Webinar: Using Technology to Go Beyond the One-Shot @librarianmer

There is a free webinar hosted by Sirsi Dynix, on September 6 2017, at 1pm US Eastern time, which is 6pm UK time. The title is: Using Technology to Go Beyond the One-Shot: Using technology to improve and increase literacy instruction. "The one-shot instruction session is your crucial opportunity to help students develop information literacy skills, but it’s not your only opportunity. Librarian, author, and blogger Meredith Farkas [faculty librarian at Portland Community College and a lecturer at San Jose State University’s iSchool], shares advice about how to use technology to extend and provide instruction beyond the one-shot. Join Meredith as she teaches how to utilize technology to: Adopt a “train the trainer” approach; Design interactive tutorials; “Flip” the classroom with flipped instruction; Serve up bite-sized chunks of instruction at student’s points of need." Go to http://go.sirsidynix.com/Using-Technology-to-Go-Beyond-the-One-Shot-SD-Webinar.html
Photo by Sheila Webber, flowers at the infolit/copyright event in Wroclaw, Poland, August 2017

Library diversity and inclusion

Two items: Firstly, the North American Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) has made a statement on diversity. It "reaffirms its commitment to, and promotion of, diversity, equality, and inclusion in the library and information science (LIS) education and professional community, and condemns racism, hate, bigotry, and violence." Additionally "To help LIS instructors teach and promote diversity, equality, and inclusion in their curriculum, we have compiled a list of recent works". The resources can be found at http://www.alise.org/alise-board-statement-on-diversity--equality--and-inclusion
Secondly, published today is: Schonfeld, R. and Sweeney, L. (2017). Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity: Members of the Association of Research Libraries Employee Demographics and Director Perspectives. Carnegie Mellon Foundation and Ithaka S+R. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.304524 "In this project, we focus on libraries at four-year colleges and universities within the United States. We asked deans and directors to complete a survey that captured both the demographics of library employees and the directors’ assessment of the diversity climate within their libraries and in the greater library sector."
"This report has shown the difference in various levels of seniority in the library ["homogeneity increases with seniority"], and included nonprofessional staff in the analysis, showing that directors may need look no further than professional development initiatives and growth pathways for MLS-holders to begin diversifying librarianship."
Photo by Sheila Webber: fountains by the conference centre, WLIC, August 2017

Voting for your vision of future libraries #iflaglobalvision

Voting at the Globalvision website https://globalvision.ifla.org/ was launched at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland. Voting closes on 30 September 2017. There have been a series of face to face and virtual meetings amongst those involved in IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) over the past six months, in all regions of the world, discussing a vision for libraries. I joined in a discussion virtually with fellow members of the IFLA Information Literacy Section. "They [were] focused on a set of questions designed through a collaborative process, e.g. What are the core values of libraries? What are libraries exceptionally good at? What are the main challenges to libraries? What would be the characteristics of a united library field?"
The current voting form basically has multiple choices for each of the questions, based on the responses gathered at the previous meetings. So, for example, for What should libraries do more of? You choose up to 5 of: Measure impact; Foster research and innovation; Advocacy‎ Training and development of staff and leaders‎; Embrace digital innovation‎; Community engagement‎; Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [that's the United Nations goals] and the current social needs‎; Promotion and marketing; Partnership and collaboration; Support learning, literacy and reading
You can vote at https://globalvision.ifla.org/vote/ Also at https://globalvision.ifla.org/promote/ you can download a package (available in 7 languages) which includes the poster I am holding in the photo. As well as publicising libraries, it is also showing IFLA's commitment to a multicultural, global community of librarians, so people are encouraged to take selfies with the poster in their language and put it on social media using #iflaglobalvision

Movies for visually impaired in China; School students create videos wlic2017

This is the second liveblog report on the session Media is the Message: Critical Use of Video in the Digital Age at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland

Watching Movies Through Listening at Any Place in Any Time - A Special Event for Visually Impaired People from Jian-hao He (Taipei Public Library, Taiwan, Republic of China), Shih-chang Horng (Taipei Public Library, Taiwan, Republic of China). The first speaker started by identifying the large size of the city of Taipei (2.7 million). The have one branch (Qiming) devoted to visually impaired people and have a large collection of braille and audio books. They have a free e-library, free newspaper reading, and a pay-for-use hotline about activities. When it comes to movies, obviously a lot of what movies convey is through visual means. Therefore they have programme to make videos accessible to the visually impaired. An example was shown, in which a video was being shown and there was a describer saying what the people were saying and also saying what was happening in the movie. The process of being a describer at a live event was described. Ther describer had to watch the movie many times and take notes, beforehand, and write an introduction. A braille leaflet is then produced by the library. At the live event, the describer gives an introduction before the movie and add a simultaneous description, and finally the participants can discuss the movie. A recording is made, and the editor of the recording is visually impaired so that he has good understanding of people's needs. They have 540 movies so far, with 31,000 downloads. The full paper is here: http://library.ifla.org/1771/1/242-he-en.pdf

Advocacy Through Videos: Short Movies on School Libraries from Isabel Mendinhos (School Libraries Network, Portugal). She is on the far left of the photo, which shows most of the panel members. She talked about a 2016 project to increase awareness of the good work undertaken in school libraries. The School Library Network in Portugal has 45 regional coordinators and 1400 teacher librarians, and there are also local networks which undertake training etc. Clusters of schools can carry out projects to become part of the network (I think).
The network launched a campaign to get testimonials about the SLN, to celebrate 20 years of growth, and the idea was to get school students to create videos on school libraries. There were rules about the length of the video, legal and ethical permissions etc. The librarians explained these to students. The videos were put on Facebook or Youtube and sent to the SLN, to eventually be put on their Facebook page. The videos that got the most FB likes went onto the SLN anniversary page. 130 videos were submitted, involving 1000 students. The SLN published rankings (by likes) on their blog.
The participants enjoyed the exercise, and they had to use critical and creative skills, mostly through collaboration. They could also think about the impact and use of social media. Also, for the school libraries, the videos provide an excellent testament to the value of school libraries. The full paper is here: http://library.ifla.org/1772/1/242-mendinhos-en.pdf There is also an article in English with video examples here https://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/latest/news/20-years-of-enhancing-literacy.htm

Scientific videos; evaluating videos; creating videos #wlic2017

At the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland I'm attending a session Media is the Message: Critical Use of Video in the Digital Age. It was organised by 3 IFLA sections: Audiovisual and Multimedia, Information Literacy and School Libraries. I will be saying something about each talk.

Extending Media Literacy Education: The Popular Science Video Workshop from Margret Plank (German National Library of Science and Technology, Germany), Attila Dávid Molnár (speaker) (Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Hungary), Paloma Marín-Arraiza (São Paulo State University, Brazil). The speaker referred back to his youth and the creation of his first scientific film inspired by Carl Sagan. Now he makes these professionally. He talked about the increasing multimodality of scientific communication e.g. vidoes, links embedded in a scintic article. However some scientists are sceptical about video as a valid method of communicating scientific research. To help overcome this they organised three workships in Germany and Hungary, with the aim of convincing academics that videos were a good way of communicating science. (the photo is an illustration from a workshop)
The speaker talked about video abstracts, something you may have seen on journal websites: the idea is to abstract the paper, but using video. Here's some guidelines from the New Journal of Physics http://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1367-2630/page/How%20to%20make%20a%20good%20video%20abstract
They type of content in visual tends to be divide in 4 kinds: on camera video of the person, animation, documentary and stills. The workshop covers this (emphasising that people will already be used to taling about their work!), but starts with writing, and creating a script, going on to filming and editing. The full paper is here: http://library.ifla.org/1776/1/242-plank-en.pdf

How the Library Can Better Support Students to Analyse and Evaluate Sources When Using Popular Media Platforms from Malin Nilsson (speaker) (Medical Library), Magnus Olsson, Lenita Berggren (Arts Campus Library), Samo Grasic (HUMlab), Susanne Sjöberg (speaker) (Library) (all from Umeå University, Sweden).
They identified that various popular platforms like Buzzfeed or Vimeo are increasingly used by students. They decided to investigate how students use and evaluate film. They did interviews as a pilot study and then workshops. They learned that film was not seen as a primary source, but was used to explain things, to understand and for inspiration. Students were uncertain about using it in academic work - whether it was ok (was it approved the lecturers) and how to cite it. The authors found that the students felt that print sources were more relable than film sources (even if they had the same content). The editing process for books/articles made students feel they must be more reliable.
In terms of evaluating film, the source (producer/director/publisher) was seen as important; the agenda of the producers was considered; recommendations from faculty had a big impact; also if the film was produced in a technically competent way, this was seen as a signal of reliability.
Messages for librarians included: explaining how to cite all types of media, with examples; creating more visual guidance (about library services generally, I think); teaching students about information in all types of media. Full paper is here http://library.ifla.org/1809/1/242-nilsson-en.pdf

Faculty Readiness in Teaching Video Information Creation in Nigerian Library and Information Science Departments was the next talk. It was presented by Professor Assani on hehalf of from Nancy Achebe, Victoria N. Okafor, Ngozi Osadebe, Ezinne O. Njoku, Beatrice O. Ewa (all University of Nigeria, Nigeria). The presenters noted the increasing opularity and power of videos in learning, and it is also getting easier to make them. Videos can also help achieve a globalisation strategy: to reach out to a wider number of students without geographic barrier. Therefore the skill of video creation can also be useful to library and information professionals to support their work: however this was not an area covered in Nigeria higher education. The authors decided to undertake a study to find out whether LIS departments in Nigeria were prepared and able to teach this. They investigated 12 departments, using an observation checklist and questionnaire. They found that there was no standard curriculum for teaching video creation, with challenges like irregular power supply, lack of resources and training. There needed to be training for LIS faculty to raise their interests and skills, so that video creation could be part of all LIS curriculum. There also needed to be awareness raising, to understand the value of using videos in different ways, so the faculty cvould also motivate the LIS students. The full paper is here: http://library.ifla.org/1786/1/242-achebe-en.pdf

#Copyright Literacy in Higher Education #wlic2017

This is my final liveblog on the mini-conference on Models for Copyright Education in Information Literacy Programs at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference held in the Dolnośląska Szkoła Wyższa (University of Lower Silesia), Wroclaw. There was part 2 of Librarians Teaching Faculty and Students: Copyright Literacy in Higher Education, moderated by Tomas Lipinski.
Armin Talke, Berlin State Library (Germany) talked on Berlin State Library´s Scientific Publishing Program for PhD Students: Copyright and Much More. Although this is not a university library, there is strong use by PhD students and there is demand for support (there have been high profile cases in Germany of people getting caught having plagiarised their PhDs). They have developed 4 modules:
1. General questions (3 hours). This includes landscape of publishing; plagiarism; what you can include in your work legally; where to publish; basics of copyright; financing publications; post-publication e.g. getting book reviews
2. Open Access (2 and a half hours) including licenses, differences between different routes
3. Copyright in images (2 hours) including ways to license and good sources to find images
4. Research Data Management. This includes administration, ethics, legal issues, publishing and finding research data

Janice Pilch, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US) talked on The Scope of Copyright Education. This addressed the issue of what should be included in copyright education. She started by identifying that education is not neutral, with explicit or implicit values, a specific context etc. For example descriptions of copyright by different people/institutions will frame it differently (e.g. as constraining or protecting). The speaker felt that copyright education could be expanded by adopting perspectives from some aspects of the ACRL IL Framework e.g. thinking of metaliteracy, and understanding that information is constructed and contextual.
The traditional scope of copyright education has been about understanding the legal situation and keeping within it. The speaker felt that reaching beyond this, taking a more critical stance, and thinking of the entire copyright ecosystem, would be a welcome step. She noted that the development of the web, and digital industries, had signalled an increased focus on copyright and new types of pressure, lobbying, advocacy etc. The speaker identified that some companies also used academic projects and outputs to give a neutral face to their lobbying. The speaker presented a slide with a whole list of strategies (e.g. "Using "left" modalities to support corporate interests") Therefore she felt that copyright education should include helping people "untangle these strategies". This includes distinguishing between advocacy, education and marketing. She used the example of Marc Ribot who supports musicians' rights: he urged librarians "to make sure that the process of distribution does not destroy the process of creation" (by destroying their ability to make a living). I thought this was a welcome call to think about copyright as not just about obeying the law etc.

Jane Nichols, Oregon State University Libraries and Press (US) talked on Copyright Education and the Undergraduate Student (coauthored with Michaela Hooper). She talked about a Library Skills for literary studies class. Goals included considering social political and economic context of information and knowledge production. One session focuses on author rights, public domain, creative commons licenses and fair use of content. She used Char Booth's instructional design model. You can find information on that model https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2010/04/30/build-your-own-instructional-literacy/
The speaker reflected on the characteristics of the students they teach, often starting with not knowing much about rights. Steps they scaffold start with recalling that copyright applies to do with music and books, then building on that by understanding that copyright is automatic and understand creative commons licensing. The speakers have an exercise at the start of the class to find out where students are in their knowledge of copyright. The speaker emphasised getting students to reflect on examples, and on the teachers also reflecting on their teaching.

I'll mention that I have failed to blog talks by Vincent Bonnet (EBLIDA) on copyright in Europe and by Dick Kawooya on a survey of copyright in the curricula of North American library and information schools. This is because they were run over lunch, and I couldn't blog and eat! However, I think the powerpoints from today's talks may be published and I will blog the link when I get it.
The first picture of particioants today is by me. The second shows Ewa Rozkosz, Lisa Hinchliffe, the university president, Janice Pilch and Tomas Lipinski and was taken by Mirek Antoniewicz

Librarians Teaching Faculty and Students: Copyright Literacy in Higher Education #wlic2017

My second post on the mini-conference on Models for Copyright Education in Information Literacy Programs at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference held in the Dolnośląska Szkoła Wyższa (University of Lower Silesia), Wroclaw. The post-lunch session was on Librarians Teaching Faculty and Students: Copyright Literacy in Higher Education (Part 1). It was moderated by Lisa Hinchliffe, the new chair of the IFLA Information Literacy Section (who is shown standing to chair the first panel of the day: photo Mirek Antoniewicz).
Firstly Min Chou, New Jersey City University Library (US) talked about Academic Libraries’ Role in Teaching about Copyright and Fair Use. This was based on her doctoral research. In the US digital copyright laws (DMCA and TEACH) require insitutions to have copyright policies. Her research was explore the state of copyright policies, and the extent to which fair use was covered. She undertook a qualitative study used Lessig's model of the modalities of regulation (identifying norms, architecture [technical], law, the market as four forces). She examined material from 115 universities, looking at policies and guidelines, endorsed at the university level, published on university websites. 50 institutions had official policies on fair use, 33 more had advisories on fair use. Few covered case law on fair use, and some policies were out of date. Longer did not necessarily mean better. Some were shorter but comprehensible and referred to fuller documents. The speaker identified that policies had to be proactive to incorporate change, and also making policies should involve stakeholders in dicussion.

Rodney Malesi, United States International University-Africa (Kenya) talked on Building Information Literacy in Copyright, Licensing, and Related Legal Matters: A USIU-Africa Library Experience. He started by explaining something about his university. The learning outcomes for the university included "Integrity": complying with copyright falls under that (other outcomes included lifelong learning and academic freedom). Kenya is a signatory to the TRIPS and WIPO copyright treaties. INASP has been key in copyright education for librarians. The speaker identified that copyright was part of information literacy education: ideally this involved collaboration with faculty, but as in other countries this could be a challenge. Sustaining student interest was also challenging! Copyright training included definition of terms, plagiarism, fair use, copyright, public domain and creative commons. Ways for the future include incorporating the General Assessment Committee's recommendations on information literacy, examining IFLA's guidelines on copyright literacy, and exploring gaming (e.g. Secker and Morrison's card game).

Finally Kathy Kristie Anders and Emilie Algenio, Texas A and M University (US) talked on Copyright Education for Graduate Students: A Scalable Model. They identified the ACRL IL frames "Information has value" and "Scholarship as conversation" as relevant for copyright. The context for the copyright education was an information literacy programme for graduate students (a non-homogenous group). Copyright was relevant in terms of ownership, reuse and distribution. They have 14,000 graduate and professional students, so the baseline is an online copyright tutorial that students have to pass, covering copyright basics. The second tier consists of face to face and online workshops (some of which are embedded into other programmes; they also work with the Writing Centre), and the third tier consists of one-on-one consultations (which can be idenitfied through interactions at the second tier, or there may be referrals). What it means to be a responsible copyright owner is one of the common messages. Challenges include scaling up deep learning, and getting contact before the need gets urgent. Success strategies include collaboration, advertising, hooking into university inititaives and institutional goals.

#Copyright Literacy and Professional Education for Librarians #wlic2017

I am liveblogging this from the mini-conference on Models for Copyright Education in Information Literacy Programs at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland. It was held in the Dolnośląska Szkoła Wyższa (University of Lower Silesia). I was helping with registration (I had time to take a photo of the lemons for tea), so missed the inital session giving an international perspective on copyright issues. The next session was: Copyright Literacy and Professional Education for Librarians and Information Specialists, moderated by Tomas Lipinski, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. I will say a few senetences about each of the 5 presentations. Thanks to Ewa Rozkosz for the photos of the room.
Neelam Thapa (speaker) and Dr. Harisingh Gour talked about Integrating Copyright in the Curriculum: A Study of LIS Courses of Central Universities of India. She started by talking about India's Vision 2020 (which has digital goals, and higher education is a prerequisite). Skilled librarians are also necessary. 40% of the central universities offer library courses. The authors queried whether the curricula of these courses could meet digital library challenges. Whilst a survey showed all the courses addressed IT, not all of them address copyright, although where it is included it is part of the core curriculum. Looking at the topics included: apart from basic introductions, "e-documents and copyright" are only covered in the 2 year Masters courses. The presenter noted that there ia no agency for course accreditation in LIS, and this is required for more consistency. She felt that if LIS was offered more at undergraduate level, the subject would have better takeup at Masters level. Additionally, Information Literacy is a core class in few courses, and this should be incorporated for all courses. The speaker felt that there should also be a core copyright class, incotporating a practical workshop element.

Dragana Stolić (speaker) and Tatjana Brzulović Stanisavljević, University Library “Svetozar Marković” (Serbia) talked on Accredited Seminars as an Example of Good Educational Practice: Program ‘Copyright in Library and Information Science’ of the University Library ‘Svetozar Marković’ in Belgrade. She noted that professional education in Serbia was very formal and slow changing, with examinations. The fact that it was slow changing was a problem in the fast changing digital age. In 2013 an obligation on librarians to engage in continuing professional development (every year) was brought in. This means taking short programmes, which have to be evaluated. In 2016 they introduced "Copyright in Library and Information Science" to cover the basics of national copyright law and international regulation e.g. the basic conceptions and definitions, author's rights. There was good feedback, but asking for more practical material. Therefore in 2017 the short course was revised to include more about copyright infringement (with examples of specific cases) and plagiarism. The authors did an evaluation survey, which had 339 respondents. There was a very positive response in terms of value for participants' work. The speaker felt this was a good form for this kind of education, and "Possibility to develop - to expand some themes, and to pose this kind of education as continuous" They thought ibrarians could follow the topic, to pick up new knowledge each year (e.g next year they might address social media and copyright).

Joanna Potęga (speaker), Main Library, Maria Grzegorzewska University and Agnieszka Wróbel, University of Warsaw Library (Poland) talked on Are We Information Literacy Advocates? Really? An Analysis of Copyright Identification on the Websites of Polish Academic and Research Libraries. She noted that, although there was copyright awareness/education for librarians, still a few years ago there were cases of libraries being accused of copyright infringement. A particular issue was works (notably pictures) where it was not immediately obvious who the author was and where/when it was published. The speaker mentioned the POL-on system, which records various data about Polish higher education institutions, including about 400 libraries (which I think she said did not represent all university libraries). They examined this set of library websites. The authors found to their surprise that some libraris didn't have any web presence. However, looking at the remainder some had a separate website (49% had a section on copyright) or were part of their institution's website (13% had a copyright section). About 2 thirds of the sites had a copyright mark, but only 3 libraries declared a creative commons license. Thus the question is: why do not more libraries set a good example on their own websites (of open access and copyright awareness)?

Sara Benson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (US) talked on Copyright Mini-Series: A Train the Trainer Approach to Disseminating Copyright Knowledge to Subject Liaison Librarians. She started by identifying that there was a lack of training in copyright for librarians in the USA. She mentioned using a flipped approach (ie putting lecture material online, with activities in class) and talked about benefits of flipping (e.g. making the videos generally available). She advocated making short (5-10 min) videos, covering a single topic per video and making sure they are accessible. She showed an example video and said that a typical timing was: Introduction (5 min); Group work (10 min), Discussion (10 min), Conclusion (5 min). An example topic would be a discussion of what uses of a film might be (e.g. showing a full length film on YouTube, in class etc.) Her youtube channel is here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC_GmHipQ1WRKZyus2JF5WQ

Jessica Coates, Australian Libraries Copyright Committee and Australian Library and Information Association (Australia) talked on Letting Go of Certainty: Getting Librarians and Archivists To Take Risks. She started by talking about what her organisation does: into includes advocacy, and training librarians. Their training focuses on what you CAN do. It includes the basics, and exceptions/limitations, and licensing. Practical skills on creative commons etc. are included.
The speaker said a little about Australian copyright law, which is in line with international law, but a "wildcard" is a flexible dealing exception for libraries, archives and educational institutions (so this is like fair dealing). The way this has been brought into law causes confusion and anxiety (around interpretation of what is a "special case").
This issue has led to some specific training on "risk minimisation" as regards the law, asking questions such as "is there a reasonable argument" (e.g. for digitising older material), "what is the risk of being challenged", "what risk minimisation strategies can you put in place?". This has led to more use of materials in exhibitions, collaborative projects, digitisation etc.
The message is that librarians should be "good actors" but risk for libraries is generally low, and so one shouln't be too risk averse. A question was raised afterwards about the parent institution being liable legally and more risk averse than the library (so there may need to be work at the institutional level).

Infolit of migrant workers; library in a box; preserving memories; librarians' role #wlic2017

Because I'm at an offsite session today, I'll miss these papers at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference, but I'll mention them since you can look at the full text papers if you are interested.
- Role of Information Literacy Services in Moulding Developing Countries into Knowledge-based Economies: A Case of Migrant Workers in Qatar by Zenab Ahmed (University College London, Qatar) Paper at http://library.ifla.org/1714/1/189-ahmed-en.pdf
- Pustaka in a Box: Bridging the Digital Gaps by Japri Bujang Masli (Sarawak State Library, Malaysia), Johari Abdullah (University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia) and Musa Ayub Abd Rahman (Sarawak State Library, Malaysia)(this is a very short paper, but a useful idea "Microcomputer is used as a server to store digital resources including e-books, articles and videos. The system is called Pustaka in a Box and it was tested in remote areas of Sarawak. Access is via local wifi from the microcomputer.") http://library.ifla.org/1609/1/198-bujang-en.pdf
- Where Should the Culture of Our Lives and Memory be Preserved? Rethinking the Role of the Library by Jaesun Lee (National Library of Korea, Republic of Korea) http://library.ifla.org/1691/1/189-lee-en.pdf
- "Time Is Out of Joint". The Impact of Digimodernism on the Transformation of Librarian’s Role by Olga Einasto (University of Tartu Library, Estonia)- chosen for the part at the end "I believe that the promotion of information literacy training as the basic library service is very important today ... The task of the academic librarian is in facilitating student critical thinking skills and not the teaching our tedious classification schemes." http://library.ifla.org/1834/1/187-einasto-en.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: tea house, Japanese Garden, Wroclaw, August 2017

Storytelling for reference and information #wlic2017

At the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland I attended yesterday a session on Storytelling for Sustainability and Solidarity - Reference and Information Services. The photo is of one of the dwarf statues that are a feature in Wroclaw: I'm not sure if she's telling a story or casting a spell.
The WLIC session was chaired by Marydee Ojala, and I'll say something about each of the papers. It started with an introduction to storytelling from Erik Boekesteijn (National Library of the Netherlands), which I have to confess I missed. However I discovered this article in which he talks about using stories in libraries:
Boekesteijn, E. (2008). Discover Innovations at DOK, Holland’s 'Library Concept Center'. Marketing Library Services, 22(2). http://www.infotoday.com/MLS/mar08/Boekesteijn.shtml
and this short interview with him Connecting people to stories with library innovation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH529HcXeeU I
n fact there is loads on storytelling for librarians eg this and this.
However, I did hear the rest of the talks! Most of them had already deposited full text papers in the IFLA library, and I'll link to those.

Raymond Pun (Fresno State University, United States) gave a talk Telling First Year Experience: Visual Techniques to Assess First Year Students and Their Information Seeking Behaviors (coauthored with Yujin Hong (Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea) and Minsun Kim (Sogang University, Republic of Korea). Their strategies included using photovoice with first year students. photovoice means asking people to take photos on the topic you are interested in, for example you might say "take photos of places, things etc. that help you write your essay". You then use the photos as a focus for discussing the topic with the students. This can give you insight into their world and narrative. I will add (from a talk I attended at another conference) that you also need to brief the students about the ethics of taking photos (in particular asking people's permission to take photos).
Ray talked about getting students to share on instagram etc. and this use of social media being a good way to share and get feedback/reaction. He also talked about ethno-mapping, i.e. using mapping as a way to understand people's conceptions of something. For example, you could ask students to draw a map of the library or a picture of the library website. From that, you can get an idea of how much and what they use, and possibly how they feel about it too. His library had drawn on the research they had done to develop a video 10 Things You Should Know About the Henry Madden Library https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyBTJK6cJs

The full paper is available here: http://library.ifla.org/1634/1/122-pun-en.pdf

The next paper I heard was: Crisis of Professional Identity or Challenge for Personal Development : My Story as a Reference and User Services Librarian. Maja Krulić Gačan talked about how they had used marketing strategies to develop services in her library to meet users needs (Public Library "Fran Galovic" Koprivnica, Croatia). For example, she talked about services for babies and parents, and campaigns using social media. The paper is here: http://library.ifla.org/1638/1/122-krulic-en.pdf

This was followed by Before and Beyond Embedding: A Reference Fable from the National Library of Technology in Prague authored by Martin Stehlik, Sasha Skenderija and Tomas Houdek.
Their initiative was triggered by an impressive new library building: on the one hand the new building was an apparent success, but there was a disconnect with academic life. The librarians identified a narrative disconnect, which included library-centred narratives, librarians' lack of experience with research environments and low subject knowledge, and low expectations of reference services.
By identifying different discourses, they aimed to get into the academic narrative.To pull out a key sentence from their paper "we now present our services using vocabulary and messages that make more sense to our users, employing both “small” narratives surrounding individual user tasks (need help writing your thesis?) to “grand” or “meta” narratives regarding fundamental values and beliefs shared within academia (e.g., research integrity)". The slide includes an interesting thought, that to say you are "embedded" implies that you are are still an outside observer. The full paper is here, and it gives numerous concrete examples: http://library.ifla.org/1636/1/122-skenderija-en.pdf They also played this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXCB2ZZgiRI

The final paper in the session was Why Horror Stories Don’t Lead to Nightmares, by Helen Morgan and Heather Todd (The University of Queensland Library, Australia). They had been trying to find ways to make researchers interested in the rather dry subject of Research Data Management. They had done this by collecting real-life horror stories of people losing their research data (e.g. losing the data stick; having your computer lost in a fire) and having the research rejected because they couldn't produce the raw research data. They started with examples from elsewhere, but now have stories from within the University of Queensland, and found some senior researchers very helpful in sharing stories. This has indeed helped to make researchers more engaged with the issue.

Library Map of the World #wlic2017

The Library Map of the World was launched at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference in Wroclaw, Poland. "Selected library performance metrics provide national level library data across all types of libraries in all regions of the world." You can "adjust map view settings to search by country and explore worldwide totals." Data is not available for all countries: for example, for numbers of libraries, there is no data for the Uk or Ireland, and for France there are numbers given for national, public and academic libraries, but not school libraries. Potentially there are numbers for types of library, loans, staff, volunteers, registered users, and libraries with internet access.
The site is also mapping stories relating to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. So far there are a few stories mapped to the specific SDG and also literally mapped to the country.

#Literacy matters #wlic2017

An updated version of the Literacy Matters website has been launched at WLIC 2017. The portal is for librarians, teachers and parents. "It has been developed to support the Literacy Matters! campaign, devised and launched by the Literacy and Reading Section, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The campaign is part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda: Sustainable Development Goals to support the development of literacy for all peoples across all nations." It includes lots of links to articles, policy documents, accounts of what is being done by libraries, and infographics. The site is at http://www.literacymatters.org.au/
Photo by Sheila Webber: in the Japanese garden, Wroclaw, August 2017

My liveblogging limited at #wlic2017

My planned liveblogging at the World Library and Information Conference will be hampered by the fact that I broke my left wrist 12 days ago and it is in plaster (see photo). Although I am right handed, I have realised that I use my left hand a lot when I'm typing fast. Although my fingers are ok,using a key board involves a good deal of wrist action... I am going to see how it goes, but I am likely to be doing a very limited amount of liveblogging (which requires fast typing). It was a straightforward break (I overbalanced when getting on a tain in a hurry and threw out my hand to support myself) and normal liveblogging service should be resumed by the European Information Literacy Conference at the end of September (I hope!)

IL Section meeting at #WLIC2017

I'm attending the World Library and Information conference (aka the IFLA conference in Wroclaw, Poland. The main conference starts tomorrow. Today I attended my last IFLA Information Literacy Section committee as a committee member, as I have served the maximum of 8 years. Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe was elected section chair and Dilara Begum was elected Secretary, whilst Antonin Benoit Diouf remains information coordinator. Maria Carme Torres (former chair of the section and now a member of the IFLA governing board) and also Donna Scheeder (IFLA president) popped in to visit. The latter wanted to talk to us about the Global Vision programme, which has been gaining momentum through the year. I'll be blogging more about this later, as it aims to engage librarians internationally.
We discussed the section's session on Wednesday on infolit/copyright (which I will be blogging as best I can) and a proposal for a possible joint session next year focusing on research methods and approaches in transliteracy. There was also a discussion about whether there should be an infolit satellite meeting to the 2018 IFLA conference in Kuala Lumpur (I think there will).
The photo shows Sharon Mader (outgoing chair) addressing the committee members and observers (anyone can come and sit in on the committee meetings).

TeachMeet 5 September, University of East Anglia

The Norfolk Teaching Librarians' Network is running a free TeachMeet on 5 September 2017 (1pm to 3:30pm) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. Presenters (10-minute presentations) are sought to share a teaching activity or idea. "The format is relaxed and friendly, and you can present in any way you like, with or without slides. At the end of the session we'll have a chance to reflect on the presentations as a group and how we might incorporate any new ideas into our own teaching practice." Book as presenter or spectator at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/norfolk-teaching-librarians-network-teachmeet-tickets-36778206606
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, border, August 2017

Becoming blended

I recently noticed the tumblr of Melanie Parlette-Stewart (Blended Learning Librarian at the University of Guelph), who sketchnotes conferences etc. http://becomingblended.tumblr.com/ (I came across her account of the ECIL 2016 conference). In a recent post she talks about her approach to sketchnoting/visual note-taking http://becomingblended.tumblr.com/post/163585089146/toolsresources-for-visual-note-taking including some links at the end. Also interesting is her tumblr What the librarian wore
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, border with bees, August 2017

Design for Learning

There is a free online self-paced course Design for Learning: 21st Century Online Teaching and Learning Skills for Library Workers (D4L) which is "designed to enable library workers to transfer their in-person teaching skills to the online environment. ...The program is comprised of 7 online self-paced modules: Orientation, Foundation, Diversity, Community, Content Creation, Course Management, and Capstone. ... D4L was developed as a partnership between the the South Central Regional Library Council, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, and the Empire State Library Network. It is funded as a three-year grant, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)." Registering for Webjunction is straightforward (I tried it) and you get access to other courses too. http://learn.webjunction.org/course/index.php?categoryid=41
Photo by Sheila Webber: seagull, Inverness, June 2017

Predatory papers

I saw from the Improbable Research website** that an annotated collection of papers that aim to expose predatory journals has been published. This mainly consists of papers that are nonsense and were devised to show that predatory journals will accept anything. Each paper has a short introduction and links to news items etc. that reacted to the "sting".
Faulkes, Z. (2017). Stinging the Predators: A collection of papers that should never have been published. Figshare. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5248264
A useful collection if you are discussing this topic with students/researchers: my only caveat is that it does not state clearly that the permission of the copyright owners was sought.

**a long-standing website/magazine that takes a droll and sceptical perspective on scientific output and has presented the ig-noble prizes since 1991
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, August 2017

Fake news, quality images

Browsing the Information Today site, two recent short articles that caught my eye:
Badke, W. (2017) Post-Truth, False News, and Information Literacy. Online Searcher, 31 (4). http://www.infotoday.com/OnlineSearcher/Articles/InfoLit-Land/PostTruth-False-News-and-Information-Literacy-119319.shtml
Burke, J. (2017). Finding Quality Free Images. Marketing Library Services, 31 (4). http://www.infotoday.com/mls/jul17/Burke--Finding-Quality-Free-Images.shtml
Photo by Sheila Webber: my camera is saying goodbye: those lines weren't added in photoshop! Time for a new one. Autumn anemones, August 2017

LIANZA conference #open17

This is mostly not about information literacy (just a couple of sessions), but I thought the programme of the LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa) conference looked very diverse and interesting. It takes place September 24 - 27 2017 in Christchurch, New Zealand.One of the less usual sessions is "LIANZA Human Lending Library: The human lending library allows you to sit one on one with each of our human “books” and have a detailed conversation about an area of interest to you. You might drill down on an aspect of their keynote or professional expertise or pick their brain for suggestions towards your work." (The "books" are Bill Macnaught, Paul Stacey, Matt Finch, Laurinda Thomas, Lesley Acres, Donna Lanclos, Sue Sutherland) https://lianza.org.nz/conferences/lianza-conference-2017-addington-raceway-september-24-27
You also might like to check out their open access journal (Library Life). The latest (July 2017) issue is the "Te Rōpū Whakahau edition of Library Life. Te Rōpū Whakahau is the leading national body that represents Māori engaged in Libraries, Culture, Knowledge, Information, Communication and Systems Technology in Aotearoa New Zealand" https://lianza.org.nz/our-work/publications/library-life
Photo by Sheila Webber: wild oregano, July 2017

Listicles

McCrystal, E. and Migliaccio, C. (2017, 31 July). 10 Reasons the Listicle Is Effective for Digital Pedagogy. Educause review. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/7/10-reasons-the-listicle-is-effective-for-digital-pedagogy
The authors say "The listicle is a strong pedagogical method for faculty to communicate with students, either about the curriculum, through specific assignments/goals, or regarding technology use in the course. Furthermore, students can use the listicle to synthesize information, organize information, and prioritize course tasks. On the surface, the listicle may seem simplistic, but the broad pedagogical power of the listicle helps students by enhancing their reading, researching, writing, and digital-media skills. Thus, the listicle serves as an effective tool in any classroom."

To be honest, I'm not totally convinced (aren't these just ... short lists? does calling them listicles really have a magic motivating effect on students?) but at any rate it made me think about the place of lists in teaching, and what to call them. In fact it also made me think I might have the odd listicle on this blog, so watch this space.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath, the heath, August 2017

RUSA to become open access

Reference and User Services Quarterly, official journal of the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association, will go open access from its Autumn 2017 issue. It includes a regular infortmation literacy column, and one of the forthcoming issues is focusing on workplace information literacy. For those of you with subscriptions (or access as ALA members) the last issue (vol 56 no 4, 2017) included:
- Esther Grassian: Information Literacy and Instruction: Teaching and Learning Alternatives: A Global Overview (pages 232-239).
- Marc Vinyard, Colleen Mullally, Jaimie Beth Colvin: Why do Students Seek Help in an Age of DIY? Using a Qualitative Approach to Look Beyond Statistics (pages 257-268) (so this should complement the JAL article I blogged yesterday on "Academic Information-Seeking and Help-Seeking Practices")
The home page is at https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq
Photo by Sheila Webber: large daisies... July 2017

New articles: metacognitive strategies; mobile devices; help-seeking; student perceptions; social media use

The latest issue (volume 43, no. 3) of The Journal of Academic Librarianship (priced publication) includes:
- Catalano, A. Development and Validation of the Metacognitive Strategies for Library Research Skills Scale. Pages 178-183
- Lau, K.P. et al. Educational Usage of Mobile Devices: Differences Between Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students Pages 201-208
- Thomas, S., Tewell, E, and Willson, G. Where Students Start and What They Do When They Get Stuck: A Qualitative Inquiry into Academic Information-Seeking and Help-Seeking Practices Pages 224-231
- Attebury, R.I. Professional Development: A Qualitative Study of High Impact Characteristics Affecting Meaningful and Transformational Learning Pages 232-241
- McCartin, L.F., Iannacchione, B. and Evans, M.K. Student Perceptions of a Required Information Literacy Course on Their Success in Research & Writing Intensive Criminal Justice Courses Pages 242-247
- Harrison, A. et al. Social Media Use in Academic Libraries: A Phenomenological Study Pages 248-256
- Stvilia, B. and Gibradze, L. Examining Undergraduate Students' Priorities for Academic Library Services and Social Media Communication Pages 257-262
Contents page at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333/43/3?sdc=1
Photo by Sheila Webber: Inverness, June 2017

Presentations from #LILI2017 Learning Social Justice through Critical Information Literacy

A number of the presentations from the one day LILi Conference (Theme: Learning Social Justice through Critical Information Literacy), held on 31 July 2017 in Glendale, USA, are online. This includes: Teaching Authority Where Black Lives Matter Presented by Faith Bradham (Bakersfield College); Engage Your Cultural Side: Cultural Intelligence Presented by Dr. Michele Villagran (University of North Texas); Teaching Future Leaders about Authority Presented by Charissa Jefferson (California State University Northridge); Keepin’ It Real: Reflections on a Fake News Workshop Presented by Aisha Conner-Gaten, Jennifer Masunaga, and Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet (Loyola Marymount University). Further presentations will be added. Go to http://campusguides.glendale.edu/LILI2017
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hydrangea, July 2017

Calls for papers for iConference 2018 #iconf18

There is a call for papers for the 2018 iConference, which takes place March 25-28, 2018, at my own University, the University of Sheffield, in Sheffield, UK. This is the conference organised by the iSchools association (of which we are a member) but you don't have to be in an iSchool to submit a proposal. The call closes on September 18 2017. The scope of the conference is broadly the field of information science (and that includes information literacy. For papers they say that they are looking for research papers that "push the boundaries of information scholarship, explore core concepts and ideas, and help identify new technological and conceptual configurations."
- Papers: the submission needs to be written as a full paper (not abstract); either completed research or emerging findings.
- Posters: the submission is a long abstract (effectively, a mini paper)
- Workshops (half/full day): Submission is an abstract plus a 1000 word description
- Sessions for Interaction and Engagement (SIEs): which are interactive, but (basically) shorter than workshops: Submission is an abstract plus a 1000 word description
There are also calls for submission to the iSchool Best Practices and iSchools and Industry Partnership tracks, the Doctoral Student Colloquium and the Early Career Colloquium.
More information at http://ischools.org/the-iconference/call-for-participation/

Student Success: open access journal

An Australian open access education journal worth monitoring if you work in Higher Education is: Student Success: A journal exploring the experiences of students in tertiary education. "This journal provides the opportunity to disseminate current research and innovative good practice about students’ tertiary learning experiences, which are supported by evidence. Researchers, tertiary and university teachers and educators and professional staff who are advancing student learning, success and retention are encouraged to submit." It was formerly the International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education and the current issue (volume 8, no 2, 2017) has something of a FYHE focus. It starts with an article by the well-respected Professor Vince Tinto: Reflections on Student Persistence and other articles includ: First year student conceptions of success: What really matters? (Ryan Naylor); Transition pedagogies and the neoliberal episteme: What do academics think? (Kate Hughes); The flipped classroom: A learning model to increase student engagement not academic achievement (Masha Smallhorn). Content page at https://studentsuccessjournal.org/issue/view/18
Photo by Sheila Webber: Canary Wharf, London, July 2017

#Dissertations: academic libraries and social media

In the #uklibchat session on library/information student research last night, one thing that was mentioned was repositories for Masters dissertations. The Sheffield iSchool (i.e. my department) has one http://dagda.shef.ac.uk/dispub/ (it's a bit clunky, you can only search on words in the title, not in full text, but there are lots of interesting dissertations!) and it was mentioned that City University use Humanities Commons, you search https://hcommons.org/deposits/?facets[group_facet][]=CityLIS
One recent dissertation from City University, based on desk research is:
Rippon, A. (2017) An examination into the ways that academic libraries can use social media to support information literacy teaching http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6TT30 "This research provides an evaluation into the relevance of social media tools as a means of supporting the provision of information literacy in academic libraries. It uses the information literacy framework A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) developed by Secker and Coonan in 2011 as the basis for examination and draws upon examples and studies from academic research, higher education institutions, and social media platforms. Social media is prevalent within many areas of modern life, particularly amongst younger generations. Therefore, it is important to consider whether it can be an active element to the development of information literacy skills. Typically academic libraries have used social media for marketing purposes rather than to provide study support or as information resources in their own right. This research seeks to highlight that social media platforms can be a valuable tool in developing information literacy skills in university level students. The conclusions drawn from the research provide clear recommendations for academic libraries to utilise social media to further their delivery of information literacy."
Photo by Sheila Webber: waiting for lunch at Liberty's, London, July 2017

#wlic2017 papers: media literacy; open publishing

I will be attending the World Library and Information Conference (the IFLA conference) in Wroclaw later this month, and intend to be liveblogging from there. As usual, some full-text papers are already uploaded to the IFLA repository. These are a few of them:
- PLANK, Margret and MOLNÁR, Attila Dávid and MARÍN-ARRAIZA, Paloma (2017) Extending Media Literacy Education: The Popular Science Video Workshop. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2017 – Wrocław, Poland – Libraries. Solidarity. Society. in Session 242 - Audiovisual and Multimedia, Information Literacy and School Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1776
- HE, Jian-hao and HORNG, Shih-chang (2017) Watching movies through listening at any place in any time- a special event for visually impaired people. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2017 – Wrocław, Poland – Libraries. Solidarity. Society. in Session 242 - Audiovisual and Multimedia, Information Literacy and School Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1771
- MENDINHOS, Isabel (2017) Advocacy through videos: Short movies on school libraries. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2017 – Wrocław, Poland – Libraries. Solidarity. Society. in Session 242 - Audiovisual and Multimedia, Information Literacy and School Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1772 ("The Portuguese School Libraries Network Program (SLNP) has commemorated its 20th anniversary in 2016. Several initiatives were prepared to mark this event, some of them involving students, the main patrons of school libraries. “Short movies on school libraries” was a challenge presented to students. They would have to prove that their school library was the best through the production of a short movie, according to given rules...")
- RAJU, Reggie (2017) Altruism as the founding pillar for open monograph publishing in the Global South. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2017 – Wrocław, Poland – Libraries. Solidarity. Society. in Session 232 - Academic and Research libraries, FAIFE and Copyright and Other Legal Matters. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1703
- HARTGERINK, Chris H.J. (2017) Re-envisioning a future in scholarly communication. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2017 – Wrocław, Poland – Libraries. Solidarity. Society. in Session 232 - Academic and Research libraries, FAIFE and Copyright and Other Legal Matters. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1631
Photo by Sheila Webber: tower, Canary Wharf, July 2017