edges? by Christine Irving
- Think Global, Act Local: Expanding the Agenda for Media Literacy Education in the United States; by Vanessa Domine
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter trees, Sheffield, January 2012.

LILAC registration open

2012-01-25T21:11:00.004Z

Booking is open for the LILAC 2012 (information literacy) conference to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, 11-13 April 2012. There is now a Linked In group, a Facebook group and a Twitter feed (they are all linked from the LILAC home page, at the bottom).
http://lilacconference.com/WP/
Photo by Sheila Webber: lilac in a dickerware vase, 2005

Information Literacy in the Workplace

2012-01-24T23:59:00.000Z

The new issue of Education Libraries, the open-access journal published by the Education Division of the (US) Special Libraries Association, focuses on workplace information literacy. This is Volume 34, Number 2; Winter 2011. Key articles are:
Information Literacy and the Workforce: A Review; by Sharon Weiner
21st Century Workforce Initiatives: A New Wave of Educational Reform Movements; by Laura L. Leavitt
From the Classroom to the Boardroom: The Impact of Information Literacy Instruction on Workplace Research Skills; by Tiffini Travis
There is also an annotated bibliography, which I'm happy to say mentions this blog, though it says it started in 2008 (rather than 2005)
The journal home page is at http://units.sla.org/division/ded/education_libraries.html and the pdf of the issue is at http://units.sla.org/division/ded/educationlibraries/34-2.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bingxin Liu (MSc Information Management) and her parents, at our graduation ceremony for Masters students on 12th January; I supervised her dissertation.

"Last Wednesday" infolit discussion

2012-01-24T23:30:00.000Z

On Wednesday 25 January 2012 at 2pm USA Eastern Time (7pm UK time, 11AM US Pacific Time) there will be a "Last Wednesday" information literacy discussion using tinychat, sponsored by the ACRL (US Association of College and Research Libraries) Science and Technology Section’s Information Literacy Committee. To join the discussion, go to http://tinychat.com/steminfolit

Mobile information literacy; 2 articles

2012-01-23T23:37:00.003Z

1. Havelka, S. and Verbovetskaya, A. (2012) "Mobile information literacy: Let’s use an app for that!" College and research libraries news, 73 (1), 22-23. http://crln.acrl.org/content/73/1/22.full. A short article. Their mobile resources page, as an example, is at http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/library/database-mobile.php Thanks to Mark Jones, who highlighted this article.

2. Yarmey, K. (2011) "Student Information Literacy in the Mobile Environment." EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 34 (1). http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/StudentInformationLiteracyinth/225860 A longer article which reports on a survey at the University of Scranton, USA. Their "Smartphone Survey" was aiming to investigate students' use of them for searching and evaluating information, and assimilating the information. "The results of the Scranton Smartphone Survey indicate that, while students are interested in using their phones for academic purposes, they still require guidance from educators to choose the most appropriate mobile resource and to evaluate mobile websites and mobile apps." One interesting thing was the range of things (e.g. spoken words, barcodes, pictures) used to start a search, and this varied by device.
Photo by Sheila Webber: First snowdrops, January 2012

SCONUL digital literacy and open content lenses

2012-01-21T09:55:00.000Z

When it launched the revised Seven Pillars model of Information Literacy (shown right), the (UK) Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) said they aimed to develop further "lenses" on the pillars. They have just updated the draft of The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy through a Digital Literacy lens and there is also the draft of an Open Content lens. The 7 Pillars page, with the links, is at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/seven_pillars.html
Ant article by Alison Mackenzie in the Guardian on Wednesday talks briefly about the digital lens: http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jan/18/information-literacy?newsfeed=true

Film clips of libraries

2012-01-20T18:03:00.003Z

This is about library publicity not infolit - a clever compilation of film clips which have libraries in them. Thanks to Richard Wakeford who drew this to my attention. The tag line is "Visit the Greene County Public Library to check out any of these films!"

Thoughts about SOPA/PIPA protest

2012-01-18T18:45:00.001Z

Many of you will have heard about the one day "strike" being held today by some websites, to protest against the proposed legislation SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (The Protect IP Act). You can find out more about this on the SOPA Strike website. The most publicised action has been the blackout of the English-language Wikipedia site (although not its mobile version).
I do think that these bills are worrying, so broadly support the campaign. However, the protest actions have also raised some worrying issues.
I have been ill at home with a nasty bug for the last couple of days, and not checking my social media like I usually do. I was a bit disturbed to find out when I logged in, just now, that Flickr, as a protest, has been allowing members to block not just their own pictures, but other people's. This has a limit of 10 pictures that can be blocked, and you can "opt out from any photo" of yours being blocked - still I feel uncomfortable that Flickr is allowing other people to block my content. The opt-out clause is all very well, but if like me you have been out of it for a day or so you aren't aware that you NEED to opt out.
Some people who have made significant contributions to Wikipedia have also debated the ethics of an editorial collective making this decision about content created by a whole lot of other people. One of the issues that concerns me about SOPA/PIPA is the way in which US legislation can affect people in other countries (like me), but today also shows that actions by those who are "well intentioned" can also deprive people of access and rights.
The discussions about how companies are taking decisions based on commercial issues (e.g. likely protests from advertisers) are also interesting. As SilverPanda commented on a post at the Verge, "Wikipedia doesn’t have ads so it can do whatever it wants."
Altogether a day that gives someone like me, who has a lot of content in "the cloud" (including my university email account...) pause for thought.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Graduation Hall, Sheffield University, January 2012

New articles in JOLIS

2012-01-17T19:46:00.001Z

Huvila, I. (2011) “The complete information literacy? Unforgetting creation and organization of information.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43 (4), 237-245. "Even though the concept of information literacy typically embraces an idea of a complete participation in an information community, its definitions have tended to underline the phases of seeking, searching and evaluation instead of creating information. Shortcomings of information creation can, however, explain many of the difficulties of finding information. This article develops the notion of information literacy with a specific focus on integrating creation and organization of information as central aspects of being information literate and discusses the implications of developing information creation processes from the point of view of information professionals and users. Finally, suggestions are made for how information creation might be improved in practice."

Sales, D. and Pinto, M. (2011) "The professional translator and information literacy: Perceptions and needs." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43 (4) 246-260
JOLIS is a priced publication: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journal201675
Photo by Sheila Webber: Brussels sprouts at Blackheath farmers' market, January 2012

Library and Information Research - new issue

2012-01-14T09:21:00.000Z

Vol 35, No 111 (2011) of Library and Information Research has been published. It is an open-access online journal. Articles include:
- Practical tips on interviewing the great and the good by Barbara Jo Buckley Owen
- Considering the place of practice-based evidence within Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) by Denise Koufogiannakis
- Creating information literacy partnerships in Higher Education by Clare Joanne McCluskey
- Quantitative vs. qualitative – do different research methods give us consistent information about our users and their library space needs? by Susan E Montgomery
http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter tree, Sheffield, January 2012

Infolit Toolkit

2012-01-13T09:49:00.000Z

Ohio State University Libraries recently announced their Infolit Toolkit "The goal of the toolkit is to provide a framework for sharing resources, insights and discussions that can enhance the teaching of information literacy on our campus and to support faculty efforts towards that end. The toolkit consists of tools, blog posts, interactive commenting features, and linking features that allow participants to find and share aids for teaching IL and to deepen their own understanding of IL." The tools, blog posts and links can be browsed and are also grouped under the headings "Advising Students", "Teaching", "Research" and "New Faculty". http://library.osu.edu/toolkit/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield winter trees, January 2012.

(UK) National Library Day

2012-01-12T06:34:00.000Z

February 4 2012 is the United Kingdom's National Libraries Day "a national celebration of libraries, librarians and library staff." There is a website at http://www.nationallibrariesday.org.uk The hashtag is #nld12 and the event is on Facebook and Twitter (@NatLibrariesDay) and has a Flickr pool at http://www.flickr.com/groups/1801651@N25/ The logo shown here,by richhawk57, is available from the Flickr pool under a Creative Commons License.

Manchester Teachmeet

2012-01-12T02:18:00.001Z

A few places left at the Manchester (UK) Teachmeet on Tuesday 17 January): http://manchesterlibtm.eventbrite.com/

Online training

2012-01-11T23:29:00.000Z

Diane Kovacs offers self-paced online training courses, some of which are approved by the (US) Medical Library Association for Continuing Education credits.
They include: Instructional Design for Online Teaching and Learning and Implementing Online Teaching and Learning: Using Moodle and Other Web 2.0 Features. Go to http://kovacs.com/training.html

Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

2012-01-10T17:37:00.002Z

Last week saw the announcement of the new Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education by the (US) Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). They define Visual Literacy (VL) as "a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media". The VL Standards include: an introduction & definition; brief discussions of VL as it relates to higher education and to information literacy; "suggestions for implementing the Standards"; a bibliography, and, obviously, the standards themselves. The document is at http://www.ala.org/acrl/files/standards/visualliteracy.pdf and the ACRL VL blog is at http://acrlvislitstandards.wordpress.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter trees, Sheffield, January 2012

Search smarter, Search faster

2012-01-09T11:40:00.000Z

Thanks to Sharmana (Alison Sharman) who highlighted this video from the University of Sydney from a few years ago, which provides an amusing take on search terms and Boolean logic. Sharman identifies that it is more successful with UK students than with students who do not have English as a first language and there are also some interesting comments on the Youtube site (e.g. "this lesson was boring and a waste of period 5 friday") but still it is worth a look. The video is on Youtube at http://youtu.be/Oa66AxTbjxA
Photo by Sheila Webber: winter trees, Sheffield, January 2012

Social media to update health care managers

2012-01-06T17:21:00.000Z

On Dean Giustini's blog (he is a medical librarian in Canada) I found a link to a recent paper of his, which can be read in full on his Slideshare page. It is about a workshop helping healthcare managers understand how social media could help them keep up to date (and obviously, keeping up to date is part of information literacy):

Read, K. and Giustini, D. (2011) "Social media for health care managers: creating a workshop in collaboration with the UBC Centre for Health Care Management." Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 32 (3), 157-163. This is Giustini's Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/giustinid
Photo by Sheila Webber: Robin, Hailsham, January 2012

Eisenberg and Vasil: Keynote speakers at WILU 2012

2012-01-05T16:20:00.004Z

Dr. Michael Eisenberg (University of Washington Information School) and Adria Vasil have been announced as keynote speakers at the Canadian Information Literacy conference, WILU (May 23-25 2012; Edmonton, Canada). Vasil is "a Canadian journalist who advocates for environmental issues, women’s and human rights, and the author of Ecoholic, a book that helps consumers make environmental product choices." The conference website is at http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Macdonald Stewart Sculpture Park, Guelph, Canada, taken at the WILU 2005 conference, May 2005

Library Impact Data Project

2012-01-04T17:36:00.004Z

I think I failed to blog about the Library Impact Data Project (based at the UnNiversity of Huddersfield), for which Phase 1 was carried out last year and Phase 2 is continuing this year. The aim of Phase 1 was "to prove a statistically significant correlation between library usage and student attainment." This they did by taking data from 8 universities and showing a correlation between class of degree and both borrowing books and using electronic resources. As they emphasise, this is a correlation, and you cannot prove causality, but nevertheless it is a very useful piece of research. They also did some focus groups, and Phase 2 is exploring further; it "will further exploit the data, investigate possible causal aspects and disseminate findings from both phases". The project blog is at http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/, with papers at http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/articles-and-conference-papers/ and a data collection toolkit at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/11571/
Photo by Sheila Webber: People photgraphing the huge Christmas tree made of Lego, at St Pancras Station, January 2012

Draft LILAC programme

2012-01-03T17:26:00.003Z

The preliminary programme for the LILAC (UK information literacy) conference (being held in Glasgow, Scotland, 11-13 April 2012) is available: http://lilacconference.com/WP/programme/parallel-sessions/
And - Happy 2012!
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath Farmer's Market, December 2011

How Americans find local information: study

2011-12-30T10:36:00.001Z

On Dec 14 Pew Research Center published a report in their Internet & American Life Project, looking at how Americans find details of local businesses. The survey was carried out in January 2011 via telephone interview of 2,251 adults in the USA, aged 18 and over.
When it came to restaurants, bars and clubs, 51% relied on the internet (especially search engines), 31% on newspapers (mostly print rather than online), 23% on word of mouth and 8% on local television. The results were not wildly different for information on other types of business. The thing that got picked up in the press coverage of this report was the low usage of social media (including Twitter), which was 3% for restaurants etc. and 1% for other businesses.
The report includes analyses of which demographic was most likely to use each medium e.g. those using local broadcast TV were most likely to be over 65, non internet users, earning less than US$30,000.
Rainie, L. et al (2011) Where people get information about restaurants and other local businesses. Pew Research Center. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Local-business-info.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Branches against the sky, Lewes, December 2011 (photoshopped)

Cfp: Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults

2011-12-29T10:51:00.001Z

The (American)Young Adullt Library Services Association's peer-reviewed, open-access journal, the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, has a call papers for its Spring 2012 issue on the theme of Twenty-First Century Literacies. "The issue will feature articles focusing on different twenty-first century literacies. Possibilities include information literacy, traditional literacy, multicultural literacy, transliteracy, visual literacy, media literacy, civic literacy, or economic literacy, to name a few. Contributors are invited to submit articles that focus on literacies from different theoretical, pedagogical, practical, policy and research perspectives. Guidance can also be found in YALSA’s National Research Agenda. Please contact Sandra Hughes-Hassell, editor, at yalsaresearch@gmail.com to discuss submissions and use the author guidelines." Papers are due by February 13, 2012. The journal website is at http://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Canary Wharf, December 2011

Reference Services Review latest

2011-12-28T10:26:00.001Z

The latest issue of Reference Services Review (volume 40 issue 1) is available online. Articles include:
- Demystifying the Data Interview: Developing a Foundation for Reference Librarians to Talk with Researchers about their Data by Jake Carlson
- Training Millennials: A practical and theoretical approach by Kathleen Langan
- Video lectures help enhance online information literacy course by Ed Hahn
- Research skills development through collaborative virtual learning environments by Adrian Stagg and Lindy Kimmins
- Digital Games in Academic Libraries: A Review of Games and Suggested Best Practices Mary Julia Broussard
- Empowered Library e-Learning: Capturing Assessment and Reporting with Ease, Efficiency, and Effectiveness by George Peter Germek
It's a priced publication, the home page is at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: Late flowering scabious, December 2011, Hailsham.

Alfabetización Informacional en Iberoamérica wiki

2011-12-27T10:31:00.001Z

This wiki on Information Literacy in South America (an initiative from Alejandro Uribe Tirado) covers articles, books, dissertations, past events, videos, courses etc. from each South American country: the majority of items are in Spanish or Portuguese. Alfabetización Informacional en Iberoamérica: estado del arte http://alfiniberoamerica.wikispaces.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: White Hart Inn, Lewes, December 2011

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T09:18:00.002Z

Merry Christmas to all readers of the Information Literacy Weblog!
Photo by Sheila Webber: the Christmas wreath I made this year.

News snippets: Malaysia; Dilgital illiteracies; Social media literacies

2011-12-23T17:54:00.000Z

Firstly, several places have picked up a news release today on Bernama.com, which announced that The National Library Malaysia has launched a Malaysia Information Literacy Module "in an effort to enhance information searching skill more effectively, accurately and correctly. The launching ceremony was performed by Deputy Minister of Information, Communications and Culture Senator Datuk Maglin Dennis D'Cruz at Sekolah Kebangsaan Padang Luit" "Speaking to reporters later, Maglin said the module was an effort by the National Library to provide guidance to the public in terms of skill in searching and choosing information to be read. It is important because it will determine the quality of information to be stored in our mind." http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=636151

Secondly, I noticed a short item about the need for digital literacy (and also, mentioned in passing, information literacy) in those teaching English as a second language:
Dudeney, G. (2011) "No place in class for digital illiterates." Guardian weekly, 6 December. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/dec/06/teaching-digital-literacy

Finally, there is a guest blog post on the Scientific American site. A researcher discusses what the digital divide might consist of now in the 21st century; as well as social inequalities she describes various skills in using information and social media (i.e. saying that it is not just about access to technology/internet).
Radovanovic, D. (2011) "Digital Divide and Social Media: Connectivity Doesn’t End the Digital Divide, Skills Do." Scientific American blogs, 14 December. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/14/digital-divide-and-social-media-connectivity-doesnt-end-the-digital-divide-skills-do/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Mistletoe, December 2011

Webcast of talk by Alison Head

2011-12-22T10:44:00.000Z

On January 10 2012 Alison J. Head, Berkman Center Fellow, will have her talk on Searching for Context: Modeling the Information-Seeking Process of College Students in the Digital Age webcast live and then archived. The talk will be at 12.30 pm US eastern time (see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120110T1230&p1=43 for times elsewhere)
"What is it like to be a college student in the digital age? In this talk, I present a working typology of the undergraduate information-seeking process, including students’ reliance on and use of Web sources. Since 2008, as part of our ongoing study at the University of Washington’s Project Information Literacy, we have surveyed more than 10,000 students at 40 colleges and universities (including undergraduates enrolled at Harvard College). We have investigated how college students find information and conduct research—their needs, strategies, and workarounds—for solving information problems that occur during course-related research and in their everyday lives. We have found the large majority of students we have studied across all types of higher-education institutions in the U.S. still attend college to learn, but many are lost in a thicket of information overload. They struggle with managing the IT devices that permeate their lives. Our findings indicate that nearly all students intentionally use a small compass for navigating the ever-widening and complex information landscape they inhabit. These and other findings of Project Information Literacy have profound implications for teaching, learning, work, and play in the 21st century." Instructions at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/01/head
Photo by Sheila Webber: "Let's gater with good friends" - sign outside Starbucks, Camrose, Canada, November 2011

Redefining the Academic Library

2011-12-21T10:03:00.000Z

Just published, the USA's University Leadership Council's report Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services
This has lots of short sections giving key messages and examples of what is seen as good practice, and what it sees as trends for the future. Google is identified as a key competitor. Key sections are:
- Leveraging Digital Collections
- Rethinking the Scholarly Publishing Model
- Repurposing Library Space (get rid of those open stacks and print journals, seems to be the message)
- Redeploying Library Staff (including to information literacy work. The report says that "Though information literacy is a growing presence in student learning outcomes and general education requirements, most institutions currently offer little more than a brief introduction to the campus library and its website." Surely that's not true any more?)
Full text at http://www.educationadvisoryboard.com/pdf/23634-EAB-Redefining-the-Academic-Library.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Seasonal items in Second Life.

ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology

2011-12-20T10:37:00.003Z

The 2011 ECAR National (USA) Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology gathered stratified data from "3,000 college students from 1,179 colleges and universities" via an opt-in invitation-only online questionnaire, in June 2011.
As usual, I have only skimmed through it, but it has interesting material. This is a sample of snippets, biased towards my interests.
"58 percent of all students say that online-only courses do not provide the same educational value as courses that blend face-to-face and online components, compared to 30 percent who say they believe they do provide equal value."
"Twelve percent of students say Facebook is “extremely valuable” to their academic success—and one in four students (25 percent) consider it “valuable” or “extremely valuable.” On the other hand, more than half of students (53 percent) think its academic value is limited or nonexistent."
"Nearly onethird of students (32 percent) say their skills using a course or learning management system, which is intended to facilitate academic life for students and instructors, aren’t where they believe they should be."
" .. the average student spends at least some time engaging in about 21 different kindkinds of software applications and activities out of 40 they were asked about.."

There is discussion around the importance of academics using technologies effectively, and how this influences students and their perception/use of technology "Projectors, Wi-Fi, laptops, desktops, and document cameras or digital overhead projectors are devices that instructors use “extremely effectively” to teach, mentor, or communicate, students report—and they’re generally technologies students also value highly. More personal technologies, such as e-readers, iPads, smartphones, and student response systems (clickers) are not used as effectively, students say."

Dahlstrom, E., de Boor, T., Grunwald, P. and Vockley, M. (2011) The ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. Boulder: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103W.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Angel on my bookshelves, December 2011

Journal of Information Literacy

2011-12-19T10:21:00.004Z

Volume 5, issue 2 (2011) of the Journal of Information Literacy is online.
There are a number of book reviews and the following articles:
- Information literacy in United Kingdom schools: by David Streatfield, Sue Shaper, Sharon Markless, Simon Rae-Scott
- Information Literacy and the Skunk Ape: Assessing the Impact of Online Library Learning Modules on Student Writing in English Composition Courses: by Randall McClure, Rachel Cooke, Anna Carlin
- Students’ Behaviour Playing an Online Information Literacy Game: by Karen Markey, Chris Leeder
- Tailoring Information Literacy Instruction and Library Services for Continuing Education: by Jessica Lange, Robin Canuel, Megan Fitzgibbons
- Is There a Difference Between Critical Thinking and Information Literacy? by John M Weiner
Photo by Sheila Webber: festive squah (photoshopped), December 2011

Libguide on lesson planning & Poll Everywhere

2011-12-17T10:01:00.002Z

There is a nice Libguide on lesson planning resources for trainee teachers at http://libguides.geneseo.edu/content.php?pid=82567&sid=619491 from Michelle Costello, Milne Library, State University of New York. This was mentioned by her in the context of an ili-l discussion about using Poll Everywhere as a tool in information literacy sessions; she uses it on this site to get ideas (not, in this case, about information literacy). The majority of people in the ili-l discussion felt that using Poll Everywhere was better than using "clickers" (personal response devices), but that you couldn't assume that all students had mobile phones, so you needed to enable those without mobiles to access the poll in other ways.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Festive items in Second Life

Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

2011-12-16T06:48:00.000Z

There's a new issue, 6 (3), 2011, of Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PESTHE) at http://www.pestlhe.org.uk/index.php/pestlhe. Articles include:
- Group role-play as a method of facilitating student to student interaction and making theory relevant
- Click happy?: an analysis of the use of an Electronic Voting System (EVS) in large group lectures to improve interaction and engagement
- Creative professionals for a world of complexity, change and competition.
The Tagxedo of the PESTLE homepage is meant to be a snowman shape...

cfp: Critical Thinking & Library Instruction

2011-12-15T17:19:00.005Z

There is a call for proposals for the Library Instruction Roundtable (LIRT) Conference Program, Critical Thinking & Library Instruction: Fantasyland or Adventureland? during the 2012 American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, USA, which takes place 21-26 June 2012. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2012.
"As librarians move beyond "how to" instruction sessions, understanding and incorporating educational principles and practices, such as critical thinking, will help leverage their collaborations with user communities." "Successful proposals will:
- Include at least one learning objective
- Effectively engage the audience for a 15-minute presentation
- Offer practical applications/examples of incorporating critical thinking (CT) in library instruction
- Suggested topic areas: collaboration with faculty on CT, teaching methods for CT, CT in the “one-shot session,” collaborating on CT in general education courses"
Four 15-minute presentations will be selected and must be presented in person at the session (on June 24. Please include the following information in prposlas on 2 pages:
1. A cover sheet with your name(s), title(s), institutional affiliation(s), mailing address(es), fax number(s) and email address(es).
2. A second page without any personal identifying information. This page must include: the presentation title, a brief abstract (250 words), learning objective(s), and a paragraph describing how you will deliver the presentation (e.g., PowerPoint, learning activity, etc.).
Send submissions by email to: Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, hartsea@muohio.edu
Photo by Sheila Webber: spiderwebs on rosemary bush, November 2011

Reflecting on 23 Things: using 23 Things in an Information literacy class

2011-12-13T23:14:00.005Z

Today I gave a presentation given in the virtual world, Second Life: Reflecting on 23 Things: using 23 Things in an Information literacy class. Firstly, I describe what is meant by a "23 Things" initiative, and identify some characteristics and examples. Secondly, I describe a "23 Things" initiative I have used in a Masters-level class in the Information School, University of Sheffield (Information Resources and Information Literacy). There are references at the end of the presentation. This is it on Slideshare.

Reflecting on 23 Things: using 23 Things in an Information literacy class

View more presentations from Sheila Webber

How to make Google behave: techniques for better results

2011-12-12T17:26:00.002Z

A seminar on 8 February 2012, to be held at the University of Birmingham, UK, is How to make Google behave: techniques for better results, organised by UKEIG and run by Karen Blakeman "Course Outline: Having problems with Google? Fed up with it ignoring your search terms and giving you something completely different? Or confused by irrelevant tweets from complete strangers appearing in your results? Personalisation, localisation, social networks and semantic search are all being used by Google in an attempt to improve relevance but it can all go horribly wrong. Austria suddenly becomes Australia and Google decides that coots are really lions! Nevertheless, just one really good result in the top five is often enough to persuade us to return to Google again and again. There are many tricks we can use to make Google return better results and this workshop will look in detail at the options that are currently available to us." For more info go to http://bit.ly/vLqXEl

Old information literacy videos: online

2011-12-09T17:40:00.001Z

Jodi Kearns, University of Akron, has made available online some newly digitised information literacy videos from the 70s to early 90s. She acknowledges the work of Lorelei Hoover, an LIS student, on this project. They are definitely interesting from a "then and now" point of view (including the hairstyles!).
Welcome to Eureka: http://www.archive.org/details/WelcomeToEureka
Library Research Methods: http://www.archive.org/details/LibraryResearchMethodsSrjc
Touring Goleman Library: http://www.archive.org/details/TouringGolemanLibrary
Library Music Research (embedded below): http://www.archive.org/details/LibraryMusicResearch
Surfin' Safari: http://www.archive.org/details/SearchinSafari
Library Collections and Services: http://www.archive.org/details/LibraryCollectionsAndServices
A Guide to Business Research: http://www.archive.org/details/AGuideToBusinessResearch

Information literacy meets E-learning: Let's talk about interconnections and outcomes: cfp

2011-12-08T19:05:00.001Z

There is a call for papers for a session at the World Library and Information Congress: 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, which will be held 11-17 August 2012 in Helsinki, Finland.
The session is organised by IFLA's Information Literacy Section and the E-learning Special Interest Group and is titled Information literacy meets E-learning: Let's talk about interconnections and outcomes.
They invite papers that address a number of questions of research and practice:
- Is there any evidence to show that E-learning effectively promotes self-paced and sustainable learning in the area of information literacy skills?
- Has E-learning enabled libraries to extend their reach to new populations, or provided their existing population with new services and fresh possibilities for learning?
- While online tutorials are mainly used in the academic environment for large populations of students, what strategies have been introduced in public libraries to encourage lifelong E-learning?
- Are there any advantages in teaching information literacy skills using a virtual learning environment (VLE) or course management systems (such as Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT) in a blended learning context?
- Can information literacy education benefit from collaborative learning through forum, chat and distance learning class experiences?
- What aspects of information literacy (eg information skills instruction, research process education…) are significantly enhanced by the E-learning experience? What elements of the E-learning have the greatest value in information literacy training?
- Many tutorials focus specifically on information seeking and citing sources; can E-learning go beyond this to address a wider range of information literacy outcomes?
Proposals should include an abstract of paper approximately 500 words, and the author'(s) details (name, institution, position) and brief biographical statement of no more than 50 words. Proposals should be sent to infolitelearn@gmail.com no later than February 5, 2012 and indicate “IFLA proposal” in the subject line
The successful presenters will be expected to submit final versions of their papers by May 14, 2012. Papers should be in English (or in one of the official IFLA languages, with an English translation attached). For more information, please contact : agnes.colnot@univ-rennes1.fr or g.hallam@qut.edu.au
Photo by Sheila Webber: sage leaves, photoshopped, November 2011

11th Annual Information Literacy Summit: call for presenters

2011-12-07T22:25:00.003Z

There is a call for presenters for the 11th Annual Information Literacy Summit: Transforming Information Literacy which will be held: April 24 2012 at John A. Logan College (Carterville, USA); April 30 at Illinois State University (Normal, IL, USA); May 4 at Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills, USA).
You may propose one or more sessions for one or more of the three Summit locations. Breakout sessions and panels will be 50 minutes long and should include audience interaction or discussion. Hands-on lessons and demonstrations (and/or practical takeaways) are encouraged. Sessions typically have 20-40 participants. Deadline for proposals is January 6, 2012. To propose a breakout session go to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGFIMEVUdHdjQmFYR20xdE9GRU11QWc6MA
Some suggested topics are: partnerships with faculty and administrators; living in a post-text world; defining media literacy; rethinking credibility in a 2.0 world; new approaches to teaching searching. The featured speaker is Dr. Sharon Weiner on Who Teaches Information Literacy in Colleges?
Photo by Sheila Webber: Neighbour's door, December 2011

Articles from SCONUL Focus

2011-12-05T14:02:00.005Z

SCONUL Focus (no. 52, 2011) is full text online, and as usual contains numerous short articles. These include:
- 'If the library is the heart of the university, then information literacy is the brain': promoting 'Information literacy week' at Salford University, by Sue Barker-Mathews, and Maggie Costello
- The value of libraries for research:some themes, by Michael Jubb (He is summarising points from: The value of libraries for research and researchers report (2011), available at http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/value-libraries-research-and-researchers
- Tech tips for librarians: Twitterfeed, by Paul Stainthorp
- The SCONUL seven pillars model of information literacy: 2011 update, by Moira Bent, and Ruth Stubbings
- University Science and Technology Librarian's Group: Information Literacy event, reviewed by Jon Fletcher
The SCONUL Focus newsletter is at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/52/
Photo by Sheila Webber: first hint of snow, Sheffield, December 2011

Communications in Information Literacy (CIL): new issues

2011-12-02T09:09:00.002Z

The latest issue (volume 5 issue 1) of Communications in Information Literacy (CIL) has been published. It includes:
Amy E. Mark: Format as a False Judge of Credibility: Messages from Librarians and Faculty and Student Responses
Brian Winterman, Carrie Donovan, Rachel Slough: Information Literacy for Multiple Disciplines: Toward a Campus-Wide Integration Model at Indiana University, Bloomington
Melissa A. Gains, Richard A. Stoddart: Supplementing a Librarian’s Information Literacy Toolkit with Textbooks:A Scan of Basic Communication Course Texts
Go to: http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php?journal=cil&page=issue&op=current
Photo by Sheila Webber: another picture of the Christmas tree in Sheffield, with photoshopped colour

Moving on up.......School/FE/HE transition

2011-12-01T19:24:00.006Z

On 19 January at Durham University (UK) the University, College & Research Group (Northern Section) has organised Moving on up.......School/FE/HE transition. "This Event is aimed at School, Further Education and University Librarians and examines the transition that most 16 -18 year olds make from School to College to Higher Education. It will consider what support there is for students making the transition and what can we do to help. There is an impressive programme of presentations delivered by respected and knowledgeable speakers who will be sharing their broad range of experiences and skills." Speakers include: Jackie Dunn and Ann-Marie Laws: "Bridging the Divide: Information Literacy the Forgotten Link"; Elizabeth Astan & Julie Archer: "Mind the [information literacy] Gap: moving from School or FE to HE".
To reserve a place, please contact Helen Ashton, Bishop Auckland College, 01388 443018, Helen.Ashton@bacoll.ac.uk
Photo by Sheila Webber: Christmas "Tree" in Sheffield city centre, yesterday.

Teaching Faculty Award for the Support of Information Literacy

2011-11-29T23:53:00.002Z

The Augustana Campus Library (Camrose, Alberta, Canada) of the University of Alberta has announced the 2011 recipient of the Teaching Faculty Award for the Support of Information Literacy. The award, which started in 2005, is an annual award given to an Augustana Campus teaching faculty member who has contributed consistently and notably to the support and promotion of information literacy at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta. Nominations are accepted from Augustana students, staff, faculty and administrators. The award is presented annually at the Information Literacy in Academic Libraries Workshop. (My photo shows Augustana librarian Nancy Goebel announcing the award at this event the week before last.)
The recipient of the 2011 Teaching Faculty Award for the Support of Information Literacy is Dr Neil Haave, Associate Dean of Teaching and Associate Professor of Biology on the Augustana Campus. The nomination indicates that "Neil has taken a leadership role in incorporating the information literacy skill requirement into Augustana's curriculum. He has worked closely with Augustana librarians on developing an information literacy model for biology. Neil promotes the broadening of and incorporation of information literacy skills as part of a liberal arts and sciences education".
I've mentioned this award before: I think it's a great idea, and they also have a similar award for a student. More information at http://www.library.ualberta.ca/augustana/infolit/awards/

Academic literacies videos

2011-11-28T18:59:00.001Z

Norda Majekodunmi of York University, Canada, recently announced on the ili-l discussion list that ahe and her colleague Kent Murnaghan had a series of videos, based on student interviews, which are about academic literacies. There is a tutor guide to accompany each video which includes a summary & transcript and examples of discussion topics and lesson plans. The videos are:
1. University Life
2. Learning Skills
3. Doing Research
4. Choosing Sources
5. Google/Internet
6. Libraries
7. Writing + Citing
They are available on the York University Scott Library Learning Commons
website:
http://www.library.yorku.ca/learning_commons/posts/learning-video-series/501 and the guides at: http://www.library.yorku.ca/learning_commons/learning-in-our-own-words. Norda adds in her post "Although some videos are York specific (i.e. University Life, Libraries) most can be used at any institution, please feel free to use these videos in your teaching."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Information Literate cupcakes at the Augustana Information Literacy seminar at Alberta University, Canada.

LILAC awards: IL practitioner; Digital award; Student place

2011-11-26T23:57:00.001Z

There are two awards open for nomination and an opportunity for students to attend the LILAC (information literacy) conference talking place in Glasgow, Scotland in April 2012.
Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year. "A long established award recognising an outstanding individual contribution to information literacy. The winner will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Closing date: February 29th 2012. (Sponsored by the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group)."
Credo Reference Digital Award for Information Literacy. "An exciting new award recognising a digital resource, programme or service which has made a significant impact. The winning group or individual will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Closing date: February 29th 2012. (Sponsored by Credo Reference)."
Student Sponsored Place at LILAC. "The award consists of conference registration, travel and accommodation expenses for a student registered on a UK study programme. Closing date: January 31st 2012. (Sponsored by the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group)."
Enquiries and nominations should to Nigel Morgan: LilacAwards@cardiff.ac.uk
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn rose, October 2011

Materials from Belarus conference

2011-11-25T19:49:00.001Z

Information Literacy expert Esther Grassian delivered a good deal of material at the Belarusian Library Association Conference (12-14 October), attended by library Directors and Deputy Directors from libraries in Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland, among others. She has mounted her presentations and handouts, in English and in Russian, on her personal website. It is an interesting resource including, for example: Expected Learning Outcomes examples for undergraduate information literacy instruction, a presentation on Goals, Objectives and Expected Learning Outcomes (ELOs) for School and Public Library librarians in Belarus; a presentation on Librarians connecting and collaborating with teachers/faculty, for a Plenary session and a Bibliography for the Plenary Session; a sample workshop for graduate Teaching Assistants to help them learn how to incorporate information literacy instruction into their curricula and assignments; and a handout Esther Grassian's 'Thoughts on Transliteracy'.
Esther expressed her thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, who sponsored her visit and also to their librarians who took the photo here (which is copied with their permission).
https://sites.google.com/site/esthergrassian/

Sci Tech information literacy chat

2011-11-24T22:17:00.004Z

On 30 November, 2011 (7pm UK time: 2PM US Eastern time; 11AM US Pacific Time) there will be the regular "Last Wednesday" Information Literacy virtual discussion, this time using tinychat. It is sponsored by the ACRL Science and Technology Section’s Information Literacy Committee. To join the discussion, go to http://tinychat.com/steminfolit at the appropriate time. "This month's discussion is on building and maintaining liaison relationships" (I think that means librarian-faculty professional relationships)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Mailboxes, Edmonton, Canada, November 2011

New articles on information literacy

2011-11-23T15:25:00.000Z

Nazari, M. (2011) "A contextual model of information literacy." Journal of Information Science, 37(4): 345-359. This describes her model of IL for Geographic Information Science/Systems. An article from my former PhD student, Maryam Nazari, now teaching at the University of Malaya.

Mansour, E. and Alkhurainej, N. (2011) "Information seeking behaviour of Members of the Kuwaiti Parliament." Library Review, 60(8), 671-684. This investigated things such as why they needed the information, what sources they used, and who supported them

Salisbury, F. and Sheridan, L. 2011 "Mapping the journey: Developing an information literacy strategy as part of curriculum reform." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43 (3), 185-193. Describes initiatives at La Trobe University, in Australia.

Shenton, A. and Hay-Gibson, N. (2011) "Information behaviour and information literacy: The ultimate in transdisciplinary phenomena?" Journal of Librarianship and Information Science September, 43, 166-175.

Shoeb, Z.H. (2011) "Information literacy competency of freshman business students of a private university in Bangladesh." Library Review, 60(9), 762-772. A survey was conducted to identify students' current perceptions and competence, to help prepare an IL curriculum for the future.

These are all in priced journals.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn beech tree, Sheffield, November 2011

3Ts 2012: Engaging Students with Teaching, Technology, and Transliteracy

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000Z

There is a call for proposals for the 3Ts 2012 conference, which will be held in Albany, New York, USA on March 16 2012. The deadline is December 1st. "Proposals should address the following questions: * How have you drawn upon metaliteracy or transliteracy to support student learning? * How have underlying principles and theories guided your inclusion of a specific technology or technologies in the classroom? * How did teaching and technology connect to improve both technological literacy and learning? * How has your teaching style or method changed as technology is now infused into your course?
"Proposals can include any meaningful integration of technology and teaching used to support the growing number of literacies students need for learning and succeeding in today's information-rich academic and professional worlds." Conference sessions are 45 minutes speaking/workshop time with 15 minutes allocated for Q and A, or a 2 hour workshop. Further info at http://threetees.weebly.com/call-for-proposals.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Snow in Camrose, Canada, last week.

Information handling in collaborative research

2011-11-21T12:40:00.000Z

Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies is a new report from the Research Information Network (RIN). "This study, commissioned by RIN and the British Library, comprising of a set of case studies looking at how researchers access, use and disseminate information in collaborations between higher education and business, public and third sector partners." The case studies concern:
- a large multinational collaboration involving pharmaceutical companies and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs);
- a large European co-ordinated action between HEIs and public bodies involved
with end-of-life care;
- a medium sized UK based project on material engineering involving HEIs and a
mix of commercial partners including large multinational industrial organisations,
Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) manufacturers and university spin-outs;
- a small knowledge transfer partnership, developing a software and hardware
package for use in residential care, involving one SME and one HEI;
- and a small exploratory collaboration involving a mix of commercial and third
sector organisations, and an HEI.
The report is available in full at: http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/collaborative-research-case-studies
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn pathway, Sheffield, November, 2011

Curriculum for Information Literacy

2011-11-20T23:13:00.000Z

On 10th November we (Sheffield University Information School) hosted a seminar on an Information Literacy Curriculum, run by Jane Secker (London School of Economics), Emma Coonan (Cambridge University Library), Helen Webster (learning developer at Cambridge University) and Katy Wrathall. I must also thank Lyn Parker, who did the organisation at this end. I have already blogged about this curriculum initiative, which arose from Jane and Emma's Arcadia Fellowship from Cambridge University. There is full documentation on their new blog at http://newcurriculum.wordpress.com/. This includes an explanation of the ideas behind the curriculum and recommendations on how it may be used and taught. There are 10 “strands” to the curriculum, and for each strand they propose learning outcomes, with example activities and assessments. The 10 strands are:
- Transition from school to higher education
- Becoming an independent learner
- Developing academic literacies
- Mapping and evaluating the information landscape
- Resource discovery in your discipline
- Managing information
- Ethical dimension of information
- Presenting and communicating knowledge
- Synthesising information and creating new knowledge
- Social dimension of information
At the workshop there were presentations from Emma and Jane about developing the curriculum and also from Helen and Katy about the next phase. This focuses (as the final Arcadia project) on ways of implementing the curriculum, through a teaching toolkit and institutional audit tool. The seminar at Sheffield also included a group discussion session (pictured), looking at things like barriers and enablers for developing information literscy in the curriculum.
Jane Secker has blogged about this workshop at http://newcurriculum.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/reflecting-on-our-sheffield-workshop/ and the powerpoint is also on their blog, under the Presentations tab.

People from the Augustana seminar: Clarence Maybee

2011-11-18T21:46:00.007Z

I am just about to fly back to the UK after delivering the Augustana Information Literacy seminar with Bill Johnston in in Canada (with the theme of The Information Literate University), and will try to catch up with my blogging over the next few days. To start with, this is one of the delegates at the seminar: Clarence Maybee (pictured right). He fairly recently started a very interesting job at Purdue University, USA, where they have a definite focus on information literacy. His post is "Information Literacy Specialist" as an Assistant Professor, with a coordinating role for information literacy. This is the page on his website that describes his research https://sites.google.com/site/clarencemaybee/Research and these are a couple of his publications:
Maybee, C. (2007) "Understanding our student learners: A phenomenographic study revealing the ways that undergraduate women at Mills College understand using information." Reference Services Review, 35(3), 452-462.
Maybee, C. (2006) "Undergraduate Perceptions of Information Use: the basis for creating User-Centered Student Information Literacy Instruction." Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(1), 79-85.

Information Literacy in the snow

2011-11-16T23:54:00.000Z

This is a cool photo that was produced by Nancy Goebel at the Augustana library, University of Alberta (where I am at the moment). She got student volunteers to spell out the words "information literacy" by lying in the snow. You can see that the letters are made of people more easily in the closeup of "info" at the bottom of the picture on the right.

LOEX of the West 2012 call for papers

2011-11-15T22:45:00.000Z

The LOEX of the West 2012 Conference Committee calls for proposals to be considered for presentation at the LOEX of the West (LOTW) Conference, June 6-8, 2012 at Woodbury University, Burbank, California, USA. The theme for the conference is : Creative Landscapes: Designing Information Literacy for All Terrains. More info at http://woodbury.libguides.com/lotw2012

Sheffield University, Information Literacy and IBL

2011-11-12T22:04:00.007Z

At the moment I am in Edmonton, Canada, preparing presentations for the Augustana Information Literacy workshop at the University of Alberta, Canada. This is why there has been a couple of days gap in my blogging. It is colder here than in the UK: here is a picture from today.
One of the things I will be doing is talking about Sheffield University as an example of information literacy being advanced through a university-wide initiative concerning a pedagogic approach (in this case, Inquiry Based Learning (IBL). I've blogged some of these items before, but here is a list of resources I'm mentioning
- There is an IBL website at http://www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/
- CILASS. (2008) Information Literacy. (CILASS Briefing Paper; 4) http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/07/93/44/Information%20Literacy%20Briefing%20paper.pdf
- Case studies of IBL projects with an IL component:
- - English http://www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/resources/casestudies/english/historyof.html;
- - Human Communication Sciences http://www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/resources/casestudies/hcs/introweek.html;
- - Library http://www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/resources/casestudies/library/seil.html;
- - Psychology http:// www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/resources/casestudies/psychology/publicpres.html;
- - Law http://www.shef.ac.uk/ibl/resources/casestudies/law/ul1.html (see also an account by two faculty in the Law School: Semmens and Taylor, 2006)

- Corrall, S. (2009) Information Literacy: The Case for Strategic Engagement. http://www.slideshare.net/cilr/information-literacy-the-case-for-strategic-engagement (Professor Sheila Corrall outlines the case in general, and finishes by giving Sheffield University as an example)
- McKinney, P. (2010) Inquiry-based Learning and Information Literacy: a meta-analytical study. University of Sheffield. http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/11/08/47/IL_meta-analysis_PM-FINAL.pdf
- Parker, L. (2009) Can't I just upload it to the VLE? Designing and embedding information literacy into online and blended learning. http//www.slideshare.net/LynParker/cant-i-just-upload-it-to-the-vle-designing-and-embedding-information-literacy-into-online-and-blended-learning (Lyn Parker is Head of Learning and Teaching at Sheffield University Library)

Infolit and ICT articles

2011-11-09T19:10:00.000Z

A blog called International Schools and ICT has been regularly posting abstracts of research articles: an interesting mix. http://internationalschoolsandict.wordpress.com/. On the day I last looked, the item was:
Sharkey, J. and Brandt, D.S. (2008) Integrating Technology Literacy and Information Literacy. In: Rivoltella, P. (Ed) Digital literacy : tools and methodologies for information society. Hershey: IGI Publishing. pp85-97.
Photo by Sheila Webber: last windfalls, November 2011

Information literacy in our future careers: videos

2011-11-08T23:00:00.000Z

The Information literacy in our future careers exhibition is something I've done several years running with a class that is core to three of our masters programmes, the MA Librarianship, MA Information Literacy and MSc Information Management. In the first week of the exercise teams of students start creating a poster to depict how information literacy will be relevant in their future careers, and in the second week they display the posters and explain them to each other.
This year there are 115 students, the majority international (over half the class is from China). They have a variety of career aspirations, particularly the largest cohort, the Information Managers. Careers that were addressed in the posters included headhunting, farming, and human resource management, as well as different kinds of information and library jobs. 30 posters were produced and you can see them all in this Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/sets/72157627880923331/
This is a short video that I made, asking some of the students to explain their posters.

In addition some of the teams give some very interesting accounts on their own team blogs. "Team I" did a video about their favourite poster which is embedded in this blog post (their own poster is one of the ones featured in my video, above): http://i23things.blogspot.com/2011/10/information-literacy-in-our-future.html "Team U" also provide a nice explanation of their poster here: http://ucanbloglikeme.blogspot.com/2011/10/il-poster-by-u-team.html
We ask people to evaluate the posters, and the two most popular posters were those from Team A (pictured at the start of this post) and Team N (pictured right)

Measuring the impact of information literacy training in Africa: questionnaire

2011-11-07T19:58:00.004Z

Siobhán Duvigneau (Information Literacy Manager, BLDS - British Library for Development Studies) writes "BLDS has developed an information literacy programme over the past two years which includes course materials and an online network for trainers and practitioners to share best practice.
"As part of this programme BLDS and the Research Information Network (RIN) are working together to develop a monitoring and evaluation toolkit, including practical examples, to inform the development and impact measurement of information literacy training. Much of BLDS’ work has been within an African context and so the intention is to develop a toolkit for African trainers of information literacy which will be widely disseminated through Creative Commons. This toolkit will include practical tools such as pre and post-course questionnaires, as well as case studies illustrating how these tools can be used.
"In the first instance, we are disseminating a questionnaire to get a feel for current practice in the development of information literacy interventions. We invite IL practitioners to contribute to the questionnaire, run through Survey Monkey. The questionnaire is open during the period 4 November 2011 to 25 November 2011 and should take between 15-30 minutes to complete.
"Following analysis of the responses, there will be in-depth, qualitative consultations early in 2012 in Africa at a university yet to be confirmed. Please indicate whether you would like to join these workshops and/or focus groups in the questionnaire. The formulation of the toolkit itself will follow during the first quarter of next year." http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/monitoringimpact
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn canopy, Sheffield, November 2011.

Christine Bruce: presentation recording

2011-11-04T09:28:00.000Z

Dr Christine Bruce gave an online keynote at the Library 2.011 conference today. I should have flagged this up in advance, but you can see the recording (audio, powerpoint and chat from the online audience). Her topic was The experience of information literacy and learning: reflections on social media. The link to the page where you can access the conference recordings is here: http://www.library20.com/page/general-session-room-links. A few others that caught my eye (but I haven't watched them: it's hectic at the moment and unfortunately I haven't been able to take any time to participate in the conference except for being at Christine's session)
Diane Fulkerson: Multiliteracy is the new Information Literacy
Thierry Robert: Presentation of a gamification project : an online serious game to learn information skills to 9-12 years old
Gabrielle Hayes: Tiers for Fears: QUT Library's learning and Study support service
Reneé Lyons: A Bird in the Bush: Pathfinders as a Tool for Developing Multiliteracies
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn leaves, Sheffield, November 2011

“Social Life” for Information Literacy Instruction

2011-11-03T10:17:00.000Z

A presentation for an online ACRL course was uploaded to Youtube by Lynn Lampert a few days ago. It is entitled Creating a “Social Life” for Information Literacy Instruction in Libraries and starts off with reference to The social life of information, a book that I have used in teaching.

WILU host sought

2011-11-03T08:09:00.000Z

The WILU (Workshop for Instruction in Library Use) 2012 Steering Committee invites proposals from Canadian libraries to host WILU 2013. If you are interested in this exciting opportunity please see this page for more information: http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/hosting-wilu-2013/

Short article on "Information Literacy 2.0"

2011-11-02T21:32:00.004Z

Farkas, M. (2011) "Information Literacy 2.0". American libraries. 1st November. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/practice/information-literacy-20
Quote from the end: "it’s critical that we develop instruction that supports critical inquiry in this extremely complex information environment."
Picture is of me in Second Life with one of my 3D models of the SCONUL 7 pillars of information literacy.

Presentations from Internet Librarian International 2011

2011-10-31T10:36:00.000Z

ILI 2011 took place 27-28 October and there are some presentations at http://lanyrd.com/2011/ili2011/
including 2 from Karen Blakeman (Visual search: Web Search Academy Internet and Searching without Google) and What's On the Technology Horizon? from Brian Kelly. The main website for the conference was http://www.internet-librarian.com/2011/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumnal creeper, October 2011

Insideyoursearch.com

2011-10-31T07:30:00.000Z

Thanks to Penelope Dunn, who posted this link:
http://www.insideyoursearch.com/ - you can either type in your own search words once the search box emerges (I will say no more if you haven't seen it before), or if you just wait, a variety of searches get typed in for your amusement.

Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian of the Year Award

2011-10-30T14:32:00.001Z

The ACRL Instruction Section is accepting nominations for the Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian of the Year Award. "This award recognizes an individual librarian who has made an especially significant contribution to the advancement of instruction in a college or research library environment." Submission Deadline is December 2, 2011. There is more information at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/awards/miriamdudley.cfm Please send your nomination to Polly Boruff-Jones at pboruffjones@drury.edu
Photo by Sheila Webber: Red devil, October 2011

Student exhibits on Facebook, Google, Wikipedia in Second Life

2011-10-29T18:33:00.004+01:00

On 27 October I presented at the at the M2N4SL – Midnight to Noon Conference for Second Life Educators and Researchers conference in Second Life. I gave brief details about the class "Information Literacy" that is core to the BSc Information Management programmes at the University of Sheffield Information School & which I coordinate. After giving this introduction to the pedagogic approach and design for the class, I took delegates over to our SL island, Infolit iSchool, where my students have mini-islands with their presentations about "Should Facebook users be concerned about privacy", "Is wikipedia reliable" and "Are the Google generation really bad at searching and evaluating information". If you have a SL avatar you can visit (the mini-islands will be there until February 2012) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/162/187/21/

Inquiry Based Learning with first year undergraduates

View more presentations from Sheila Webber

Watch it online 2 Nov: Supporting undergraduate students of the future: developing a new curriculum for information literacy

2011-10-28T17:00:00.005+01:00

Jane Secker and Emma Coonan will give seminar on 2 November at 2pm-3.30pm UK time (see http://tinyurl.com/5uezn23 for times elsewhere in the world) on the research they undertook as part of the Arcadia Programme at University of Cambridge to develop a "new curriculum" for information literacy. The event will be live streamed and the details are at http://clt.lse.ac.uk/events/networkED-seminar-series.php The seminar will also be recorded and available from the website after the event.

Journal of Academic Librarianship latest

2011-10-27T20:59:00.003+01:00

The latest issue (Volume 37, Issue 5) of Journal of Academic Librarianship (homepage http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333) includes:
Heather Sanderson: Using Learning Styles in Information Literacy: Critical Considerations for Librarians (pp376-385)
Ben Hunter, Robert Perret: Can Money Buy Happiness? A Statistical Analysis of Predictors for User Satisfaction (pp402-408)
Ellen I. Shupe, Stephanie K. Pung: Understanding the changing role of academic librarians from a psychological perspective: A literature review (pp409-415)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Farmers' market, October 2011

3Ts 2012: Engaging Students with Teaching, Technology, and Transliteracy

2011-10-26T22:39:00.003+01:00

March 16 2012 is the date of 3Ts 2012: Engaging Students with Teaching, Technology, and Transliteracy. It takes place in Albany, NY, USA and co-Sponsored by CPD, FACT2, SUNY Librarians Association Working Group for Information Literacy (SUNYLA WGIL). More info at http://threetees.weebly.com/
This website also has presentations from last year.
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn squash, October 2011

New articles

2011-10-25T23:50:00.002+01:00

The latest issue of Reference Services Review (Volume 39 issue 4) includes:
- Anna Marie Johnson, Claudene Sproles, Robert Detmering: "Library Instruction and Information Literacy 2010" (this is their annual annotated bibliography)
- Li Wang: "An information literacy integration model and its application in higher education"
- Erin L Davis, Kacy Lundstrom, Pamela N. Martin: "Librarian Perceptions and Information Literacy Instruction Models" (the "models are "for-credit courses and course-integrated library instruction")
- Michelle Kathleen Dunaway: "Connectivism: Learning Theory and Pedagogical Practice for Networked Information Landscapes"
This journal is priced: the home page is here.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Ripe red devil apple, October 2011

LOEX call for posters

2011-10-24T23:05:00.001+01:00

There is a call for posters for the LOEX (US information literacy) conference taking place in Columbus, Ohio, USA, May 3-5, 2012. The call is open to graduate students in library and information science programs and library fellows and residents. The deadline to submit poster session proposals is January 27, 2012. More info at http://www.loexconference.org/posters.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn in Weston Park, October 2011

Research supervisors and information literacy

2011-10-21T15:38:00.001+01:00

The Research Information Network has just released its report on Research supervisors and information literacy. Undertaken earlier this year, the study was "investigating the place and role of PhD supervisors in the drive to ensure that research students possess the necessary level of information literacy to pursue their careers successfully in academia and beyond." The consultants were Curtis+Cartwright Consulting and Cardiff University. You can download:
- The main report, including an executive summary;
- The summary of the questionnaire-based surveys (382 supervisors and 907 research students responded)
- The summary of ﬁve institutional case studies from 5 different UK universities.
http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/researcher-development-and-skills/information-handling-training-researchers/research-superv
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn leaves, October 2011

Embedding information literacy

2011-10-21T14:08:00.000+01:00

Hine, A et al. (2002) "Embedding information literacy in a university subject through
collaborative partnerships." Psychology Learning and Teaching, 2(2), 102-107.
"An innovative and multifaceted approach to the development of information literacy has been implemented at an Australian tertiary institution. The approach which involved collaboration among the university’s academic teaching staff, professional developers, academic learning skills advisers and librarians aims to empower students from a variety of backgrounds to confidently utilise a range of information literacy strategies. Scaffolded academic tasks afforded students the opportunity of acquiring skills in information gathering, recognising relevance, critical thinking and reflection. The project contributed to the development of independent, confident, critical thinking students who were able to meaningfully evaluate and utilise information in a variety of contexts."
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/validate.asp?j=plat&vol=2&issue=2&year=2002&article=6_Hine_PLAT_2_2_web

Information Literacy: esssential skills for the information age

2011-10-19T23:59:00.004+01:00

The first edition of this book is available full text (a scanned text, so the quality isn't brilliant). Not something new, but I don't think I've blogged it before. It's good for the history of IL (with bias towards developments in North America) and for summarising the state of the art up to the point it was written.
Spitzer, K. , Eisenberg, M. and Lowe, C. (1998) Information Literacy: esssential skills for the information age. ERIC Clearinghouse.
http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED427780.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: late blackberries, October 2011

Information Literacy in Romania

2011-10-18T18:47:00.004+01:00

This week, in the class I coordinate Information Resources and Information Literacy, I asked class members to link to an item about information literacy in their own language (using the team blogs they are maintaining in this class). Today they showed each other the material they had found. This Masters-level class is very international: about 115 students, over which over 60 come from China, and there are many other countries represented too. The students identified some interesting items, and I will be highlighting some of them in this blog.
The first up is a report on a Romanian Information Literacy conference, found by Cristian Dragu, from Romania. He says thatInformation Literacy can be translated as "Cultura Informatiei" in Romanian. This is his blog post that links to the item: http://w-teaminf6350.blogspot.com/2011/10/information-literacy-or-cultura.html Of course it is in Romanian, but there is always Google Translate ;-)
This rather blurred picture is of the session today when the class is starting to prepare posters for the "Information Literacy in my future career" exhibition

Our Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World

2011-10-17T23:02:00.001+01:00

A substantial online resource: Our Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World has been produced by The GoodPlay Project, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA (which includes luminaries such as Howard Gardner) and Project New Media Literacies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, USA. "Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments [e.g.Facebook, Wikipedia]. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation." http://www.goodworkproject.org/practice/our-space/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bindweed fence, October 2011

Information Literacy Month mascot #nationalforum

2011-10-14T20:52:00.001+01:00

The US Information Literacy Awareness Month has the hashtag of #nationalforum. It also has an honorary mascot in Barkley the Secret Service Dog http://infolit.org/nfil-news-and-events/national-information-literacy-awareness-month/meet-barkley-secret-service-dog/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sculpture by Dhara Brivera, Puerto Rico, August 2011

Information Literacy in Academic Libraries: Conceptions and Practice

2011-10-13T12:01:00.002+01:00

On November 11 2011 Purdue Libraries (West Lafayette, USA) Information Literacy Research Symposium Information Literacy in Academic Libraries: Conceptions and Practice will "feature Dr. Paulette Kerr, librarian and lecturer in LIS at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. Kerr will discuss her dissertation, "Conceptions and Practice of Information Literacy in Academic Libraries: Espoused Theories and Theories-in-use." She will also facilitate a workshop based on a model she developed." For more info go to http://www.conf.purdue.edu/ILRS. Registration closes November 4.
Photo by Sheila Webber: picked apples, October 2011

Infolit and business / management studies

2011-10-12T15:05:00.000+01:00

A new special issue of the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship focuses on Information Literacy. It is a priced journal.
- Kellya, A. et al (2011) "Course-Integrated Information Literacy Instruction in Introduction to Accounting." Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 16 (4), 326-347
- Campbell, D.K. (2011) "Broad Focus, Narrow Focus: A Look at Information Literacy Across a School of Business and Within a Capstone Course." Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 16 (4), 307-325
- Julien, H. et al (2011) "Preparing Tomorrow's Decision Makers: Learning Environments and Outcomes of Information Literacy Instruction in Business Schools." Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 16 (4), 348-367
- Fiegen, A.M. (2011) "Business Information Literacy: A Synthesis for Best Practices." Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 16 (4), 267-288.
The journal's homepage (with abstracts) is here
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn daisies (photoshopped) October 2011

ISIC2012: The Information Behaviour Conference cfp

2011-10-11T09:30:00.000+01:00

2012's ISIC: The Information Behaviour Conference will be held 4-7 September 2012 at Keio University, Japan. Deadline for submission of full papers is January 10, 2012.
Themes of the conference include:
1. Theories and models of information seeking and searching:
2. Research approaches and methodologies
3. Information seeking, searching, use and sharing in specific contexts
4. Organizational structures and processes and information seeking, searching and use.
5. Information seeking and searching in virtual social networks, including gaming and virtual worlds as arenas for information exchange.
6. Information behaviour in everyday life
7. Integrating studies on information seeking and interactive retrieval.
8. Information use: the nature of information and how information is used to help solve problems, aid decision making or satisfy an initial need.
9. The mediation of information behaviour
10. The design of information delivery systems to meet information needs
11. Information seeking and information requirements – integrating information science and information systems.
12. The communication of information to users:
13. Collaborative information seeking and searching in diverse contexts such as work teams or learning environments.
More information at http://www.slis.keio.ac.jp/isic2012/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn red devil apple, October 2011.

Libcampuk11 sessions

2011-10-10T18:11:00.003+01:00

Last Saturday saw Libcampuk11 in Birmingham, UK, there is a wiki at http://libcampuk11.wikispaces.com/ and one session which was particularly relevant to this blog was on Managing the Transition between School and University, facilitated by Jo Alcock and Jean Allen. There are some notes on the session linked from this page http://libcampuk11.wikispaces.com/Session+notes (scroll down it a bit to see that session)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Another red devil, October 2011

Singeporean study on information literacy

2011-10-07T14:20:00.004+01:00

Today carries a report about a study into Singeporean school children's information literacy. "Conducted by the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) at Nanyang Technological University, the "National Information Literacy Survey for Singapore Schools 2010" involved more than 3,000 secondary school students. The findings showed that the overall score across all info-literacy competencies stood at 38.7 per cent - some way off the ideal score of at least 50 per cent." The article includes comments from the Minister for Education, which do recognise information literacy (and it is IL that is being talked about) as important.
Ng, J. Y. (2011) "Information literacy needed for Singaporean student." Today, 6 October.
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC111006-0000061/Information-literacy-needed-for-Singaporean-students
The page for the research group is at http://www.wkwsci.ntu.edu.sg/Research/ResearchClusters/Pages/InformationLiteracyResearchCluster.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Michaelmas daisies, Sheffield, October 2011

Ada Lovelace day

2011-10-07T14:07:00.002+01:00

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in Science, Tecnology, Engineering and Mathematics. There is a website at http://findingada.com/. You are encouraged to blog or Twitter (#ALD11) about a women in STEM you admire. I will name Pauline Duckitt, who was an specialist information consultant with energy, enthusiam, expertise and style.
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) is often cited as the first computer programmer.

Learning Resources Conference 2011 Empowering the Digital Natives

2011-10-05T15:12:00.000+01:00

This conference is being held on 20th October 2011 in York, UK: Learning Resources Conference 2011 Empowering the Digital Natives, organised by the JISC Regional Support Hub Yorkshire and Humberside. The website is at http://lanyrd.com/2011/lrcon11/. Talks include:
Phones, Slates, Netbooks & Desktop Computers: information use across devices (Andrew Walsh)
Social Media Feet First - Managing your digital footprint and identities (Kev Campbell-Wright)
Think before you click: steps on the road to independent learning (Anthony Beal and Eleanor Johnston
Developing a New Curriculum for Information Literacy: theory and practice (Jane Secker and Emma Coonan)
Photo by Sheila Webber: more red devils, October 2011

"Health literacy skills of people who access health information in virtual worlds

2011-10-05T07:31:00.000+01:00

On 5th October at 12 noon Second Life time (see http://tinyurl.com/67md62f for times elsewhere) there will be an event Health literacy skills of people who access health information in virtual worlds. It will take place in the virtual world, Second Life.
Evelyn McElhinney, Lecturer in Advanced Practice, School of Health and Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland (Kali Pizzaro in SL) has started to collect data for Phase 1 of her PhD project "Health literacy skills of people who access health information in virtual worlds and the impact on real life health behaviour?" She will briefly introduce the project.This is a Centre for Information Literacy Research event.
Where: Infolit iSchool http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/49/30/20/

Truth, lies and the internet

2011-10-03T12:25:00.002+01:00

A report from the British think-tank Demos was released a few days ago
Bartlett, J. and Miller, C. (2011) Truth, lies and the internet. Demos. http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/truth-lies-and-the-internet. "examines the ability of young people in Britain to critically evaluate information they consume online. The report reviews current literature on the subject, and presents a new poll of over 500 teachers. It finds that the web is fundamental to pupils’ school lives but many are not careful, discerning users of the internet"
Little of the "current literature" is from the large body of information literacy literature (though actually there isn't a huge amount of research literature reviewed at all). The terminology in the report is a little confused, in that they conclude at one point that their survey shows that there is insufficient information literacy taught, their survey apparently referred to digital literacy (what it was asking teachers about was pupils' ability to deal critically with information on the internet) and their recommendations call for "digital fluency" to be made a priority in the curriculum.
With initiatives like this it's always difficult to tell whether different terms have been used in order to make the initiative seem different/ new or simply because people were unaware of all the existing work that has been done. It may seem carping, but it does make campaigning more difficult when people are using lots of different terms to describe the same thing, as you have to waste time explaining that X, who talks about Y, is actually arguing for the same thing as you are.
Anyway, the survey of teachers (gathered using a snowball approach to sampling) does add some new data, indicating that teachers think that their pupils are not very good at judging the accuracy etc. of material on the internet.
This is an area that is being directly addressed by the project here on Deep critical information behaviour"
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn heat in Sheffield town centre, last Saturday

2 articles in Portal

2011-10-03T07:03:00.001+01:00

Townsend, L., Brunetti, K. and Hofer, A. (2011) "Threshold concepts and information literacy." Portal, 11 (3), 853-869 .
"What do we teach when we teach information literacy in higher education? This paper describes a pedagogical approach to information literacy that helps instructors focus content around transformative learning thresholds. The threshold concept framework holds promise for librarians because it grounds the instructor in the big ideas and underlying concepts that make information literacy exciting and worth learning about. This paper looks at how this new idea relates to existing standards and posits several threshold concepts for information literacy."

Oakleaf, M., Millet, M.S., and Kraus, L (2011) "All together now: Getting faculty, administrators, and staff engaged in information literacy assessment." Portal, 11 (3), 831-852
"Trinity University has established effective strategies for engaging faculty, administrators, and staff in information literacy instruction and assessment. Succeeding in an area in which many libraries struggle, the Coates Library at Trinity University offers a model for libraries seeking to actively engage their campuses through 1) establishing a common definition of information literacy; 2) developing workshops and grants; and 3) engaging in campus-wide information literacy assessment using rubrics. Furthermore, a survey of Trinity faculty, administrators, and staff reveals facilitators and impediments to campus acceptance of collaborative information literacy activities that can inform the evaluation efforts of librarians at other institutions."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Red Devil apple, October 2011

Journal of Community Informatics

2011-10-02T15:50:00.000+01:00

Open access journal with a new double issue on The Internet and Community Informatics in Brazil is The Journal of Community Informatics at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej
Articles include:
Participatory Development of Technologies as a Way to Increase Community Participation: the Cidade de Deus Web Portal Case by Celso Alexandre Souza de Alvear and Michel Thiollent
Situating Learning for Digital Inclusion in the Social Context of Communities by Fabio Nauras Akhras
Garden of Literacies: ICDT Contributing to the Construction of New Realities for Digitally-Excluded Senior Citizens by Ivan Ferrer Maia and José Armando Valente
Photo by Sheila Webber: backwards clock on Thornton's chocolate cabin, October 2011

WILU 2012

2011-09-30T16:17:00.002+01:00

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

National Information Literacy month in the USA

2011-09-29T10:34:00.003+01:00

October 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.

New issue of Information Research

2011-09-27T22:50:00.001+01:00

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

2011-09-27T22:30:00.000+01:00

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.

DREaM workshops

2011-09-26T21:30:00.003+01:00

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

Association for Learning Development professionals in Higher Education cfp

2011-09-24T13:49:00.001+01:00

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

ACRL immersion programme

2011-09-23T17:43:00.001+01:00

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

2011-09-23T06:03:00.001+01:00

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

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

2011-09-22T10:11:00.000+01:00

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

Social Networking for Information Professionals

2011-09-21T18:57:00.000+01:00

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

2011-09-21T03:07:00.005+01:00

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

The revised SCONUL 7 Pillars: session in Second Life

2011-09-20T07:44:00.000+01:00

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.