Friday, December 31, 2010

A healthy 2011!

Following the last post, some health information literacy links to bring in the new year! A few recent/ current items:
- Angela Arner's Health information literacy for health and well being blog: http://aa47.wordpress.com/ and also the substantial list of resources on her library's page at http://www.methodistcollege.edu/currentstudents/library/library_detail.asp?PID=15&PCID=46 are both useful, especially for those in the USA
- Audio recordings and some presentations from the conference Health Literacy: Making the Most of Health which was held in February 2010 at London South Bank University, UK, http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/rbdo/external/health-literacy1.shtml
- The Health literacy universal precautions toolkit produced for the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and published in April 2010. "This toolkit is designed to help adult and pediatric practices ensure that systems are in place to promote better understanding by all patients, not just those you think need extra assistance. The toolkit is divided into manageable chunks so that its implementation can fit into the busy day of a practice." http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/literacy/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter branches, December 2010.

Call for health literacy posters

The Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) has issued a call for poster abstracts for their 10th Annual Health Literacy Conference, which takes place on 5-6 May 2011 in Irvine, California, USA. The theme of the conference is Health Literacy = Effective Communication: Translating Ideas Into Practice. The submission deadline is 28 February, 2011. For more info go to http://www.iha4health.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/327/MenuGroup/_Health+Literacy+Conference.htm
Photo by Sheila Webber: gated view of snow before Christmas, Blackheath.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Arsenic bacteria: example of a case for information literacy teaching

Since early December there has been a lot of controversy about an article published in Science about bacteria using arsenic in their DNA. A number of people pointed out that this was a useful case to use for an information literacy article. For example, Bonnie Swoger, a Science and Technology Librarian, did a post on 10 December about using the arsenic bacteria story as a teaching moment for undergraduates. As well as the original article there is much online commentary and other pieces of evidence, for example an interview with the first author of the paper, published later in the month, also in Science.
Pennisis, E. (2010) "Exclusive Interview: Discoverer of Arsenic Bacteria, in the Eye of the Storm." Sciencenow, 20 December. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/12/arsenic-researcher-asks-for-time.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: roses at Christmas.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Upgrade

Upgrade is a tutorial site from City University Library "working with the Careers Service, Learning Success and the Student Centre". It covers a number of information literacy and study skills areas, for example: information searching, critical thinking, exam techniques, "Using your personal information safely", interview preparation. The site includes exercises and videos: http://www.city.ac.uk/upgrade/index.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Christmas bauble, 2010.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all readers of the Information Literacy weblog.
Photo by Sheila Webber: the Christmas wreath I made 2010

Friday, December 24, 2010

Goblin game

A plagiarism game from Lycoming College, USA, Goblin Threat, involves finding goblins and defeating them by answering plagiarism-related questions correctly. This is a nice idea that has been implemented well, so worth checking out. If you clear the goblins from all the rooms you get a certificate. My only little quibble would be that (as with most plagiarism quizzes) I think with a few of the questions the answer is not as black-and-white as is implied (it could also be to do with differences in national and institutional practices). http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/plagiarismgame.html
I discovered this game because it was a Primo site of the month: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/sections/is/projpubs/primo/site/2010october.cfm. In this interview the game's creator explains how the game arose, how it was tested, and how it is used now, so it is also worth readng.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter branches, December 2010, photoshopped (neon glow)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Information Literacy in our future careers

There is an exhibition with posters from this exercise with my students in Second Life (which I blogged about here), and this video has snippets from the session held on 8th December in which I talked about the activities. If you have a Second Life avatar you can visit it at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/230/35/28/

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Project Information Literacy's autumn report

A couple of months ago Project Information Literacy published another report on US students' information behaviour. This included findings from 8,353 respondents from students on 25 campuses in the USA. "Respondents reported taking little at face value and were frequent evaluators of Web and library sources used for course work, and to a lesser extent, of Web content for personal use. Most respondents turned to friends and family when asking for help with evaluating information for personal use and instructors when evaluating information for course research. Respondents reported using a repertoire of research techniques—mostly for writing papers—for completing one research assignment to the next, though few respondents reported using Web 2.0 applications for collaborating on assignments. Even though most respondents considered themselves adept at finding and evaluating information, especially when it was retrieved from the Web, students reported difficulties getting started with research assignments and determining the nature and scope of what was required of them. Overall, the findings suggest students use an information-seeking and research strategy driven by efficiency and predictability for managing and controlling all of the information available to them on college campuses, though conducting comprehensive research and learning something new is important to most, along with passing the course and the grade received."
http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rowan tree, December 2010

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Best Practices for Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses

A new book is:
Hollister, C.V (Ed) (2011) Best Practices for Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses. ACRL. ISBN: 978-0-8389-8558-8. $48.00 "the work is a collection of previously unpublished papers in which contributing authors describe and recommend best practices for creating, developing and teaching credit-bearing information literacy (IL) courses at the college and university level." There is a USA focus. More information at http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=3222
Photo by Sheila Webber: ice: a way of diagnosing leaks

Monday, December 20, 2010

Faculty award for IL: a nice idea

The University of Alberta Augustana Campus Library has a Teaching Faculty Award for the Support of Information Literacy since 2005. It is given to an Augustana Campus
teaching faculty member who has contributed consistently and notably to the promotion of information literacy, and has been nominated by staff or students.
Dr. Roger Epp, Dean of Augustana Faculty and Professor of Political Studies at Augustana, is the winner this year. There is a picture and short video here: http://www.library.ualberta.ca/augustana/infolit/awards/#faculty
"Roger has really supported the teaching culture in the Augustana Library and enabled librarians to take a lead on Information Literacy initiatives both in and outside the classroom. He encourages and recognizes the innovation on the part of the librarians" noted Nancy Goebel, Augustana Head Librarian and Chair of the Award Committee.
This seems a good idea to encourage non-librarians to take information literacy seriously. They also have a Student Award for Library Research.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Snow a couple of weeks ago, Sheffield.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Embedded librarians

Thanks to Simon Hart for alerting me to the presentations from the LIANZA conference held in Dunedin, New Zealand, 28 November - 1 December. The proceedings page is http://www.conference.co.nz/lianza10/full_papers_and_powerpoints
In particular Simon highlighted the powerpoint of David Shumaker on Succeeding with embedded librarianship (here is the presentation). David Schumaker has an Embedded Librarian blog at http://embeddedlibrarian.wordpress.com
I will also mention the presentation at LIANZA by Jesus Lau on Information Literacy.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter branches, December 2010

Friday, December 17, 2010

Articles on learning to teach & school children's information seeking & transfer

Library and Information Research (Volume 34 Number 107, 2010) has two interesting articles.
Eveline Houtman: Trying to figure it out”: Academic librarians talk about learning to teach
"This qualitative research study explores, through the experiences of eight academic librarians in Ontario, Canada, how librarians learn to teach in the classroom. It uses narrative inquiry to study and share these experiences, an approach that is in the mainstream of teacher research, although little used in the library and information literature. Areas explored include the librarians‟ expectations of librarianship; what they learned at library school; teaching as learning; support from colleagues; continuing education; teacher identity; talking about teaching." http://www.lirg.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/246/303

James Edward Herring: School students, information retrieval and transfer.
"This study sought to examine the views of students, teachers and teacher librarians on students’ attitudes to, use of, and reflections on, information retrieval, when completing curricular assignments. A second element of the research was to investigate the views of students, teachers and teacher librarians on the extent to which students might transfer information retrieval skills across time and across subjects. The research was carried out in three rural Australian schools. ... Findings from the study indicated that a minority of students both valued and would transfer information retrieval skills; the majority of students valued information retrieval skills but were unlikely to transfer skills without prompting; and a very small minority of students could not understand the concepts of information retrieval and transfer. The study also found that the schools lacked a culture of transfer."
http://www.lirg.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/242/301
Photo by Sheila Webber: a snowman from last week

Thursday, December 16, 2010

cfp: The Importance of Information Literacy for Multicultural Populations

There is a call for papers for a session at the World Library and Information Congress: 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, which takes place 13-18 August 2011, San Juan, Puerto Rico. The topic is The Importance of Information Literacy for Multicultural Populations: Needs, Strategies, Programs, and the Role of Libraries. The session is organised by the Library Services to Multicultural Populations Section, the Information Literacy Section and the SIG on Indigenous Matters.
Subjects for this three hour session include: How do we identify the needs of multicultural population in the field of the information literacy? How can librarians, through information literacy programs, help develop understanding and tolerance for cultural diversity? How have you overcome obstacles to introducing information literacy strategies among cultural diverse societies? What are the benefits of offering information literacy programs to diverse populations and which strategies have worked best in your library? What unique or interesting ways have libraries reached out to diverse communities to provide information literacy?
Proposals should include an abstract of paper (approximately 500 words) and a summary of the author(s)' details (name, institution, position) and brief biographical statement of no more than 50 words.
Submit proposals electronically to ifla2011.il.multiculturality@gmail.com by 25 January 2011 and put “IFLA proposal” in the subject line. For more information, please contact Stephen Stratton (stephen.stratton@csuci.edu) or Zuza WiorogĆ³rska (z.d.wiorogorska@uw.edu.pl)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Helicopter, light and branches, December 2010

Librarian "TeachMeet"

There is a free Librarian TeachMeet at the University of Huddersfield, UK, 14.00 -16.30 on 9 February 2011. "This will be a really informal opportunity for librarians who teach to get together to share tips and experiences. If you come, be prepared to give a short (5 min at most) talk to share an aspect of your teaching. There will be "speed dating" to share tips and a lucky dip of teaching goodies to rummage through for inspiration." Go to http://hudteachmeet.blogspot.com/ or http://bit.ly/eN32GF for more information and email library.learn@hud.ac.uk if you want to attend.
Photo by Sheila Webber

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Exploring information literacy on Infolit iSchool

In this 5 minute video (produced a few days ago) I introduce some of the places on Infolit iSchool (in Second Life, a trademark of Linden Lab) where you can learn more about what information literacy means to you and to others.

Teaching LIS Students to Teach: An “Unconference” Session at ALA conference

I think this is only of use to people going to the American Library Association conference (January 7-11 2011). Teaching LIS Students to Teach: An “Unconference” Session is on 7 January 2011 in San Diego, USA. It is a session aimed at people (like me) who leach library and information students how to teach information literacy. It is facilitated by James Elmborg, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Megan Oakleaf, and Melissa Wong.
I have been teaching the Education for Information Literacy module for the first time this semester here in Sheffield (and we do cover teaching aspects in a coupleof other modules, notably Educational Informatics), but I won't be able to get to San Diego, unfortunately...
Photo by Sheila Webber: Canwatch is over

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

50 library/information blogs

I was contacted by someone from the Master of Library Science blog to say that I had been included in a list of 50 excellent library science blogs. A quick scan showed that their blog is essentially a promotional tool to publicise some online masters degrees, mainly in the IT/Education field. Still, it is quite a nice list of blogs, so I will go ahead and publicise it ;-)

Monday, December 13, 2010

UK Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year 2011

The Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) has announced that the call for nominations for the Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year 2011 award (offered by the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group) is now open. They welcome nominations from individuals in all sectors. Individuals may self-nominate or may be nominated by a colleague. The award is open to all IL practitioners working within the United Kingdom. The closing date is 28th February 2011. For full information on the nomination process see: http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/
Photo by Sheila Webber: University of Sheffield, last week

Promoting Information Literacy for end users

The TFPL course Promoting Information Literacy for end users is run by Elisabeth Goodmanon 10th March 2011 in London, UK (£350) http://www.tfpl.com/training/courses/coursedesc.cfm?ID=TR1531&cid=lim

Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education (volume 2 no. 1, 2010) is a special issue containing informative abstracts of papers (in Norwegian) from the conference held in Stavanger 2010, focusing on IL in higher education. It can be accessed at https://noril.uib.no/index.php/noril
Rune Brandshaug, Hege Faber, Almuth Gastinger, Tove Knutsen : Fagreferentenes rolle under nye rammebetingelser
PĆ„l Magnus Lykkja: Samarbeids- og innovasjonskultur i fagbiblioteket
Tove Rullestad, Anne Sissel Vedvik Tonning: Fagreferentens rolle
Mariann LĆøkse: Undervisning i informasjonskompetanse: Hva gjĆør vi og hva synes studentene?
Eystein Gullbekk, Maria-Carme Torras: Det nasjonale kvalifikasjonsrammeverket: muligheter og utfordringer for bibliotekets undervisning
Susanne Mikki : Bibliometri og forskningsstatistikk ved Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
Jan Engh: Elektronisk sikring?
Hege Faber, Solveig I. Taylor: Er sĆøking i google nok?
Ellen Nierenberg: En liten hĆøyskole som tenker stort: tiltak mot fusk og plagiat ved HĆøgskolen i Hedmark
Sigrid Gimse: Business information literacy: informasjonskompetanse ved HandelshĆøyskolen BI
Alexandra Angeletaki: Which educational role can Libraries play in a University learning environment?
Tone Gadmar: ƅ lƦre Ć„ kommunisere vitenskap: et innblikk i et masterkurs ved kjemi ved universitetet i Oslo. Utfordringer og erfaringer
Hege Folkestad: Modulbaserte kurs for PhD-studentar ved Matematisk-naturvitskapleg fakultet, UiB
Solveig Greve: Hva med de gjenstridige dokumentene? Fagreferentrollen i spesialsamlinger
Ingunn RĆødland: Fagreferenten – arbeidsoppgaver og forventninger
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield University under the snow 10 days ago.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Blakeman and Bradley on search, at Online 2010

I always recommend Karen Blakeman's and Phil Bradley's websites etc. as they are expert information people who keep up-to-date and share valuable advice and news. They were both speaking at the Online 2010 conference in London last week and have presentations on Slideshare:
Phil Bradley: Presentation with audio commentary on social media search at http://www.slideshare.net/Philbradley/onlinemasterclass-final
Karen Blakeman has two presentations (slides only, but packed with information):
Google’s New Search Features: has it gone too far? http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/googles-new-search-features-has-it-gone-too-far and The challenges of finding quality business information in a rapidly changing world http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/the-challenges-of-finding-quality-business-information-in-a-rapidly-changing-world
Photo by Sheila Webber: Playing in the snow last week

Thursday, December 09, 2010

7 Things you should know about Android

I'm blogging this since I didn't even know one thing about Android, but I see Android is being used for various library apps e.g. by Peter Godwin. This is a new white paper from EDUCAUSE in their "7 Things" series. I now know that "Android is a Linux-based, open-source operating system designed for use on cell phones, e-readers, tablet PCs, and other mobile devices."
EDUCAUSE. (2010) 7 Things you should know about Android. Educause.
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutAndro/219427
Photo by Sheila Webber: status report on my watering can

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

New issue of Journal of Information Literacy

Volume 4, Number 2 (2010) of the Journal of Information Literacy, open access at http://jil.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL
There are book reviews plus the articles:
- Susie Andretta: Looking at the evidence: reflections on the need for, and impact of, Information Literacy Education (ILE)
- Consolata Angello: The awareness and use of electronic information sources among livestock researchers in Tanzania
- Jeanne M. Brown, Carrie Gaxiola. Why would they try: motivation and motivating in low-stakes information skills testing.
- Elizabeth Gadd, Andrew Baldwin, Michael Norris: The citation behaviour of Civil Engineering students
- Stephanie Rosenblatt: They can find it but they don't know what to do with it: describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students
- Jodi Tyron, Emily Elizabeth Frigo, Mary Kathleen O'Kelly: Using faculty focus groups to assess information literacy core competencies at a university level
- Ned Fielden, Mira Foster: Crossing the Rubricon: evaluating the Information Literacy instructor
- Daniel Beck: The role of Information Literacy in the provision of virtual reference services at the enquiry desk.
Photo by Sheila Webber: trees around St Mary's church, Hailsham, November 2010.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Reference Services Review latest issue

Volume 39 issue 1 (2011) of Reference Services Review is available in preview online
- Jennifer Hoyer: Information is Social: Information Literacy in Context
- Michelle Kathleen Dunaway, Teague Orblych: Formative Assessment: Transforming Information Literacy Instruction
- Sarah Park, Lori Mardis, Connie Jo Ury: I’ve Lost My Identity - Oh, There It Is... in a Style Manual: Teaching Citation Styles and Academic Honesty
- Andrea G Stanfield,Anne C Barnhart: When Coming to Campus Is Not an Option: Using Web Conferencing to Deliver Library Instruction
- Brook Stowe: "I Can't Find Anything": Towards Establishing a Continuum in Curriculum--Integrated Library Instruction
- Yvonne Mery, Jill Newby, Ke Peng: Assessing the Reliability and Validity of Locally Developed Information Literacy Test Items
- Cynthia M. Akers: ESULA: Changing Perceptions of the Academic Library through Student Activism
- Nancy Snyder Gibson,Christina Chester-Fangman: Librarian’s Role in Combating Plagiarism
- Scott Collard, Kara M. Whatley: Virtual Reference/Query Log Pairs: a window onto user need
- David Ward: Expanding the reference vocabulary: a methodology for applying Bloom’s Taxonomy to increase instruction in the reference interview.

Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn trees, Hailsham, November 2010

Monday, December 06, 2010

Informe APEI sobre alfabetizaciĆ³n informacional

Earlier in the year the AsociaciĆ³n Profesional de Especialistas en InformaciĆ³n published a free 100 page book about information literacy, concepts and models, competencies needed by librarians etc. It is in Spanish.
CalderĆ³n Rehecho, Andoni . (2010) Informe APEI sobre alfabetizaciĆ³n informacional. AsociaciĆ³n Profesional de Especialistas en InformaciĆ³n. http://eprints.rclis.org/19154/
"The purpose of this report is to analyze the concepts related to information literacy (IL), introducing its main norms and standards, discuss issues on the evaluation and marketing of information and provide resources to have all the necessary information to know what the Information Literacy and how it can be implemented in libraries."
"El objetivo de este informe es analizar los conceptos relacionados con la alfabetizaciĆ³n informacional (ALFIN), exponer sus principales normas y modelos, analizar cuestiones sobre evaluaciĆ³n y marketing de informaciĆ³n, asĆ­ como ofrecer recursos para disponer de toda la informaciĆ³n necesaria para conocer en quĆ© consiste la ALFIN y cĆ³mo se puede poner en prĆ”ctica en bibliotecas."
Photo by Sheila Webber: another view of the igloo, today.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Information Literacy feeds

I am starting to reconstruct my page of information literacy feeds from blogs etc. at http://www.netvibes.com/sheilawebber#Information_Literacy_feeds I've got about 20 feeds so far (in English, Spanish, one in Swedish & English and one each in German and Polish) and will be adding more. Feel free to suggest feeds to go on it.
Photo by Sheila Webber: someone made an igloo (about 5 feet high) at the end of the road! It has survived the thaw so far.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

What information literacy means to our future careers

Event in the virtual world, Second Life, on Wednesday December 8th 12 noon SLT (8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/35d8lf2 for times elsewhere): What information literacy means to our future careers. This takes on Infolit iSchool in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/230/35/28/. You need a SL avatar and the SL browser on your computer to participate. I will talk about an exercise with Masters students which involves them in creating posters about how they feel information literacy will be useful to them in their future careers, including displaying some of the posters. There are about 90 students in the class this year, with a majority of students from outside the UK. I did a short blog post about the exercise here. This session will be in text chat. The picture shows the venue for the presentation/discussion.

Friday, December 03, 2010

WILU Final Call for Proposals

December 17th is the deadline for proposals fr the 2011 Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) 2011, Learning Under Living Skies, June 1-3, 2011 (in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada). For information about WILU go to http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/aboutwilu2011 To submit proposals so to http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/WILU2011_CFP_form1.pdf You may also submit your proposal directly by email following these instructions http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/program/call-for-proposals/email-submissions
Photo by Sheila Webber: Seated snowman, yesterday

Thursday, December 02, 2010

InfoRM tutorial

An information literacy tutorial mentioned in a recent posting on the lis-infoliteracy list is InfoRM Information Research Modules, a much revised version of the TILT (Texas Information Literacy) tutorial. It is used as a basis for a credit bearing class at Liberty University, USA: http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=19914
Photo by Sheila Webber: my watering can this morning (cf 2 previous pictures). Fortunately I don't see a need to use it anytime soon.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

First Wednesday IL discussion on Facebook

Later today is the Science Information Literacy Wiki First Wednesday IL discussion on Facebook (it's at 2pm USA Eastern time, which is 7pm here in the UK), sponsored by the ACRL Science and Technology Section's Information Literacy Committee. "To join the discussion, logon to Facebook and search for Science Information Literacy Wiki, then go to the SILW page Discussions tab. Today's discussion will be a Post-Thanksgiving Feast of thankful tips and tricks ... Please, share your bright ideas or just come and learn from others." The actual wiki is at http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Science_Information_Literacy
Photo by Sheila Webber: Snowman deciding whether to sit down, taken yesterday.

Media and Information Literacy resource

Andrew Whitworth has announced an interesting open educational resource, based on material that he uses on the MA: Digital Technologies, Communication and Education at Manchester University "This resource was developed as a collaboration between the School of Education and John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester, and funded by the Higher Education Academy (Information and Computer Science subject centre)." "The original course was written by Andrew Whitworth (see links below). The conversion took place with the help of Steven McIndoe and Ian Fishwick of the John Rylands University Library, and Clare Whitworth, who worked to convert the Moodle materials." The Media and Information Literacy for Postgraduate researchers resource has an introduction, and the rest of it has used Bruce, Edwards & Lupton's Six frames of information literacy for the focus of the learning materials. http://madigitaltechnologies.wordpress.com/infoliteracy/
Photo by Sheila Webber: watering can yesterday (cf previous photo). Today you can't actually see it under the snow.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Netvibes page about Web 2.0

I just updated my "Web 2.0" Netvibes page (I'm using it in a class tomorrow). It has links to some "what is ..." items, some items relevant to learning about Web 2.0 (I particualrly recommend the Cambridge University 23 Things blog) and some automatic searches on Web 2.0. It's at http://www.netvibes.com/sheilawebber#Web_2.0_in_general I also updated the Netvibes tab that has links to my own social media etc.
Unfortunately I realised belatedly today that my Pageflakes page that aggregated links to information literacy RSS feeds from blogs etc. has disappeared (or rather Pageflakes has), so I will try and recreate that somewhere else (possibly on Netvibes).
Photo by Sheila Webber: traditional photo of my watering can in the snow, this morning.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Article against library cuts

Everyone seems to be linking to this, so I might as well do so too: people are encouraged to leave comments to counter some of the "but we don't need libraries now everyone has the internet" nonsense that has been posted so far.
Bennett, C. (2010) "Without libraries, we will lose a mark of our civilisation." Observer, 28 November. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/library-closures-catherine-bennett

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Web 2.0 Untangled: Technology-enriched IBL

At #web2untangled, held in Oxford yesterday, Professor Philippa Levy and I gave a presentation: Starting as we mean to go on: Technology-rich Inquiry Based Learning in the first undergraduate year. The first part talks about what Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) is, the second part is an example of the IBL approach in our first year of the BSc Information Management, and the third part identifies some themes in the research literature which address IBL and technology. At the end are 2 slides of the references, and a link to the Sheffield companion to Inquiry Based Learning, which you can download from here.
This is the presentation.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Web 2.0 untangled: Scientific social networking

At the #web2untangled Lucy Power (Oxford Internet Institute) talked about Scientific social networking and open notebook science today. The conference is organised by COFHE and UC&R and takes place in Wolfson College, Oxford.
She said that scientists are using the existing Web 2.0 tools to practice open science, communicating with the general public, and to interact with each other. She mentioned the use of Friendfeed (which enables you to aggregate RSS feeds), where there is a group (for example) called The Life Scientists. Within this group, the scientists have very specific discussion about their work. Participants report using the Friendfeed group for things like: securing research funding, writing grant applications, collaborating, reporting on conferences, publishing, solving problems and searching for information. The scientists report that they are able to build up rapport throught the more "lightweight" conversations, as well as having more heavyweight exchanges, and both are valuable. They are also able to expand their networks (e.g. to include librarians!)
Lucy identified one scientist (Cameron Neylon) who she felt was using Web 2.0 to its limit, with an open lab notebook, by publishing about everything he was doing in his lab, on his blog at http://biolab.isis.rl.ac.uk/camerons_labblog. The second example was of the Open Notebook Science awards run by Jean-Claude Bradley (who I recognise, because he is also active and famous in the science community in Second Life!). The third example was of an academic who had his first year Physics students do open lab notebooks: example is here.
To summarise - why are scientists using these technologies? One thing is that they get fast answers from a global, expert audience. Also it is open and informal, and enables them to network and form a community. Friendfeed in particular is seen as useful because it allows you to aggregate feeds from all sorts of social fora (Twitter, Facebook etc. etc.) so you don't miss anything.
Involvement from librarians might include: using Friendfeed groups to get into an academic community, and helping in archiving/ accessing the discussions. Questions afterwards also included issues to do with promotion (can you put this on your CV, as an academic) and the relationship with formal publishing.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Grounds of Wolfoson College, Oxford, this morning.

Web 2.0 Untangled: Elluminate use by the OU library

At #web2untangled in Oxford today (where I'm speaking later) the third talk is from Helen Clough at the Open University. For those outside the UK, the Open University is the major distance learning university in the UK. Elluminate is one of the online learning platforms that they use, and the OU library is using it as well. Helen is describing its use, and the feedback they've had. Because I want to drink the coffee I've brought in, I'm goingto be lazy and embed the ppt here instead of writing about it ;-)

Web 2.0 Untangled: Ethics and law

Eric Davies talked about Web 2.0: Weaving ethics and law at the #web2entangled conference in Oxford that I am attending today. This presentation identified how may issues there were, and how few of them were really resolved. He started by asking us to talk amongst ourselves about what ethics meant. He defined it as "moral coices and the values that lie behind them", whilst laws were "agreed principles established by law and society".
Meanwhile, Web 2.0 is enabler of creative change - enabling distributed co-creation and so forth. He cited Shoshana Zuboff (Creating value in the age of distributed capitalism): with the focus now on individual creation. Eric characterised this as a mutation in the producion/creation process. This brings empowerment, but also responsibility, to the individual. However, the implications for organisations, as well as individuals, have not really yet been explored properly.
In terms of education he saw the mutation manifesting as e-scholarship, and changes in approach to learning and teaching. Eric mentioned Badrul Khan's framework for e-learning does include ethical aspects, which concern "social and political influence, cultural diversity, bias, geographical diversity, learner diversity, information accessibility, etiquette, and the legal issues." (quoted here). He also mentioned other studies which have revealed the concerns about Web 2.0 (such as identity, authority and security) and ways in which Web 2.0 has been used in education (e.g. building relationships, showcasing work). In the latter context, problems that have emerged include ownership issues, disruptive interaction, illegitimate use of content, protecting the anonymity of students and generally protecting their space.
Therefore key issues are: trust, privacy, data protection, copyright, plagiarism, unacceptable use (in terms of content and activity) and diversity (cultural diversity, accessibility etc.). In terms of unacceptable use, there are all sorts of ways in whichthe law could be broken, or local acceptable use guidelines could be breached, from statements that could be seen as inciting terrorism or were libelous, through to unacceptable advertising. Eric identified the great tension between enabling and regulating, with monitoring bringing its own concerns (e.g. privacy and censorship). This was seen as a big problem area that was not really being grappled with adequately.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Iced leaves in the grounds of Wolfson College, Oxford, this morning.

Web 2.0 Untangled: 1

Today I'm at the #web2untangled Web 2.0 Untangled conference in Oxford, organised by UC&R and COFHE. Peter Godwin started off the day with a talk entitled Library 2.0: bah humbug?. He began by highlighting how the number of older (50+) users has increased dramatically, and that we are finally entering a phase where e-books are getting used and not just hyped. Talking about the pervasiveness of mobile technology, he mentioned the ECAR study of undergraduate students and technology.
Peter thought it was the time to reflect on how useful Web 2.0 was, and what it was really for, as librarians tend to be enthusiatic about it, but students don't really use the range of Web 2.0 tools (e.g. are less likely to blog and use social bookmarking sites). He mentioned a new JISC report Managing students's expectations of university. One role of librarians is helping students to see how they can use tools like Netvibes to keep on top of material for their studies.
Coming to information literacy, Peter emphasised that librarians have a big role, but weren't the only people who were concerned with it. He felt that for information literacy in future, sifting and evaluation would be more important than search. Helping students to scope the topic was also important: students finding it hard to understand how they can home in on what they are supposed to be addressing.
In terms of creating material, Peter talked about Screenr (here is one of his videos), which I've been using for a while (though I've mostly used it to create videos about Second Life so far).
His final words were that for the social, mobile population, information literacy was about changing attitudes, not so much about skills.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Grounds of Wolfson College, Oxford, this morning.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Information literacy: what's in it for you?

A one-day event on 20 January 2011, held in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow , Scotland, is Information literacy: what's in it for you? "Hear expert speakers discuss information literacy in the workplace, in education and in general and participate in specially arranged workshops to help you explore some of the key issues." To book, go to http://www.slainte.org.uk/events/EvntShow.cfm?uEventID=2556
Photo by Sheila Webber: Beech, November 2010, Sheffield

Friday, November 19, 2010

SL journal club: 24 Nov and 14 Dec

The information behaviour/ information literacy journal club continues in Second Life, the virtual world. All are welcome to participate (you need a SL avatar and the SL software on your computer). These are both one hour sessions, with a short introduction in voice, main discussion in text chat.

November Journal club meeting
When: Wednesday November 24th 12 noon SLT (see http://tinyurl.com/2drtzv5 for times elsewhere)
Where: Infolit iSchool http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/126/239/21/
Pancha Enzyme (Edinburgh University) leads a discussion on:
Sundin, O. & Francke, H. (2009). "In search of credibility: pupils' information practices in learning environments" Information Research, 14(4) paper 418. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/14-4/paper418.html]
Please read the article - to start things off we'd like you to think about the questions:
- What strengths/weaknesses do you see in this study?
- How do you address assessment of authority/credibility in your information literacy teaching?
- What changes, if any, does this study prompt you to think about making to your current practice?

December journal club meeting
When: 14 December 2010, 12 noon SL time(see http://tinyurl.com/29uj8pw for times elsewhere)
Where: Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/126/239/21/
In December's journal club, Maggie Kohime (Sheffield University) will lead discussion on the article:
Hauxwell, H. (2008) Information literacy at the Service Desk: the role of circulations staff in promoting information literacy. Journal of Information Literacy, 2(2),
http://jil.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/ART-V2-I2-2008-2
The picture shows the journal club room, where there are links to the above articles and information on the first two meetings

LILAC 2011 booking open

LILAC is the UK's main information literacy conference. In 2011 it takes place 18-20 April, with the first 2 days at the British Library and the third day in the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Book before December 31st to take advantage of early bird prices: http://lilacconference.com/WP/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Halloween leftover, Sheffield, November 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010

ALIA Information Online 2011

The 15th ALIA Information Online Conference & Exhibition takes place from the 1-3- February 2011. It is held at the Conference & Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia. As you might expect, there is a focus on the digital library/ user, and the conference includes some information literacy papers e.g. Integrated literacies: every player wins a prize: Judith Peacock (Queensland University of Technology) http://www.information-online.com.au/sb_clients/iog/bin/iog_2011_programme.cfm?page=All

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Meeting on indicators for media and information literacy (MIL)

UNESCO organised a meeting working on a framework of indicators to measure media and information literacy (MIL) internationally. The meeting attended by representatives of 17 countries, and held on 4-6 November 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand. It involved specialists from the field of media, information, education, curriculum development, psychometrics and statistics. A document had been prepared by Susan Moeller, (Professor, Director of International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, University of Maryland), JesĆŗs Lau (Director of USBI VER Library, Mexico), Ammu Joseph (independent journalist from India) and Toni Carbo (Teaching Professor and iSchool Program Leader, Drexel University Center for Graduate Studies). It was decided that there should be two types of indicator:
"Tier 1 Indicators: intended to measure enabling factors that influence how individuals acquire MIL competencies and how well public and private institutions promote media and information literacy"
"Tier 2 Indicators: intended to measure MIL competencies for all individuals in a society with additional consideration for teacher trainers and teachers in-training and in-service."
There is a report at http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=30968&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html which also says that "The initiative to develop indicators to measure media and information literacy was spearheaded by the UNESCO Communication and Information Sector in cooperation with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the UNESCO Office in Bangkok. UNESCO is presently validating an action plan that was prepared and proposed by the participants of the meeting. The report of the meeting will be published by the end of this year."
Photo by Sheila Webber: I think I may have featured this photo before, but my university just grubbed this rose out of its flowerbed in one of their "neatening" exercises, so this is a memorial to how pretty it was ;-(

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

First Year Experience in Higher Education

Today, Bill Johnston was the guest expert in my Education for Information Literacy module here at Sheffield University. I don't think I have mentioned the book he published earlier in the year:
Johnston, B. (2010) The First Year at University: Teaching Students in Transition. Open University Press.
Amongst other things, he emphasises the importance of information literacy in the first year experience at university, and for lifelong learning. You can see a description of the book and download chapter one here: http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335234518.html

Monday, November 15, 2010

Problem Based Learning (PBL) Today & Tomorrow

Facilitate, the Irish Enquiry and Problem Based Learning Network, announced its 1st international conference entitled Problem Based Learning (PBL) Today & Tomorrow, May 26-27 2011 in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. For more information go to http://www.facilitate.ie/
Photo by Sheila Webber: blurred creeper, Firth Court, November 2010

Friday, November 12, 2010

Learning in a Changing World

Judy O'Connell alerted me to a newly published series commissioned by library associations in Australia. The Learning in a Changing World series "addresses how the process of learning is evolving – including the array of resources available in the digital age, changing curriculum, and the different teaching strategies needed in order to use new media and technologies. The Learning in a Changing World series presents the core areas for teacher librarians and school leaders to consider for 21st century learning: the digital world, virtual worlds, curriculum integration, resourcing, and the physical environment. All are essential elements to enable and empower our students to be lifelong learners and active participants in our society."
Judy worked on the first two books in the series with Dean Groom. These are called Connect, Communicate, Collaborate and Virtual Worlds. She notes on her blog that "Books like the two we worked on can never stay completely current – but then they are not ‘how to’ guides so much as ‘why you should’ and ‘why you can’ guides. There is enough thought provoking information for readers to leverage and help innovation and change in their own schools."
You can order them via https://shop.acer.edu.au/acer-shop/group/LCW/35
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn berries, November 2010

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Tweet n Cheerful

I couldn't resist posting about this seminar on use of social media because I like the title. Tweet 'n' cheerful: Social media skills: the future for you and your organisation? is a seminar organised by CILIP East of England ISG on 10 December 2010 at University Campus Suffolk, UK. Seminar leader/ speakers are Karen Blakeman (information consultant), Nicola Millard (Customer Experience Futurologist, BT, Adastral Park), Helen Leech (Virtual Content Manager, Surrey County Library Service), Carl Haggerty (Enterprise Architect, Devon County Council), and Lyndsey Rees-Jones. You can book online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NTHL7KW Closing date: 1 December 2010
Picture assembled and taken in Second Life by Sheila Webber: Remembrance room

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Hi tech and pop culture in information literacy

Here are a powerpoint on using technology and a description of a pop culture themed information literacy session. Firstly, a description of an information literacy session that used a programme called "Jersey Shore" as its theme, together with examples and links, on Amy's blog: http://ht.ly/34K7P. I don't think Jersey Shore is that big over here (assuming we can even get it on British MTV), but obviously this idea might be repurposed for soaps like Hollyoaks, Neighbours etc.
Secondly a new powerpoint from Meredith Farkas High Tech High Touch: Online Instruction: http://www.slideshare.net/librarianmer/high-tech-high-touch-online-instruction
Photo by Sheila Webber: Remembrance poppy wreaths.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Information Literacy in my future career

Today students in one of my classes exhibited their posters on What Information means in my future career. This is a class of 90 students, mostly taking our MSc Information Management or MA Librarianship. About two thirds of them are from outside the UK (particularly from China) and many of them are not intending to work in libraries: this year Information Management students named careers including IT consultant, working in accountancy, and managing an e-business.
As part of the core Information Resources and Information Literacy class they create posters illustrating what aspects of information literacy will be important in their future careers. They use flip charts and pens mostly, though in some cases 3D items and pictures were added (and one poster had a QR code!). They work in groups of about 6. Last week they started on the posters in a one-hour seminar and this week they finished them (though some had done some work in between) and we had the exhibition from 11-12. People circulated and discussed the posters. The aim is to develop understanding about what IL means personally, and what aspects are important for you to develop further, and it also develops awareness of what information literacy means in different work contexts.
I always find it exciting to see the variety of posters and to hear the discussions about information literacy going on around the posters. I included some information about the activity in this conference poster. Unfortunately most of the photos I took of the event are rather poor, these are a couple of the better ones.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Supporting the learner in the digital age: role and impact of libraries across all sectors

This is a study afternoon on 10 December 2010, at Loughborough University, UK. "The purpose of this study afternoon event is to both support the sharing of good practice as well as allow librarians to explore common issues and concerns." The event is aimed at all library staff with an interest in on-line services and/ or digital learner support. Places are limited: contact Katie Jeffers, Library Administrator at Loughborough University Library (e-mail: k.l.jeffers@lboro.ac.uk or telephone 01509 22 2341) if you wish to attend and/ or need further information. A charge of £10 will be made to cover costs, with money collected on the day (and a receipt given in return).
Photo by Sheila Webber, photoshopped creeper, November 2010

Sunday, November 07, 2010

New issue of Libri

Libri Vol. 60, No. 3 includes the following articles
Paul Sturges and Almuth Gastinger "Information Literacy as a Human Right" Libri, Vol. 60, No. 3: 195-202.
Eeva Kurttila-Matero, Maija-Leena Huotari, and Terttu Kortelainen "Conceptions of Teaching and Learning in the Context of a School Library Project: Preliminary Findings of a Follow-up Study." Libri, Vol. 60, No. 3: 203-217.
James E. Herring "School Students, Question Formulation and Issues of Transfer: a Constructivist Grounded Analysis." Libri, Vol. 60, No. 3: 218-229.
David Streatfield, David Allen, and Tom Wilson "Information Literacy Training for Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Researchers: a National Survey and its Implications." Libri, Vol. 60, No. 3: 230-240.
Michael R. Olsson "All the World's a Stage: the Information Practices and Sense-Making of Theatre Professionals." Libri, Vol. 60, No. 3: 241-252.
Priced publication, abstracts are here: http://www.reference-global.com/toc/libr/2010/60/3
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath market, purple cauliflower, October 2010

An article from me about Second Life

Webber, S. (2010) "Investigating modes of student inquiry in Second Life as part of a blended approach." International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 1 (3), 55-70.
"This article discusses activities carried out in Second Life (SL), the virtual world, as part of a compulsory class ("Information Literacy") in the first year of an undergraduate programme. The paper aims to identify the contribution of SL to the students’ learning environment and to an Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) approach to programme design. The reasons for taking an IBL approach are explained in relation to institutional and disciplinary goals. The paper reflects on the contribution of the three key learning environments (the classroom, WebCT and SL) to students’ learning. SL is evaluated in relation to a conceptual framework of IBL. It is concluded that SL has made a contribution to students’ achievement of learning outcomes from the class, and has facilitated the development of students’ inquiry skills. In conclusion, further avenues for developing research and teaching are identified."
The articles in this issue also include one from Diane Nahl on information behaviour in Second Life: "Affective load and engagement in second Life: experiencing urgent, persistent, and long term information needs" (pages 1-16)

Friday, November 05, 2010

i3 conference 2011 sponsored place

To add to the last post: early career researchers and practitioners can apply for a sponsored place at i3 (Information: Interactionas and Impact). This includes all conference fees, university accommodation, reasonable travel costs to Aberdeen (up to a maximum of £600 for travel) and access to the social programme. The conference takes place at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland from 20-23 June 2011. You have to have a full paper accepted for the conference. Deadline for applications is 14 January 2011. For further information go to the i3 2011 conference website at http://www.i3conference2011.org.uk
Photoshopped photo of poppies by Sheila Webber

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

i3 conference 2011 call for papers

There is a call for papers for the 3rd i3 Conference (Information: Interactions and Impact), which will be held on June 20-23 2011 at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Keynote speakers include Ross Todd (School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University), Jette Hyldegard (Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen) and Eric Meyer (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford).
"i3 is concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the interaction between people and information and how this interaction can bring about change in individuals, organisations, communities and society." Conference themes include: the quality and effectiveness of user/information interactions (e.g. information literacy); patterns of information behaviour in different contexts; impact of information or information services on people, organisations, communities and society (e.g. social, learning, cultural and economic outcomes of engagement with information); and more effective use of information in decision making.
The deadline for submissions (full papers, short papers, posters, and round tables) is 14th January 2011. Further details on the conference website at http://www.i3conference2011.org.uk
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn sky, Botanical gardens, Sheffield, October 2010.

Monday, November 01, 2010

2011 Instruction Section: Call for Posters

There is a call for posters for the Instruction Section, at the 2011 ALA Annual Conference, which will be held on June 23-28, 2011 in New Orleans, USA.
"How can we incorporate opportunities for student creativity into our teaching? ... The 2011 ACRL Instruction Section Program will provide participants with an opportunity to explore how they can capitalize on their own creativity to enhance information literacy instruction ... How have you fostered creativity in the classroom? The 2011 Instruction Section Conference Program Planning Committee invites you to submit a poster proposal addressing ways in which you have fostered creativity in the classroom. Posters should use graphic displays to informally present teaching strategies that encourage student creativity as it relates to information literacy. They should be an eye-catching visual representation of the topic, including graphics, tables, charts, text, and images. Poster presenters will briefly discuss their ideas with colleagues as attendees navigate the poster session area and are encouraged to create online handouts for further information ... Criteria for refereed poster session acceptance include: Originality, significance and relevance of the topic; Development of ideas; Examples of creative classroom approach, activities or unique lesson plans; Strength of learning outcomes presented in proposal."
Submit your poster proposal via online form http://tinyurl.com/isconference2011 Deadline for submission is 5 p.m. on Friday, December 17, 2010.
Photo by Sheila Webber, October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) 2011: Call for proposals

The Canadian Information Literacy conference, WILU, takes place June 1-3 2011 in Regina, Saskatchewan, with the theme. Learning Under Living Skies. This will be the 40th annual WILU!
Suggested Topics: Learning Spaces; Who Learns?; Today’s Tools; Why Teach?
Session Types: 45-minute sessions; Lightning Strike Session (with a Display Poster); Hands-on Tools (45-minute or 90-minute computer lab sessions).
Submit proposals by December 17, 2010 through the online submission form. The conference website is at http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/ and the submission form at http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/WILU2011_CFP_form1.pdf