#LILAC22 What if …. No one had information literacy skills?

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the final day of the Lilac conference in Manchester. After a lively conference dinner and disco last night I’m at the first workshop session of the day led by Sarah Pavey @Sarahinthelib. Sarah took us through an activity that she does with her clients, with the premise that’s it’s easier to define the value of something if we think about what life is like without it. The activity could be repurposed for different audiences and Sarah encouraged us to do just that. People have many conceptions of IL, but they encompass a range of really important skills and qualities that are vital across the life course. What would happen in education contexts, health contexts, everyday life, the workplace, and as a citizen if you didn’t have information literacy? We then worked in groups on flip chart paper to define what life would be like if you didn’t have IL in a specific context. Following this we looked at the UN sustainable development goals and how lack of IL would affect the achievement of these goals. It was a really interesting session, and helped surface and articulate how pervasive and important IL is for global society and underlines the relevance of the UNESCO definitions of IL as vital for citizenship.