New survey of online and mobile use of libraries in the USA

Today there is a new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, a result of a telephone survey of just over 2,500 Americans, undertaken in October-November 2012. "The 25% of Americans ages 16 and older who went to a library website in the past 12 months tended to do so with modest frequency" but they did a variety of things there. Visiting library websites occurred more with those who had higher incomes, earned more or were parents. "13% of those ages 16 and older have visited library websites or otherwise accessed library services by mobile device." Full report free at: http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/12/31/mobile-connections-to-libraries/
Photo by Sheila Webber, of Camden Passage, December 2012, photoshopped.

Engineers' information literacy

Here's a short article explaining why engineers need to be information literate:
Gurke, S. (2012) "Information Literacy in the Workplace: Novice engineers can't leave learning in the dorm room." R&D, 14 December. http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2012/12/information-literacy-workplace
Photo by Sheila Webber: Niagra Falls, December 2012

International Information Literacy Survey report

The preliminary report from the International Information Literacy Survey (IILS) project is available. "This IILS initiative is a Survey of the Information and Media Literacy Behaviors of University Students in Selected Central Asian Countries, and is still, at the moment, in the very preliminary stage of being planned, organized and structured." If you are in a central Asian country then you are encouraged to participate. The first report is available in pdf and E-PUB format. Go to http://albertkb.nl/imils.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Moonrise, Blackheath, December 2012.

Merry Christmas from the Information Literacy Weblog

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

New report on reading habits

Yesterday the Pew American Life project released a new report on Reading Habits in Different Communities [in the USA]. They compare rural, urban and suburban populations, and asked about reading in print and on electronic devices. There are differences and "In the most meaningful ways, these differences are associated with the demographic composition of different kinds of communities — the age of the population, their overall level of educational attainment, and the general level of household income." (In other words, although it looks like there are differences between urban and rural, it is more to do with there being a larger proportion of partcular types (age/income/ethnicity etc.) of person in urban or rural settings.) Also, "The majority of Americans ages 16 and older (58%) have a library card and even more (69%) say the library is important to them and their families." There are summaries and the full report at:
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/12/20/reading-habits-in-different-communities/
Photo by S Webber: Christmas deco, London, December 2012

IL in the workplace

I don't think I blogged about Mark Hepworth's work on "i-capabilities" with Leicestershire County Council. I have found a blog post, a short presentation from the CILIP event in the summer and his presentation at the LILAC conference. His blog post says that "Collaborating on a KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) with Leicestershire County Council we determined the key i-capabilities required by staff and gained an insight into developing an information management corporate culture." The blog post is at: http://markhepworthsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/projects-i-capabilities-in-workplace.html; the LILAC presentation is at http://www.slideshare.net/MarkHepworth/mh-lilac12-information-literacy-in-the-workplace and the CILIP presentation at http://www.cilip.org.uk/infolit2012/Documents/8.%20Mark%20Hepworth.pdf Additionally there is an example training animation, http://goanimate.com/videos/0lu-cLLBI6pE/1
Photo by Sheila Webber: wet ivy leaf, December 2012

Making games for libraries

A blog from Andy Walsh, Making Games for Libraries, includes videos from his recent workshop. The video embedded here has one of the workshop groups explaining their game idea. The blog is definitely worth following if you are interested in developing library game ideas. The blog is at http://gamesforlibraries.blogspot.co.uk/
Walsh has also made another library card game available as a zipped file, SOURCES, at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/16230/

New issue of Education Libraries: video games, preservice teachers, High School programme

Education Libraries (open access) Volume 35, No. 1-2, Summer-Winter 2012 has been published. Articles include:
- Beyond a Fad: Why Video Games Should Be Part of 21st Century Libraries By Kym Buchanan and Angela M. Vanden Elzen
- Information Literacy Outreach: Building a High School Program at California State University Northridge By Coleen Meyers Martin, Eric P. Garcia, and Marc McPhee
- Information Literacy Skills for Preservice Teachers: Do they transfer to K-12 classrooms? By Marcia Stockham and Heather Collins.
http://education.sla.org/?page_id=493
Photo by Sheila Webber: Festive lampost, Toronto, Canada, December 2012

cfp i3 conference

i3 (Information: Interactions and Impact) 2013 will be held at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK on 25-28 June 2013. The conference "is concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the interaction between people and information and how this interaction can bring about change." They particularly welcome papers which address two or more of the following conference themes: 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 decision making. Submissions are invited for full papers, short papers and round table discussions. The conference language will be English. All abstracts should be submitted by Friday 18th January 2013.
Go to http://www.i3conference.org.uk/ for more information
Photo by Sheila Webber: leaf

Liber Quarterly: reaching researchers; IL standards and knowledge generation

The new issue of Liber Quarterly (Vol. 22, No. 3, 2012; open access) includes
- Research group librarian – a cooperating partner in research? by Heidi Kristin Olsen
- Information literacy competency standards for higher education and their correlation with the cycle of knowledge generation Alejandro Uribe Tirado and Wilson Castaño Muñoz
and a review by Brunella Longo of Patric Charaudeau's Les médias et l'information: l'impossible transparence du discours. 2nd. éd.
http://liber.library.uu.nl/index.php/lq/issue/view/478
Photo by Sheila Webber: Toronto night lights, December 2012 (this is basically an out of focus picture, but I thought it gave a nice effect)

cfp: Creating Knowledge VII: 14-16 August 2013

There is a call for papers for the 7th Creating Knowledge conference. Win-win ways: Educational enhancement through collaborative partnership between students, academics and librarians which will be in Lund, Sweden, 14-16 August, 2013."The conference will highlight information literacy and its role in the transformation of the learning process. It will demonstrate how cross-professional collaboration in higher education lead to a win-win situation for all collaborators."
You can propose a paper, a poster, a workshop, a round table or a TeachMeet presentation. Proposals should be submitted by 1 March, 2013. The tree key themes are learning design, learning environments and quality development.
Information at http://learning.lub.lu.se/flow/creating-knowledge-vii.aspx?FlowCategoryID=175
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cold misty day in Toronto, St James park, December 2012

Didáctica básica para la alfabetización informacional

New book in Spanish: Tarango, J. and Mendoza-Guillen, G. (2012) Didáctica básica para la alfabetización informacional [Fundamentals of teaching information literacy]. Alfagrama Editions, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
There are contributuions from a multidisciplinary range of authors. Details at http://bibliotecologia.mercadoshops.com.ar/didactica-basica-para-la-alfabetizacion-informacional_210xJM
Photo by Sheila Webber: Farmers' market, Toronto, December 2012

Communications in Information Literacy new issue

New issue of the open access journal Communications in Information Literacy,
- Notes from the Field: 10 Short Lessons on One-Shot Instruction by Megan Oakleaf et al.
- Rethinking Information Literacy in a Globalized World by Laurie Kutner and Alison Armstrong
- Information Literacy on the Web: How College Students Use Visual and Textual Cues to Assess Credibility on Health Websites by Katrina L. Pariera
- Measuring the Impact of Library Instruction on Freshmen Success and Persistence: A Quantitative Analysis by Jason M. Vance, Rachel Kirk and Justin G. Gardner
- Collaboration and Problem-Based Learning: Integrating Information Literacy into a Political Science Course by Peg Cook and Mary Barbara Walsh
- Embedding Affective Learning Outcomes in Library Instruction by Ellysa Stern Cahoy, and Robert Schroeder
- Considering Information Literacy Skills and Needs: Designing Library Instruction for the Online Learner by Swapna Kumar, Marilyn Ochoa, and Mary Edwards
- Predictors of Student’s Attitudes toward Science Literacy by Irina I. Holden
- Engineering Integration: Building a Quick and Effective Faculty Seminar by Kate Peterson, and Jon Jeffryes
http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php?journal=cil&page=issue&op=current&path[]=showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Courgettes, Farmers' market, St Lawrence market, Toronto, Canada, December 2012

Classic information literacy work on science and engineering

Anne Fullerton (pictured) was our host for the seminar on the Information Literate University at the University of Waterloo, Canada, last week. She is Biology and Chemical Engineering Librarian at University of Waterloo, and the author of a highly cited research paper that is still one of the few to cover this particular area, namely:
Leckie, G. and Fulleron, A. (1999) "Information literacy in science and engineering undergraduate education: faculty attitudes and pedagogical practices." College and Research Libraries, 60 (1), 9-29. Available full text at http://crl.acrl.org/content/60/1/9.full.pdf The abstract reads: "What are science and engineering faculty doing with respect to the development of information literacy in their undergraduate students? To explore this question, science and engineering faculty at two large Canadian universities were surveyed and interviewed regarding their perceptions of their students’ information literacy skills and their own pedagogical practices related to such skills. Faculty awareness of, and support for, a variety of bibliographic instruction methods and the perceived role of science and engineering librarians in information literacy instruction also were investigated. Based on the survey results, suggestions for the design of library instruction for science and engineering undergraduates are made."
Another paper drawing on the same research is:
Leckie, G. and Fulleron, A. (1999) "The roles of academic librarians in fostering a pedagogy for information literacy." In: Racing Toward Tomorrow, ACRL 1999 National Conference Papers http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/pdf/leckie99.pdf
And more recently, this Powerpoint talks about the current situation at Waterloo:
Fullerton, A. and MacDonald, K. "Information Literate Students: Faculty and Librarians collaborate on a shared commitment" http://www.trace.uwaterloo.ca/research_on_teaching_and_learning/documents/Fullerton503.pdf

Credo Reference award for a digital information literacy resource

Credo Reference are again sponsoring an award for a digital information literacy resource, programme, product or service. The winning group or individual will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. The closing date for receipt of nominations is 7 February 2013. The prize will be presented at the LILAC conference dinner in Manchester, UK on 26 March 2013. For more info see http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/credo-digital-award/
Photo by Sheila Webber: above Niagra Falls, Canada, December 2012

Useful material from past infolit meetings

There's a detailed description of the Manchester New Library Professionals Network IL event in November, on the Information Literacy website at http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/develop-professional-practice/training-events/event-reviews-2012/. The page also has a write-up of the London TeachMeet held in June (the focus was Supporting diverse learners), the presentations from which are at http://www.ldnlibtm.info/ and a shorter account of the Manchester TeachMeet held in January (presentations on http://manchesterlibtm.wordpress.com/)
Short video of Niagra Falls last week, by me

Passing on words of wisdom

This article isn't about information literacy, but I thought that the intervention described, i.e. asking graduating student nurses to write down"letters" with advice for the new students, is an interesting idea, and the intervention is described carefully. The journal is open access.
Gibson, C. and MacDonald, K. (2012) Passing on words of wisdom: Using graduating student nurses’ experiences to influence the development of new entrants to a nursing programme. Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 7 (1), 2-20.
http://www.pestlhe.org.uk/index.php/pestlhe/article/view/128/239
Photo by Sheila Webber: above Niagra Falls, Canada, again.

Indicators of an Information Literate University

The Information Literate University (ILU) was the theme of the seminars that I have been giving in Canada with Bill Johnston. There is an article from a few years ago in which we explain the idea of the ILU and also list indicators of an ILU. We have three groups of indicators: for “embryonic” ILU, “intermediate” ILU and “Working towards an ILU”. This includes indicators concerning students, librarians, academics, management, and approaches to teaching, learning and assessment.
One of the universities we were working with (York University) had used this list of indicators in an internal exercise with librarians, and we used the indicators as the basis of the main activity with the group of universities in the second workshop (at the University of Waterloo, see photo above). They are an aid to assessing where your organisation is, identifying where people differ in perceptions of where you are, and planning where you want to be.
The article which includes the list is here: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/staffs-webber-johnston.pdf  It first appeared as: Webber, S. and Johnston, B. (2006) “Working towards the information literate university.” In Walton, G. and Pope, A. (Eds) Information literacy: recognising the need. Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent: 17 May 2006. Oxford: Chandos. pp 47-58.

University/ school collaboration on health class

Rosenzweig, M., Schnitzer, A., Mahraj, K. and Baublis, J. (2012) "Synergism between a teacher and academic librarians in a high school setting: Strategies for success" College and research libraries news, 73 (11), 658-667. ".. two librarians collaborated with an AAPS High School Health and Wellness teacher to develop an elective class on public health issues." New, on open access at http://crln.acrl.org/content/73/11/658.full
Photo by Sheila Webber: above Niagra Falls, Canada, December 2012

New issue of Journal of Information Literacy

A new issue (vol 6 issue 2) of the open-access Journal of Information Literacy includes:
- Indicators of adult information literacy by Ralph Catts
- Assessing students’ information literacy skills in two secondary schools in Singapore by Yun-ke Chang et al.
- 'Digital fluency': towards young people's critical use of the internet by Carl Miller and Jamie Bartlett
- Mobile information literacy: a preliminary outline of information behaviour in a mobile environment by Andrew Walsh
- Meeting information literacy outcomes: Partnering with faculty to create effective information literacy assessment by Debra Anne Hoffmann and Kristen LaBonte
- Poster presentations as an assessment tool in a third/college-level Information Literacy course: an effective method of measuring student understanding of library research skills by JaNae Kinikin and Keith Hench
- Social media, authentic learning and embedded librarianship: a case study of dietetics students by Rebecca K. Miller
- Reflection for learning: understanding the value of reflective writing for information literacy development by Pamela McKinney and Barbara A Sen
The issue is at https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/index
Photo by Sheila Webber: Black squirrel, Toronto, Canada. I will be blogging about my Canadian information literacy visit over the next week

Welsh Information Literacy Best Practice, 28 January 2013

The Welsh Information Literacy project have organised an Information Literacy Best Practice event on 28 January 2013, Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, Rhos on Sea campus, Wales. There will be an overview of the Welsh Information Literacy Project, and examples of good practice from different library sectors (including schools, public libraries, universities and colleges) from across North Wales. More information at http://t.co/aYE6SeWq
Photo by Sheila Webber: night time Toronto, December 2012

Academic integrity: Ryerson's site & cartoons

I'm at Ryerson Uiversity (Toronto, Canada) today so I thought I'd highlight Ryerson't Academic integrity website. It features a set of cartoon videos with student scenarios. For example, in the first one, Alison is up late doing her psychology essay and she gets tempted to plagiarise a textbook and a fellow-student's essay. The associated quizzes are not accessible to outsiders, but the videos are. There are also some posters using the same characters (like these ones, photographed on the wall in Ryserson's library). I liked the Janis Joplin quote ("Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got"). http://www.ryerson.ca/academicintegrity/

New infolit books from Chandos

Apologies for the hiatus in blogging: I've been travelling to Canada to give some seminars on information literacy, this coming week. You will hear more about that! Meanwhile, here are a couple of recent books:

Huvila, I. (2012) Information Services and Digital Literacy: In Search of the Boundaries of Knowing. Chandos Publishing. ISBN: 9781843346838. The book "scrutinizes the role of information services and digital literacies in the age of the social web. Huvila argues that a central problem in the age of the social web and the culture of participation is that we do not know the premises of how we know, and in this book he closely examines the ways that interacting with information affects people’s actions." More info at http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=2629&ChandosTitle=1

Andretta, S. (2012) Ways of Experiencing Information Literacy: Making the Case for a Relational Approach. Chandos Publishing. ISBN: 9781843346807. "Susie Andretta offers an investigation of the relational approach to examining information literacy from the perspective of the learner and the educator in both academic and other professional environments." http://www.neal-schuman.com/wxil
Photo by Sheila Webber: giant reindeer in Toronto

Information Literacy awards

CILIP Information Literacy Group is again sponsoring information literacy awards.
1. Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year. This recognises an outstanding individual contribution to information literacy. Nominations are welcomed from all sectors. The winner will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Closing date: January 31st 2013. For full details see: http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/il-practitioner-of-the-year-award/

2. Student Award: Sponsored Place at LILAC. The award consists of conference registration, travel and accommodation expenses for two students registered on a UK study programme. Closing date: January 17th 2013. For full details see: http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/student-sponsored-place-at-lilac/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Fringe of leaves, November 2012

Call for proposals: Illinois IL summits

There is a call for presenters for a series of Information Literacy Summits: Bridging the Gap: Knowledge Creation, Information Literacy, and the Role of Technology in Education. They are taking place in three locations in Illinois, USA: April 10, 2013 (Illinois State University (Normal); April 12 2013 (Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills); April 16 2013 (John A. Logan College (Carterville). They are particularly interested in breakout sessions and panels.
"In keeping with the Summit theme, we'd like to make explicit the connection between teaching and learning digital literacies and the use of technology to teach and learn. We are extending our call for proposals outside of the library community to educational technologists, instructional designers, and instructional technologists."
More info at http://www.morainevalley.edu/infolitsummit/ and form to propose at http://tinyurl.com/summitproposal, deadline is January 31 2013.
Topics include: Digital literacy; Flipping the classroom in information literacy sessions; Implementing technology in online or f2f classrooms; Connecting technologies to learning outcomes; Facilitating learning with technology; Digital media labs; Content creation and capture tools; Multimedia instruction; Collaboration across departments and organizations; Challenges and possibilities for the future.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Walking to work (when the weather was better) November 2012

Teachers, students, farmers in Pakistan

The latest issue (no. 13, 2012) of the Pakistan Journal of Library & Information Science (PJLIS) has gone online, and it includes an article by one of my new PhD students (Syeda Hina Batool, right), who is a faculty member in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of the Punjab, and who is registered here for a PhD joint location.
- Teachers’ conceptions about information literacy skills of school children by Syeda Hina Batool and Khalid Mahmood
Other articles include:
- Information seeking by Pakistani farmers: A review of published research
by Muhammad Asif Naveed, Mumtaz A. Anwar and Surraya Bano
- Access and use of the internet among undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh by Md. Anwarul Islam and Muhammad Jaber Hossain.
The open access journal is at http://pu.edu.pk/home/journal/8

Ninjas! Graphic novel about finding info in the library

Heidi Blackburn, undergraduate services librarian at Kansas State Salina (USA), Kate Wise, associate librarian at Kansas Wesleyan (USA), and Kansas State Salina student Greg Charland have produced an open-access short graphic novel: Legends of the Library Ninjas: A Quest for Knowledge. It shows a couple of students being helped by the ninjas to find their way round the library and get information, and has a more straightforward reference section (with information on Dewey, Boolean etc.) at the end. It is freely available here: http://issuu.com/libraryninja/docs/legendsofthelibraryninjasthequestforknowledge?mode=window&viewMode=singlePage&printButtonEnabled=false&backgroundColor=%23222222

Open publication - Free publishing - More library

421-item bibliography on Impact and Outcome of Libraries

There is a section on "Impact of Information Literacy" in the latest version of the bibliography Impact and Outcome of Libraries compiled by Dr. Roswitha Poll (a German expert in library evaluation). An announcement says that "The new version of bibliography has 421 titles, the result of the work on the new ISO standard, ISO 16439: Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries that is to be published in 2013." You can download the bibliography from
http://www.ifla.org/publications/publications-associated-with-the-s-e-section
Photo by Sheila Webber: cat in Botanical Gardens, Sheffield. I think it had just been chasing a squirrel.

Digital literacy presentations

Presentations from the seminar Learning Resources Conference 2012: Discovering New Horizons in the Digital Landscape (organised by RSC Northwest and RSC Yorkshire & Humber and held in Manchester, UK, 8 November 2012) are online. Two particularly relevant presentations are:
- Drowning in information but starved for knowledge: the Digital Literacy challenge in FE [Further Education]: Presented by Andrew Eynon, Grŵp Llandrillo-Menai
- 23 things: social media tools to help you with professional development Presented by Anthony Beal, JISC RSC
http://moodle.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=185
Photo by Sheila Webber: lone watcher, November 2012

South African study on public access and mobile use

Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for Teenagers in Cape Town is the report from a study led by Marion Walton (University of Cape Town) and Jonathan Donner (Microsoft Research India). "Discussion is structured around five claims [based on their research]:
- Public access and private mobiles offer different affordances, and teenage users have developed complex, fine-grained practices which help them to negotiate the respective strengths and weaknesses of the affordances."
- The public access venue provides non-substitutable impact to resource-constrained users, even those with 'the Internet in their pocket.'"
- Public access supports the development of digital literacies associated with hyperlinked media and large-format documents, while mobile access supports everyday social literacies and messaging."
- Teens can use a combination of mobile and public access Internet resources to participate in networked media production and grassroots economic mobilization."
- Public access venue operators can improve venue rules and skills to encourage the complementary use of the mobile Internet."
Walton, M., Donner, J. (2012). Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for teenagers in Cape Town. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. Linked from http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/publications-summary/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Botanical gardens, Sheffield, November 2012

SEEK search skills game

Andrew Walsh has made his card game SEEK available under a Creative Commons license for free download. You have the instructions, notes for tutors and the cards (front and back) ready to print out. The winner is the first person to get to ten points: you gain points by responding to a question from the cards correctly. The cards tell you to do things like identify the most important words in a search question and think of synonyms for searching (see examples on the right, click on the picture to see it larger). The download is in a zipped file from: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/15377/

WILU 2nd call for papers

Another call for papers for the Canadian Information Literacy conference: WILU. The Conference will be held at The University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, May 8-10, 2013. The theme for WILU 2013 is Synchronicity: The Time is Now. Possible topics include: Merging tradition with innovation; Balancing educational theory with pedagogical practice; Providing instruction for interdisciplinary programs; Theorizing instructional technology; Distributed instruction; Information ethics; Open access resources for instruction; Literacies: information and beyond. The deadline for proposal submissions is December 3rd, 2012. More info at http://lib.unb.ca/WILU/program/call-for-proposals/

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference 2013

There is a call for abstracts for the 7th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference (EBLIP7). This takes place at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada July 15-18, 2013. Conference themes are: Beyond the horizon (visioning the future, investigation, discovery); Ploughing new terrain (cultivating and enhancing productivity through innovation, experimentation, transforming practice); Harvesting the rewards (assessing outcomes, impact, value) and Summer fallow (lessons learnt, reflection, insight). There is a call for research papers, reviews of evidence, reports of innovative practice, hot topic discussion papers, and poster presentations. Submission deadline is 30 November, 2012. Further information at http://eblip7.library.usask.ca/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cat in botanical gardens, November 2012

Spanish information literacy model for schools

An article (in Spanish) outlines a three stage model for information literacy in formal education. The abstract reads: "A three-phased model is proposed for addressing information competence in the context of compulsory education. The 3 basic phases are information searching, management and communication. A study of the current standard curriculum identified the objectives and content corresponding to the three phases, with the aim of assisting centres in establishing programs for each educational stage. The goal is to help improve the design of research projects that are carried out in the classroom as well as to develop information literacy using the school library. The text points to areas in which the school library can play an important role in supporting the curriculum for skills development."
Anna Blasco Olivares and Glòria Durban Roca (2012) "La competencia informacional en la enseñanza obligatoria a partir de la articulación de un modelo específico." Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 100-135 doi: 10.3989/redc.2012.mono.979 http://redc.revistas.csic.es/index.php/redc/article/view/746/827 and the 2nd author blogs about it Spanish here
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn stairs, November 2012

Visitor from Okanagan College

Jennifer Sigalet, (pictured, right) Campus Public Services Librarian at Okanagan College, British Columbia, Canada, visited the iSchoool as part of an information literacy study tour last week. Jennifer has been involved in some interesting initiatives, and she and her colleagues at Okanagan College received the 2011 Community and Technical College Libraries Innovation Achievement Award for the development and implementation of the CILRI (Course Integrated Library Research Instruction) programme. This is the Libguide: http://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/CILRI
Jennifer also was a contributor to the presentation A Sampling of Post-Secondary Integrated Information Literacy Programs in British Colombia at the WILU 2012 conference.

Jennifer joined with Dr Shahd Salha (graduate of the iSchool) and Bill Johnston (Honorary Research Fellow, Strathclyde University) in presenting a one-hour seminar on information literacy at the iSchool on 9th December, chaired by Sheila Webber.

Information Science and Information Literacy conference in Romania

The 4th International Conference on Information Science and Information Literacy will be held in Sibiu, Romania, April 17-19, 2013. There are broad themes: Information literacy; Education (e.g. Teaching information literacy; Reviewing the fundamentals of education and curriculum redesign); Digital libraries; and Information science and technologies (e.g. Information retrieval; Data mining strategies for digital libraries). There is still a call for papers open. More info at http://bcu.ulbsibiu.ro/conference/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Squirrel, Sheffield, Nov 2012

London Libraries Learning Research Reading Group

There is a blog for this group ("an informal and impromtu reading group for London librarians interested in research, learning and information literacy") just set up.The group had their first meeting on 8th November and plan a further meeting in December. http://lllrrg.wordpress.com/

Manifesto for Teaching Online, 13 November

The authors of the Manifesto for Teaching Online, led by Clara O’Shea (University of Edinburgh, Scotland), will discuss the Manifesto on Tuesday 13 November, 12 noon SL time (which is 8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/d3m6bzs for times elsewhere) on Infolit iSchool in the virtual world, Second Life (SL), http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/132/239/22 ). You need a SL avatar and the SL browser on your computer, to participate. All welcome!

The Manifesto for Teaching Online is a series of brief statements that attempt to capture what is generative and productive about online teaching, course design, writing, assessment and community. It was produced by Jen Ross, Clara O’Shea, Sian Bayne and Hamish Macleod members of the programme team on the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and has attracted a lot of interest and debate - see http://onlineteachingmanifesto.wordpress.com/

A Sheffield iSchool Centre for Information Literacy Research event.
Picture (with one of the Manifesto statements) by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life.

Information literacy presentations from WILU conference

There are abstracts and presentations from the major Canadian conference, WILU, which took place in May 2012. Numerous very interesting presentations e.g. (to choose a few at random)
- Massive! Open! Online!: Understanding MOOCs and Their Impact on Library Instruction and Services
- Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Technology-Oriented Support by Liaison Librarians at the University of Alberta
- Reel Life, Reel Students, Reel Experiences: Videos as a Teaching and Learning Tool
- Best practices for Very Large Team Teaching: A Case Study of a Graduate Course in Health Librarianship
- A Sampling of Post-Secondary Integrated Information Literacy Programs in British Columbia
Abstracts and links at http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/program/program-abstracts/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Trees, shadow, autumn, November 2012

Cfp Umbrella conference (Manchester, UK)

One of the themes for the library/information conference, Umbrella, is information literacy. Umbrella takes place in Manchester, UK, 2 - 3 July 2013.
There is a call for papers, deadline 30 November. The theme name is Information to best support society: Information and digital literacy in education, work, health and leisure. Suggested topics are: The positive impact of information literacy and the importance of innovation to secure its place in a learning society; The importance of maintaining information literacy development opportunities for people as they move between different settings e.g. school/FE/HE/research/ employment; How Library and Information Professionals are adapting an information literacy offer in a social media context; Developing the developers: explorations with employers and educators to ensure that information literacy practitioners are relevant and appropriate to the environment they operate in. More info at http://www.cilip.org.uk/umbrella2013/pages/call-for-papers.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bicycles, autumn, Psychology building, November 2012

Call for Papers: 2012 Conference of Asian Media Literacy and Education

There is a call for Papers for the 2012 Conference of Asian Media Literacy and Education being held December 1, 2012 in Chongqing, China.Contact is Pro. Guo Xiaoke gxiaoke@gmail.com "Tsinghua International Center for Communications (TICC) is a founding member of the UNESCO-UNAOC UNITWIN on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue (from now “Network”), created in May 2010. UNITWIN = University Twinning and Networking Programme of UNESCO. The main objective of the Network is to build capacity in each country and regional areas in order to further develop media and information literacy and intercultural dialogue programs and to contribute to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals."

They say "In light of the fact that teenagers and college students are the main users of internet media, the theme of the conference is how to effectively raise media literacy in institutions of higher learning and teenage education." Therefore their key topics are: Status-quo of media exposure of teenagers and college students; How to raise media literacy and conduct media education of teenagers; Challenges from social media to Journalism education; Study of China’s online public opinion. Papers should be 4,000- 10,000 words, with a 300 word abstract and biography of the author.The abstract should be emailed by November 15, 2012 and the full text by November 20, 2012 to nadnew@163.com
The following was given as the contact website, but when I just looked at the Google translation of it, I couldn't immediately see anything about this specific conference http://www.media.tsinghua.edu.cn . I found the information originally here.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Trapped autumn leaf, Royal Standard, November 2012

Online Digital Literacy Forum , November 14th (this is my 2250th post!)

The American Library Association's Digital Literacy Task Force is running a session Creating a Culture of Learning: How Librarians Keep up with Digital Media and Technology on Google Hangout on November 14, at 7pm EST (which is 12 midnight in the UK).
"Creating a Culture of Learning will explore how information professions can stay ahead of or on the learning curve with our students, colleagues and patrons as new devices, software and Internet-enabled services emerge. It is part of a series that began at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference and will continue in December with a discussion on assessing digital literacy." Speakers are:
- Caroline Haebig, instructional technology coordinator, Adlai E. Stevenson High School.
- Jamie Hollier, a technology, project management, and library consultant
- Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, a middle-school teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School in Laurel, Maryland.
- Bobbi Newman, aka Librarian by Day, currently enrolled at Iowa State University pursuing her second master’s degree.
- Anu Vedantham, who directs the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
"Join the conversation by watching a live-stream of the panelists on YouTube and chatting with other viewers and tweeting with the hash tag #digilit12. Questions and comments will be submitted to panelists throughout the program. The URL for the YouTube broadcast will be tweeted and posted to the District Dispatch by 6:30 p.m. EST, at the latest. Please RSVP at alawash@alawash.org." More details at: http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/11/oitp-confirms-speakers-for-culture-of-learning-in-online-digital-literacy-forum-november-14/
Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life.

Elsevier focus on information literacy

Short articles on information literacy by Elsevier customers feature in the latest issue of their newsletter, Library Connect. There are stories from various countries e.g. "Information competence development for Lithuanian academic community" and "Back to basics: Sheetal Tank [an Indian librarian] builds an information literacy program to address core skill levels." There is a blog entry listing the individual articles here and the pdf of the whole issue is at http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/sites/default/files/lcn1003.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn leaf, October 2012

Study of American graduates and employers

The latest report of Project Information Literacy (PIL) is the output from interviews with 23 employers in the USA and 33 recent graduates from US universities. They were asked about the ways in which they were expected to work with information in the workplace. Similar results to some previous studies in this area emerged e.g. the need to find and present information to short deadlines and the need to work well with others to solve information problems. The graduates did feel that some of the skills the developed at university (e.g. being able to evaluate information) were valuable in the workplace and there are some interesting quotes. "This report is the first in a new research initiative at PIL called the "The Passage Studies." These studies investigate the information transitions young adults go through at critical junctures in their lives." The full report is at http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_fall2012_workplaceStudy_FullReport.pdf
There is a prereview video about the new study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gOtjexhyvE&feature=youtu.be
Photo by Sheila Webber: Red leaves against blue sky, October 2012

Presentation of useful resources and apps

Phil Bradley just gave a presentation at Internet Librarian International 2012 on "new resources and interesting things that I've found recently." Definitely worth flicking through.

Things Phil has found 2012 from Phil Bradley

Havana declaration on IL, and the Iberoamerican wiki

The Declaration of Havana has been published in English. This declaration (already published in Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese) proposes 15 actions for information literacy. Themes include recognising contextual differences and needs, collaboration, inclusion and a life-wide perspective. http://www.ifla.org/node/6964

It is also the 3rd anniversary of the project ALFIN [Information Literacy]/ Ibero-America, with the wiki-repository containing more than 1400 entries from 22 Iberoamerican countries at http://alfiniberoamerica.wikispaces.com/
Thanks to Alejandro Uribe Tirado for keeping me updated with this information.
Photo by Sheila Webber: fallen leaves, October 2012

Information practices of refugees

The online pre-publication issue of the Journal of documentation has an article:
Lloyd, A., Kennan, M., Thompson,K. and Qayyum, A. (2012). Connecting with new information landscapes: Information literacy practices of refugees, Journal of Documentation, 69(1).
Information literacy practice is defined as "a coconstruction brought about by those who are co-located and participating in the everyday life of a community". Interviews and focus groups were used with refugees and service providers in an Australian town. The researchers found that there were phases of settlement (during which time the refugees had to develop new information practices), that refugees need help to cope with the new information landscape, that compliance (e.g. knowing about relevant laws) and everyday focus are the information foci to start with, and that visual and social information are important (including using storytelling).
The journal home page is here http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17062806
There is a related article: Lloyd, A., Qayyum, A. and Thompson,K. and (2011) Settling in: the relationship between information and social inclusion. Australian academic and research libraries, 42 (3),191-211.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn park, October 2012

cpf LOEX posters

For the LOEX (US Information Literacy conference) there is a call for posters (deadline January 25, 2013). It is open to "Students currently enrolled in a graduate program in library and information sciences along with librarians in resident or intern programs". The web page is here: http://www.loexconference.org/posterproposals.html

Research project into delivery of Information Literacy and Digital Scholarship

SCONUL (Society for College, National and University Libraries) and RIN (Research Information Network) are funding a year-long research project into delivery of Information Literacy and Digital Scholarship. There are two strands to the project. The first strand, co-ordinated by Research Information Network (RIN) on behalf of Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition (RIDLs), aims to identify and promote "good practice in information handling and data management training and development across the (UK) Higher Education and research sectors."
The second strand, coordinated by SCONUL under the JISC Developing
Digital Literacies (DDL) programme, "aims to identify, harvest, and use materials to progress the development of digital professional expertise."
Stephane Goldstein (RIN) and Alison Mackenzie (SCONUL) are project leaders and Charlie Inskip is the project officer. More info at http://rilads.wordpress.com
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn branches, October 2012

Recent articles

Journal of academic librarianship (priced publication) http://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-journal-of-academic-librarianship/
- Greer, K. et al (2012) "Beyond the Web Tutorial: Development and Implementation of an Online, Self-Directed Academic Integrity Course at Oakland University." Journal of academic librarianship, 38 (5), 251-258
- Gibbs, D. et al (2012) "Assessing the Research Needs of Graduate Students at Georgetown University" Journal of academic librarianship, 38 (5), 268-276
- Weiner, S. (2012) "Institutionalizing Information Literacy" Journal of academic librarianship, 38 (5), 287-293. [This is a slideshare of the same name, by her http://www.slideshare.net/infolit_group/weiner-13631500]
- Baro, E. and Keboh, T. (2012) "Teaching and Fostering Information Literacy Programmes: A Survey of Five University Libraries in Africa" Journal of academic librarianship, 38 (5), 311-315
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn anemones and foliage, October 2012

Survey for academic librarians

Laura Simmons (Assistant Professor, Simmons College) is conducting a survey of reference and instruction/ information literacy librarians' approach to teaching. This survey is a follow up to a study that was recently published in The Journal of Academic Librarianship, on academics' perspectives on information literacy. "The survey should only take about 15 minutes to complete and your participation is GREATLY appreciated" she says. The survey is at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RPGQ8WL
Photo by Sheila Webber: Prizewinning striped aubergines at Blackheath Framers' market

Dissertations on information literacy

There are a few online PhD dissertations relevant to information literacy that can be accessed via the British Library's ethos service. You have to register (free). If the thesis are not already digitised (the ones below are) then you can pay £49 to get it digitised. They include
-- What is 'digital literacy'? : a pragmatic investigation. Beshaw, Douglas A. J. Durham University, Awarded: 2012 (as a shortcut, the download is actually from http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3446/)
-- Information literacy instruction for Kuwaiti students and the role of cultural relevance. Lesher, Teresa M. Loughborough University, Awarded: 2002
-- Negotiating information literacy pathways : learner autonomy in higher education. McDowell, Liz. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Awarded: 2004.
-- Conceptions of effective information use and learning in a tele-health organization : a phenomenographic study of information literacy and knowledge management at work. Toledano O'Farrill, Ruben. Robert Gordon University, Awarded: 2008
-- Developing a new blended approach to fostering information literacy. Walton, Geoffrey. Loughborough University, Awarded: 2009. (Again, as a shortcut, the thesis is also availabe here https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/8148)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Green and gold, October 2012

UK major report: Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

There are some new reports from Ofcom (the UK "watchdog" for the communications sector). The main report, published today, is a substantial 200 page document, and the other 2 reports which I'll mention supplement that one.
Ofcom (2012) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report Research Document. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/main.pdf
The report is "designed to give an accessible overview of media literacy among [British] children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers, as well as an indicative view of media use by children aged 3-4." Key research was 1,717 in-home interviews.
The report is packed with statistics about what kinds of device children access, and where they do so. 91% of children have internet access at home (for the first time, this is not an increase compared with the last report) - some children still do not access the internet anywhere. Unsurprisingly, mobile devices feature heavily, with gender differences in how the devices are used. Also, just picking up on a personal interest, in 8-11 year olds the only "creative or civic" activity that has gone up every year is creating an avatar in an online world (this year 48% had).
For some of the conclusions, I will be lazy and copy from the Executive summary.
" Children are using a wide range of media devices, and internet access is not confined to the desktop PC, laptop or netbook. Those aged 12-15 in particular are spending more time online, are more likely to go online using their mobile phone and are more likely to say that their mobile phone is the device they would miss the most.

"For the first time this report contains indicative data on the media habits of 3-4 year olds. This indicates that many in this age group are using a range of different media devices, including over a third who are going online using a desktop PC, laptop or netbook and 6% who are going online via a tablet computer.
"These trends have implications for how we consider children’s media literacy, as the requirement for media literacy skills begins at a young age, and the types of devices children need to be proficient on, and the opportunities for them to encounter media content, increase.
"Children, particularly 12-15s, are prolific social networkers with large numbers of friends – an average of 92 friends for 8-11s and 286 for 12-15s. This has implications for how children protect and share personal information, given that personal data available to “friends” on social networking sites is likely to be shared with large numbers of people."

2. Ofcom (2012) Websites visited by children: Nielsen analysis. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_3.pdf

The data is "derived from Nielsen's UK panel of households, comprising 45,239 individuals". This is short, but interesting in listing top 25/50 sites for 3 age groups. As with the other reports, data was gathered in 2012.
- 5-7 years old: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, BBC, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, YouTube, BBC CBeebies, Yahoo!, eBay, Ask Search Network
- 8-11 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, YouTube, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, Facebook, BBC, YouTube Homepage, Google Image search, Wikipedia, Windows Live Messenger
- 12-15 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing ,YouTube,Google Image Search, YouTube Homepage, Yahoo!, Wikipedia

3. Jigsaw Research (2012) Parents’ views on parental controls: Findings of qualitative research. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_1.pdf

The research used a purposive sample of parents (in the UK), with qualitative methods including focus groups and journaling (it gives details of the questions etc., useful for other researchers). Parents were more concerned about issues like cyberbullying and "grooming" and the impact of internet use on other parts of the child's life (e.g. exercise, writing), rather than issues to do with access to inappropriate content (partly because they didn't perceive it as a particular problem). Some quotes from the executive summary are:
"Overall, ensuring balanced and safe use of the internet was seen as an important parenting challenge, but one where parents were not always clear on how to get it right. This was because they could not necessarily draw on their own experiences growing up, and also because they felt that the issues and risks were constantly developing and shifting".
"Overall, technical controls were viewed as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, hands-on parenting. Supervision and other forms of parental mediation were felt still to be needed to prevent all of the day-to-day issues as well as risks emanating from children’s internet usage."
Photos by Sheila Webber: Autumn chrysanthemum blooms, October 2012

Open Access Week - and - How Open Is It?

Open Access Week is 22-28 October 2012. The main website listing events, publicity etc. is at http://www.openaccessweek.org/
Another resource I just saw tweeted by Lyn Parker is How Open Is It , a guide (in several languages) to help judge the extent to which an item is "open access". The guide is short and has a spectrum of open-ness for key elements (e.g. reader rights, re-use rights). It can be downloaded at http://www.plos.org/about/open-access/howopenisit/
I might as well mention Lyn's Copyright Compliance Scoopit, too: http://www.scoop.it/t/copyright-compliance
Logo downloaded from http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/englishhigh-resolution-1

Digital and Information Literacies at Cardiff University

Earlier this month Cardiff University launched its Digital and Information Literacies Strategy: Embedding learning literacies at Cardiff University: INSRV's Digital and Information Literacies Strategy 2012-2014. This builds on their continued substantial developments in the area of information literacy, and also the JISC project they had on digital literacies.
The strategy is at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/news/infolitstrategy.html and digital literacy project at Cardiff University has a blog here http://digidol.cf.ac.uk/ and this is the page on the JISC site, which has project documents right at the bottom of the page http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/developingdigitalliteracies/DigiDol.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Today is Apple Day in the UK. This is part of my small crop of apples this year (bad weather has affected the British apple crops generally)

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology 2012

The report of the 2012 study of (United States) students' use of technology was published recently. The ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research) study has been carried out since 2004. This year they had responses from 106,000 students from 195 institutions and from these ECAR selected a stratified sample (using various demographics) of 10,000 students, and most of the results are based on that subset of responses. Obviously the main focus is on use and preferences in using technology, but it is also worth noting that the communication mode that students wanted more of, most, was face-to-face communication. More communication via Learning Management Systems (or Virtual Learning Environments as we say in the UK), email and text messaging came next after that. Communication modes where the number of people wanting less of it outnumbered the number wanting more included Facebook and Twitter. Nearly 60% preferred keeping academic and social lives separate.

The top 4 things that students wished that teachers used more were: Open Educational Resources; Simulations or educational games; Learning Management Systems and e-books. It seemed to me unlikely that everyone would know what OERs were, but when I checked the questionnaire, in fact that item was phrased as "Freely available course content beyond your campus (OpenCourseWare, Khan Academy, etc.)".

There was a majority agreeing that technology was important to achieve success in their studies and their future jobs. The top technology valued was the Learning management System, followed by the Library Website. A larger number of students (than in the last study) felt that their teachers were using technology effectively.

There is more on this and other questions in the full report, available at http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/ecar-study-undergraduate-students-and-information-technology-2012
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn colour, October 2012