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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Digital literacy and social inclusion in public libraries #ecil2018

Helena Francke from the university of Borås reported on a literature review to examine public library activity in relation to digital and information literacy. Both of these concepts are tied in with social inclusion, and libraries are sen to be agencies to support social inclusion. Web of science, Scopus and LISA databases were searched, with the focus on recent empirical studies published about digital and information literacy in peer reviewed journals. 41 articles were included in the review, which included a global range of papers, although the majority were set in the US or Europe. The groups seen to be in need of library support were young people, low income urban residents in vulnerable life situations. Types of activities were training, either formal or 1-2-1 interactions, provision of technology, and experiences, for example story time, minecraft day. The benefits of these interventions to support literacy building include employment, career support, education, health, financial decisions, empowerment, quality of life. IL & DL activities were portrayed as contributing to making people self-reliant, and becoming more productive citizens who are employable, healthy and entrepreneurial. The review identified that there is a need to develop critical perspectives in empirical studies of IL/DL in public libraries, and evaluate the social impact of these initiatives. There was a lack of focus on creativity in public libraries for adults and perhaps this could be enhanced.

Pam McKinney

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