Library School Outreach Task Force

ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries, in the USA) had a task force which aimed "To develop ideas and examples for a toolkit of print and online resources to assist graduate students in library and information science programs in advocating for library instruction and information literacy courses and to inform them about professional development opportunities offered by ACRL." It also aimed to develop the idea of a volunteer outreach librarian. I was slightly puzzled at first, as from the title I had thought this was about school librarians (K12, they would say in the USA) reaching out into the community. However, the outreach part is actually experienced librarians teaching and mentoring students and new graduates. The material was mainly produced in 2007-8, updated this month for URLs etc.
Esther Grassian (the Task Force chair) has kindly put this material up online, in pdf format and also as Google Docs, so that they can be amended and expanded. The main documents are:
- "Draft Library School Outreach Toolkit: Ideas and Examples" The sections in this extensive document are: 1. What and Why: Benefits to You (Library School/Information Studies Department Students); 2. Why: Benefits to Users; 3. How and When: “Recipe for Success”; 4. Who: Resources; 5. Selected Bibliography: Why We Teach; Keeping Current and Searching Tips. This material is obviously focused on the situation in the USA, but as well as some of it being useful in itself, it can prompt ideas about what the situation/arguments are in your own country.
- "Library School Outreach Volunteers: Roles and Qualifications" the outreach volunteers are "experienced librarians willing to serve as a resource for library school/information studies students on topics relating to information literacy".
https://sites.google.com/site/libraryschooloutreach/home
Photo by Sheila webber: Fluffy cat, May 2011

Guided Inquiry & other resources

The School Library Association of Victoria (Australia) has an interesting website, including resources to help with advocacy, a list of its publications, and lots of powerpoints etc. from past conferences. To pick out one item: the web-based resources associated with a CD-ROM: the CD-ROM is priced, but the resources can be freely accessed. The CD-ROM is called Guided Inquiry: Information into deep knowledge and deep understanding: a guided inquiry approach - the School Library and the Victorian Essential Learning Standards. This is based on the work of Carol Kuhlthau: there are 3 quite substantial powerpoint shows (Transforming information ... deep understanding; Putting this into practice; and Assessment) and a link to the website that is associated with Kuhlthau's book. Personally I feel that it takes too much of a "guided inquiry instead of information literacy" approach (I see information literacy as essential for Inquiry Based Learning (rather than there being an either/or), though I appreciate that "guided inquiry" is a more bounded and specific approach to development of effective inquiry. At any rate, the material are well worth looking at. http://www.slav.schools.net.au/public.html#cdroms
Photo by Sheila Webber: Kadriog Museum, Tallinn, May 2011

Health literacy

Just noticed an interesting post from Anna Martin, http://francesobolensky.blogspot.com/2011/03/cambridge-hack-day.html about the Internet informed Patient Hack day at Churchill College Cambridge held in March 2011. Her post is worth reading, as it summarises some key points nicely. Looking at the day's website, the blurb says "One of the most important trends in health care in the next decade will be the rise of the “Internet-informed patient”. This brings in issues of health information literacy, and also issues about "lay" information intermediaries.
Symposium website is at http://www.iip-symposium.info/ and it includes background papers and liveblogs from the day.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tallinn, coast, May 2011

Study Methods & Information Literacy Exemplars (SMILE)

Several people had just tweeted about the Study Methods & Information Literacy Exemplars (SMILE) material moving and I realised I had missed blogging about it to start with. It was a joint project between the University of Worcester, the University of Loughborough and Imperial College London. The aims of the project were: "To design and deliver study skills in a blending learning environment to support learners within the HE community from the beginning of their assessment process to the end. It will re-use learning material from: Existing module; External resources; Intute Informs tutorials; OLIVIA (Imperial College, London; InfoTrail@Lboro (Loughborough University); Hot potatoes exercises; Material from JORUM". The final project, published 2009, describes how they went about the project, comments on barriers and constraints (e.g. getting copyright clearance) and has detailed information on the evaluation done with students using the material.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningcapital/reproduce/smile.aspx
The actual material (the part that has moved, I think) is available on the SMILE Moodle site. The guest account is: Username: guest1 Password: guest
Photo by Sheila Webber: Carousel in the park, Sheffield, May 2011

School Library Advocacy #savelibraries

The Australian Library and Information Association and Australian School Library Association have created a wiki aimed at "parents, students, teachers, and everyone else who is concerned about the state of school libraries" to support advocacy efforts. http://schoollibraries2011.wikispaces.com/

SOLSTICE

The SOLSTICE & CLTR 2011 Conference is 8-9 June 2011 at Edge Hill University, Lancashire, UK. It is a two day event, with day one focussing on elearning and day two focussing on learning and teaching practice. Keynote speakers are Professor Phil Race, Professor Tony Cook, Dr Mark Childs & Becka Colley. Programme at: http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/solstice/conference2011/programme
Photo by Sheila Webber: Window, Tallinn, May 2011

CitationFox guide

The University at Albany libraries have a very comprehensive citation guide in beta, CitationFox, for MLA and APA citation styles. You have to identify what type of material you have in front of you, and it then gives examples of citing that type of material, and any additional tips. They welcome feedback. On the US discussion lists ili the main issue raised has been that students may not easily identify what type of material they have (e.g. whether it is a journal or magazine article), but it would be useful for students (or indeed academics) past that stage, because of its comprehensive nature and the number of examples. http://library.albany.edu/usered/cite/
Photo by Sheila Webber: A bullfinch, I think, in Tallinn, May 2011.

Social media: re-conceptualising information literacy?

Helen Partridge, visiting professor from Queensland University of Technology, will give a free talk on Social media: re-conceptualising information literacy? on 9 June 2011 at 2pm, in the Geoffrey Manton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. To book a place please contact Anthony Beal, aredontour@gmail.com, by 2 June 2011
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tallinn old town, May 2011

Balancing workplace learning and practitioner research across professional fields cfp

There is a call for papers for the EAPRIL Conference 2011 to be held 23-25 November at the HAN University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. EAPRIL stands for: European Association for Practitioner Research on Improving Learning (in education and professional practice). It aims to "to increase the impact of practice-based and applied educational research on educational policy."
The conference theme is Balancing workplace learning and practitioner research across professional fields, closing date for proposals is 14 September 2011, and the conference website is at http://www.eapril.org/EAPRIL2011
Photo by Sheila Webber: Coffee in Tallinn, Estonia, May 2011

Information Literacy and the role of the supervisor: a supervisor's perspective

All of the powerpoints from the UK University Science and Technology Librarians' Group (USTLG) meeting (focusing on information literacy) are now online at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/ustlg/spring11/index.htm. I have embedded my own presentation below. I was talking about supervising doctoral students: as well as supervising my own students, I have also examined PhDs at other universities.
I aimed to identify some of the different factors which can affect the information literacy and information behaviour of the supervisors and students. In particular, I drew on research by Lee (2008) which identified 5 different approaches to doctoral supervision. I also used some quotations from my own students, and from academics, and I mentioned the Researcher Deevelopment Framework.

Information Literacy and the role of the supervisor: a supervisor's perspective

View more presentations from Sheila Webber

Chicago symposium on information literacy teaching

“We’re Teaching, But How Do We Know If They’re Learning?": Assessment of Library Instruction Activities is the title of the 2nd Biennial Kathleen A. Zar Symposium, to be held on 3 June 2011 at the John Crerar Library, University of Chicago, USA. It has presentations on assessment of student learning and evaluation of teaching. The deadline for registration is 27 May 2011. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/kaz2011.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tulips, April 2011

Open Resources: Influence on Learners and Educators

The ORIOLE (Open Resources: Influence on Learners and Educators) project "aims to collect and share data about how learning resources are used and sourced in higher education". It is conducting a survey about people's practices. "There is a charitable twist. Respondants are asked to select charities from a list with the most popular three each receiving £100." The survey ends on 26 May results of the survey will be disseminated from July. http://orioleproject.blogspot.com
Photo by Sheila Webber: National Library of Estonia, Tallinn, May 2011

Collaboration tools

At the Virtual World Educators Roundtable in Second Life yesterday (pictured, this is a weekly discussion group) I heard about this useful page of links to online collaboration tools: http://c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/collaboration.html

Primo pick for April

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of the Instruction Section of the US Association of College and Research Libraries named Sacramento City College Library's PILOT http://pilot.scc.losrios.edu/pilot/ their Site of
the Month for April 2011. For more info go to: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/sections/is/projpubs/primo/site/index.cfm PILOT is "a self-paced interactive tutorial designed to introduce college students to a variety of important concepts related to the use of information resources in an academic setting."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cow parsley inthe dusk, Hellingly, April 2011

Reinventing research? Information practices in the humanities

The Research Information Network has published (in April) case studies which analyse how humanities’ researchers discover, use, create and manage their information resources. There are case studies of: Old Bailey Online; The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM); University of Birmingham English Department; UCL Philosophy Department; Corpus linguistics; The Digital Republic of Letters.
The Reinventing research? Information practices in the humanities report confirms disciplinary differences (e.g. compared with findings in the previous RIN publication on life sciences). In terms of the kinds of electronic resource used "A majority of respondents use Google (79%) and/or Google Scholar (66%) as a starting point to locate relevant research. But traditional methods, such as citation chaining (83%) and learning from peers and experts (95%) remain the most significant ways of finding resources. The scholars in our study also subscribe to e-mail lists (66%), with many using RSS feeds (31%), social networks (48%), or other notifications (42%). These numbers reflect a consistently mixed use of traditional and newer information resources and technologies and suggest a thoughtful engagement with the new technologies that best complement their research needs." (p68)
You can download the report at http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Humanities_Case_Studies_for_screen_2_0.pdf (url updated 26 May 2011)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bluebell wood, Hellingly, April 2011

Video games and information literacy;

There is a special issue of Aslib Proceedings devoted to research articles from the Information School at the University of Sheffield, edited by Professor Peter Willett. It includes an article by me:
Gumulak, S. and Webber, S. (2011) "Playing video games: learning and information literacy" Aslib proceedings, 63 (2/3), 241-255. (This is based on research interviews with teenagers who play computer games)
Another article, by my colleague Pam McKinney, is:
McKinney, P., Jones, M. and Turkington, S. (2011) "Information literacy through inquiry: A Level One psychology module at the University of Sheffield" Aslib proceedings, 63 (2/3), 221-240.
The journal's website is at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0001-253X
Photo: me taking a picture of myself.

Writing tutorials; engineering students

Continuing on from the report about the 9th May meeting of the University Science and Technology Librarians’ Group meeting held at Sheffield University , Moira Bent (Newcastle University) was talking about Rebuilding the SCONUL Seven Pillars (which I blogged about recently, so I won’t say any more about that, except that she had some really nice photos of pandas).
David Stacey, University of Surrey, talked about Creating an online tutorial on academic writing skills. He referred to the Writing Matters: The Royal Literary Fund Report on Student Writing in Higher Education (published in 2006) which had identified undergraduates’ lack of writing skills (a common complaint from academics).
They had put together a bid for internal funding to support development of an online tutorial. The team consisted of a Royal Literary Fund Fellow (who wrote the content), a librarian (who was the Moodle (Virtual Learning Environment) expert) and a chemistry academic, who provided academic insight and helped out with piloting etc. The tutorial is a Moodle module, also using open source software eXe Learning for interactive elements (although one issue was that this software didn’t interface with Moodle as well as it could have done). The module is only for use by University of Bath staff and students.
The tutorial has six main sections: Critically evaluating what you read; Writing an essay; Writing a practical report; Getting your argument across; Plagiarism; Citing and referencing. It incorporates some quizzes and also some video material e.g. students giving essay-writing tips. The tutorial has been used as a scheduled part of teaching in at least one class, is publicised by departments, and used by the librarians in their own teaching. The most used element is the one on plagiarism.
Another talk, which I missed because it was in the afternoon, was Elizabeth Gadd, Loughborough University, talking about developing a new approach to teaching the literature review. However, her handout was in the delegate pack, so I can say something about it. They had surveyed staff and students about what information searching problems they thought students had, had used data comparing numbers of citations used with marks gained in assignments (showing a correlation between larger number of citations and higher marks) and also found a positive correlation between attending IL sessions and getting better marks for the literature review. At the end of the handout she listed three papers which are on Loughborough’s institutional repository:
Gadd, E. et al (2011) “Using the evidence: a comparison of civil and building lecturers’ and students’ approaches to the literature review.” Journal of professional issues in Engineering education and practice.
Baldwin, A., Gadd, E. and Balatsoukas, P. (2010) “A study of students’ information searching strategies.” CEBE transactions, 7 (2), 3-25.
Gadd, E., Baldwin, A. and Norris, M. (2010) “The citation behaviour of Civil Engineering students.” Journal of information literacy, 4 (2), 37-49.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Coastal view, Tallinn, Estonia, May 2011.

LILAC Report catchup: Lawbore #lilac11

At the LILAC (Information Literacy) conference 18-20 April 2011 in London, UK, Emily Albion talked about Stimulating student learning when visual is king: learnmore at City University. Although the online resources she has developed are aimed at law students, some of them could be used by other students, and certainly there are good ideas to follow. The Lawbore website is at http://lawbore.net/ with an attractively laid-out home page, featuring topic guides and news. The Learnmore site is at http://learnmore.lawbore.net/. Learnmore has sections for newbies (which includes short sections about getting the best out of lectures and tutorials and specialist sections, notably "remembering cases"), exams, research, moots, writing and careers.
Photo is of the poster at LILAC by Bob Glass and colleagues, on The development of the UK Information Literacy “Question Bank"

BOBCATSS cfp

The 20th BOBCATSSS-Symposium (by/for library and information students), Information in e-motion, will take place 23-25 January 2012 in Amsterdam, organized by students from the Stuttgart Media University, the Hanze University Groningen and the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. There is a call for papers, closing October 1 2011. More info at http://www.bobcatsss2012.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Young beech leaves, Hellingly, April 2011.

Information Literate Organisation

At the moment I am in Estonia, as a guest lecturer for an international Masters programme, DILL (International Master in Digital Library Learning). Bill Johnston and I are giving two session on the Information Literate Organisation. DILL is delivered by three universities, and currently the students are based at the University of Tallinn, where Sirje Virkus is directing their programme. As a preparation, we asked people to look at the video of the session on the Information Literate University that Bill and I gave in Lund, Sweden in September 2010. In fact I never gave a link for that before on this blog, so here it is (the slides move forward automatically with the video):
http://uwap03.uw.lu.se/KongressCentrum5/Viewer/?peid=9d3f3d440b6d4b5f953c08d4594b5424
The picture above shows people peering into the Aula at Tallinn University today: it was the inauguration of the new Rektor, in the presence of the President of Estonia.

IL in engineering and physical science

On 9th May I gave a talk at the University Science and Technology Librarians’ Group meeting held at Sheffield University. Unfortunately I was only able to stay for the morning sessions (as I was assessing student presentations in the afternoon). The Group is aiming to have all the Powerpoints on their website in due course. I will do three blog posts, to cover my own talk and some other contributions.
Firstly, Evi Tramantza, University of Surrey, talked about Research skills teaching across the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. She seems to have achieved a lot in a rather short time (including getting nominated for teaching awards), and she gave her advice on how to succeed. Her key headings were:
- Confidence. She was not afraid to say to academics “you’re not doing it right” and stressed what other Departments were doing, to encourage a competitive spirit between academic departments!
- Colleagues. She had independence to develop her role, but also supportive colleagues and managers.
- Getting connected. She got help and inspiration from other libraries, attending LILAC, joining CILIP groups etc.
- Finding common ground with academics e.g. on concerns about student completion, progression, plagiarism.
- Language. When initially academics said “Information Literacy, what’s that?”, rather than backing off, Evi produced a two page sheet with definitions on one side and, on the other, a list of the things the library offered to develop IL. This proved popular with academics.
- Using meetings. Evi has managed to get a place in many Departmental and Faculty committees, and she finds them important to keep abreast of developments, but also as venues to remind and inform academics about what she does. It was important to “be present and communicative”.
- Showcase what you can do e.g. via a high profile pilot programme.
- Adopt a “Yes we can” attitude. In her first year she has said yes to more or less anything, and has therefore built up a lot of good will and some influential champions. She is now in a better position to negotiate what she does.
- Being involved. This means attending internal events (e.g. student fairs, exhibits of student work) so that you are seen as an insider.
- Being flexible when asked to do things.
- Gathering evidence about the impact of what you are doing (e.g. pre- and post- teaching questionnaires)
- Letting your success stories talk for you (and, obviously, gathering up the success stories)
- Using a platform, namely their website. They have a portal page for each subject, and a learning skills portal.
- Developing strategies for dealing with problems e.g. knowing when to persist and when to back away.
Evi is now in a position of having an information literacy contribution to each subject, and she now has an opportunity to get embedded in modules at a deeper level, since the university is moving to 15 credit modules, which means a lot of restructuring. She has developed learning outcomes for information literacy at various levels of study, which are being incorporated into student handbooks. It was evident that she was very energetic and dedicated, and it showed what a firm and positive attitude can achieve.
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom, April 2011.

Informed researcher

Pat Gannon-Leary has put out a call (particularly aimed at those in the UK) to help with contributions to "a brief guide provisionally entitled The informed researcher, commissioned by the Research Information Network in close collaboration with Vitae and SCONUL, and aimed at researchers at all levels from Masters students right up to professors and heads of research centres." Specifically, she has a one-question survey she would like circulated to researchers, as follows.
"Dear researcher, I am writing a brief guide provisionally entitled 'The informed researcher', commissioned by the RIN in close collaboration with Vitae and SCONUL, and aimed at researchers such as yourself.
"As part of this work, I am trying to find out what type of information on this topic would be particularly useful for researchers. SCONUL has produced a model known as the 7 Pillars of Information Literacy. These are as follows:-
1. Identify (a personal need for information)
2. Scope (assess current knowledge and identify gaps)
3. Plan (construct strategies for locating information and data)
4. Gather (locate and access information and data needed)
5. Evaluate (review research process and compare and evaluate information and data)
6. Manage (organise information professionally and ethically)
7. Present (apply knowledge gained; presenting results, synthesising new and old information and data to create new knowledge and disseminating it in various ways)
"I expect you recognise these pillars in your own work. What I would like you to do, if you would be so kind, is just to respond to the following statement:-
One aspect of the 7 pillars which I consider most important for me and about which I would like to know more is...
" Please respond directly to me at pat@bederesearch.co.uk with as much or as little text in response to the statement. If there is more than one aspect, feel free to write at length.
Thanks in anticipation for your help in developing the guide. I hope it will prove useful for researchers when it is published."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Spring field, April 2011

i3 programme published

The conference programme for the i3 2011 conference, June 20-23, 2011 at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, is available online at http://www.i3conference2011.org.uk and registration is still open. "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." Information Literacy is a key theme.
Key note speakers in 2011 include Dr. Ross J. Todd (School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University), Dr. Jette Hyldegard (Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen), Dr. Eric T. Meyer (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford) and Dr. Caroline Wilkinson (College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee).
I am co-presenting with Phussadee Dokphrom on "Conceptions of Information literacy: Result findings from the case study of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, Silpakorn University, Thailand" (these are findings from her PhD, which I supervised). Of my other former students, Shahd Salha should also be presenting on "The Variations and the Changes in the School librarians’ conceptions of Information Literacy."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bluebell wood, Hellingly, April 2011

Research Strategies: Finding your Way through the Information Fog

William Badke has announced that his textbook, Research Strategies: Finding your Way through the Information Fog, "has just gone into a 4th edition. There may be a bit of confusion in the next few weeks as the third edition disappears from current vendors and the fourth edition migrates in to replace it, so if you want access to the fourth (brown cover) edition, use the iUniverse.com URL ... E-pub formats (Kindle, iPad, etc.) are coming in the next month or so."
Badke, W. (2011) Research Strategies:Finding your Way through the Information Fog. 4th ed. Bloomington. iUniverse. ISBN: 9781462010172
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hawthorn, May 2011

Another TeachMeet!

On 23 May 10.00-16.00 at Kingston College Higher Education Centre, London, UK. This is the CoFHE LASEC Continuing Professional Development Day 2011: Information Literacy + TeachMeet. Course leaders are Jane Secker, Lisa Jeskins and Sarah Pavey. The cost is £35+VAT for CILIP Members, £45+VAT for non-CILIP Members (refreshments & lunch included) "In the morning there will be interactive presentations on information literacy themes and in the afternoon there will be an informal Teachmeet around innovative aspects of information literacy training where everyone will have a chance to contribute their own ideas." More info at http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/cofhelasec/default.aspx Online booking form at https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dERjREQxSWJRcnV2RkRWQ1YzUjNRU0E6MQ or email Christina Harbour, christina.harbour@writtle.ac.uk
Photo by Sheila Webber: Fallen tree trunk amongst bluebells, Hellingly, April 2011 (film grain effect added).

Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators

A book recommended in the April "1st Wednesday" discussions I blogged about a couple of days ago is a new publication:
Booth, C. (2011) Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators. American Library Association. ISBN-10: 9780838910528 ISBN-13: 978-0838910528
You can "look inside the book" via the Amazon page (not sure whether this is the cheapest option for buying it). You can also see Char Booth's ACRL keynote (on a similar theme) embedded in her blog post at http://infomational.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/post-acrl-post/

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

The latest issue of the open access journal Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PESTLHE) is online. One particularly interesting article is:
Wood, J.P. (2011) "Helping Students to Become Disciplinary Researchers Using Questioning, Social Bookmarking and Inquiry-Based Learning." Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 6 (1), 3-26.
Other articles address assessment and feedback issues.
The journal home page is at: http://www.pestlhe.org.uk./index.php/pestlhe
Photo by Sheila Webber: Couthurst Road flying the flag on the Royal Wedding day.

ACRL Proceedings

Some of the papers from the (US) Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) annual conference, held on March 30-April 2 2011, are available full text. The papers, covering many aspects of academic library work, include a number relevant to information literacy e.g.:
- Do Screencasts Really Work? Assessing Student Learning through Instructional Screencasts; Jo Angela Oehrli, Julie Piacentine, Amanda Peters, and Benjamin Nanamaker
- Do You See What I See?: Comparing Student and Librarian Perceptions of Learning Outcomes; Faith Steele and Scott Mandernack
- Uncovering the IL Disconnect: Examining Expectations among Librarians, Faculty and Students; Sheila Cunningham, Allison Carr, and Stephanie Sterling Brasley
- Show Me the Data! Partnering with Instructors to Teach Data Literacy; Karen Hogenboom, Carissa M. Holler Phillips, and Merinda Hensley
- Put the Pencil Down: Using Student Podcasts to Assess Learning in a For-Credit Reearch Course; Lauren Yannotta and Brian Lym
- Listening to Students: A User-Centered Assessment of Incoming Graduate Students’ Research Skills; Julie Petr and Amalia Monroe-Gulick
- From Embedded to Integrated: Digital Information Literacy and New Teaching Models for Academic Librarians; Marisa Walstrum, Larissa Garcia, and Rob Morisson
The index page for the papers is http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/events/national/2011/papers/index.cfm
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tulips, April 2011

1st Wednesday IL discussion on Facebook

Tomorrow (Wednesday May 4) at 2.00 PM USA Eastern Time (that's 7pm UK time) there is the regular
1st Wednesday Information Literacy discussion carried out via chat on Facebook. This is sponsored by the ACRL Science and Technology Section's Information Literacy Committee. To join the discussion, log in to Facebook, search for Science Information Literacy Wiki, then click on the Discussions icon on the left side of the home page. It is worth browsing through previous First Wednesday discussions.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Charlton House, May 2011

Library blog awards

Salem Press ask for nominations for awards for library blogs, with nominations closing on 13 May. the categories are:
General: Blogs providing broad discussions of library topics and trends (last year won by Libraries and transliteracy)
Academic: Blogs targeting academic librarians and academic institutions (last year one by No shelf required)
Public: Blogs addressing the challenges and triumphs of public librarianship (last year won by Agnostic, maybe)
School: Blogs covering topics relevant to school libraries and K-12 education (last year won by Bib 2.0)
Local: Institution-specific blogs promoting the interests of a public, academic, or school library (new category)
Commercial: Professional blogs written for profit, generally tied to a trade publication (new category)
Newcomer: Blogs by next-gen librarians who have only recently started blogging (new category)
Quirky: Character-driven blogs covering an array of library topics that defy categorization (last year won by Awful Library Books
The judges are all from North America, I think, but I don't think that the blogs have to be (so feel free to nominate this blog ;-)
The page with more info is: http://salempress.com/Store/blogs/blog_home.htm or just email ptobey@salempress.com with your nomination.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Charlton Park, May 2011

WILU registration& IFLA early bird registration ending

Registration for the Canadian Information Literacy conference, WILU (June 1-3 2011), closes on May 16 2011 (http://www2.uregina.ca/wilu2011/) and the early bird rate for the IFLA conference in Puerto Rico (August 13-18 2011, as usual there will be a number of sessions relevant to information literacy) closes on 6 May 2011 (http://conference.ifla.org/ifla77).