Presentations from Internet Librarian International 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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