Partners for Algorithmic Literacy

An interesting iniative of the Purdue University (USA) Institute for Information Literacy is Partners for Algorithmic Literacy, which engages students and faculty to "co-learn and discuss algorithmic literacy and pedagogical practices", Go to https://lib.purdue.edu/iilp/pal/

Rethinking Media Literacy and Digital Skills in Europe

The Rethinking Media Literacy and Digital Skills in Europe (REMEDIS) project has published a shorter version of their evaluation toolkit in addition to the full version. REMEDIS is an international project that aims "To understand what the impacts of media literacy and digital skills interventions in the different life domains are in terms of positive outcomes" https://remedis-chanse.eu/evaluation-toolkit/

I will also highlight their publication:
Vissenberg, J., Martinez, D., Edisherashvili, N., Puusepp, M., Tomczyk, L., Donoso, V., & d’Haenens, L. (2025). Advancing Media Literacy & Digital Skills Interventions: Recommendations for Stakeholders. https://zenodo.org/records/15879417

Webinar: Librarians, Researchers, and AI: Shaping Information, Science and Society

There is a webinar on 5 September 2025, 14:00–16:00 CEST: Librarians, Researchers, and AI: Shaping Information, Science and Society. This is part of the Czech Academy of Sciences’ AI Strategy AV21 project "which explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping research and society ... Together, the esteemed expert-discussants will explore how libraries, librarians, and researchers engage with AI in shaping the future of information, science, and society.
Speakers are: Dr. Thanos Giannakopoulos (Dag Hammarskjöld Library, United Nations Headquarters); Ing. Martin Lhoták (Deputy Director for Research, Development and Technology, Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic); Dr. Mayasari binti Abdul Majid (Library Director, LSL Education Group Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia); Dr. Ladislava Zbiejczuk Suchá (Deputy Head, Department of Information Studies & Library Science, Masaryk University); Mgr. Adam Urban (Information Specialist, Czech National Library of Technology)
Register  at https://cesnet.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fecfUEsBSsait15TmGgqVA
Photo by Sheila Webber: On board, Gothenburg, August 2025

AI tools for academic libraries

AI Tools for Academic Libraries "is a bimonthly series from the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and Choice (part of ACRL) that explores specific categories of AI tools through concise, practical evaluations." You can sign up for a newsletter. The first installment has concise critical reviews of: Ex Libris’s Primo Research Assistant; Elicit; Perpexity AI; Research Rabbit; Semantic Scholar.
https://www.choice360.org/libtech-insight/ai-tools-for-academic-libraries-ai-research-assisants/
Photo by Sheila Webber: birds on the wire, Gothenburg, August 2025

Call for papers: Banned Words, Banned Knowledge: Information Literacy in a Censored Society

There is a call for papers for a special issue of the open-access Journal of Information Literacy: Banned Words, Banned Knowledge: Information Literacy in a Censored Society.
They welcome "submissions related to or exploring information literacy and terms that have been erased or banned by the US government. This includes but is not limited to the list of words https://pen.org/banned-words-list/ published by PEN America in May 2025. Topics of interest may include information literacy research that was already underway when new restrictions came into place or which may now be impossible to publish; work explicitly exploring the impact of this clampdown on how information literacy is shaped or operationalised, as well as research exploring censorship in non-US contexts."
Deadline for full papers: 1st June 2026
Special issue publication date: December 2026
More information at https://journals.cilip.org.uk/jil/announcement/view/9

Pedagogical practices among academic librarians in the post-pandemic era

Labangon, D.L.G. &  Sajona, A.L. (2025). Keeping up with the shift: A narrative study on the pedagogical practices among academic librarians in the post-pandemic era. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 14(2). https://www.qqml-journal.net/index.php/qqml/article/view/831
They held a focus group with seven librarians in Manila. The themes that emerged from analysis were "1) Transforming information literacy instruction; 2) Embracing digital tools and platforms; 3) Fostering engagement and participation; 4) Cultivating adaptability and resourcefulness; 5) Designing for effective online learning."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Mentor rose, Gothenburg, August 2025

LILi conference recordings and slides

Material from the 12th Annual LILi (Lifelong Information Literacy) Conference Tech for Equity: Leveraging Tools and Tech to Build Inclusive Futures (that took place 17-18 July 2025) is available, with recordings of sessions and slides. Sessions included
- Super-Sized Library Instruction: One Size Does Not Fit All
- “Our Class Can’t Come to Campus, but Could We Zoom the Session?”: Adapting and Delivering Information Literacy Instruction to Off-Campus Dual Enrollment Composition Classes
- Beyond Search: Using AI to Empower Every Student’s Research Journey
- Learn in a Week: On demand, scaffolded e-learning - Leveraging Generative AI for Information Literacy Curriculum Mapping in Academic Libraries
- Leveraging Technology to Take Professional Development Beyond an Annual Institute to Enhance Professional Skills and Cultural Knowledge of Tribal College Librarians
- Using AI to increase the readability of online information literacy tutorials
- From Static to Dynamic: Enhancing Online Information Literacy Instruction with Interactive Tutorials
- From AI Hallucinations to Critical Information Literacy: A 'Critical Citation Tracing' Approach
- Research Without Resources: Incorporating Information Literacy Into Prison Education Programs
Go to https://lili.libguides.com/lili2025/schedule
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rudbeckia flowers, Botanic gardens, August 2025

Media literacy in Northern Ireland with adults and young people: opportunity to tender

Ofcom is seeking tenders for work developing Media literacy in Northern Ireland with adults and young people.
They have split this into two seprate projects: Media literacy activities for adults in Northern Ireland and Media literacy activities for children and young people in Northern Ireland, although the successful bidders will be expected to work together. Opportunities for libraries, I think!
There is a webinar on 21 August 2025, 11.00-12.00 BST, to provide contextual information for organisations considering applying for either or both tenders. Work would start in October 2025, initially for a year with the possibility of a 2 year extension. This is part of Ofcom's media literacy strategy.
The notice for Media literacy activities for adults in Northern Ireland is here: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/046981-2025
The notice for Media literacy activities for children and young people in Northern Ireland is here: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/047904-2025
Registration for the webinar is here: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/051e4052-8390-4939-8851-44cd6b7c5b37@0af648de-310c-4068-8ae4-f9418bae24cc

Project Information Literacy Archive

Project Information Literacy (PIL) has now finished, but they have created an archive. PIL ran 2008-2025 and generated a number of substantial reports over that period.
They say " PIL researchers have built an archival site for continued access to PIL research reports, survey instruments, datasets, essays, and interviews with leading thinkers. ... All materials provided in this archive are made available under a Creative Commons license. The archive will be maintained for two years from September 2025 through December 2027. For that reason, we recommend that you download from this archive copies of any studies you will need in perpetuity.
Go to https://projectinfolit.org/
Photo by sheila Webber: Botanic gardens, August 2025

Navigating Climate Information with Media and Information Literacy

UNESCO and its research institute, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) have launched a free online course, Navigating Climate Information with Media and Information Literacy
"Developed with input from climate scientists, advocates, fact-checkers, and communication experts, the course is composed of five modules, that aim to: Enhance understanding of climate change and the importance of identifying and trusting evidence-based data and scientific facts; Build critical thinking and fact-checking skills to evaluate climate information across diverse information providers; Encourage citizens to become media and information literate and to advocate for informed, positive climate action."
There is an article at https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-launches-free-online-course-tackle-climate-disinformation-through-media-and-information
The course is at: https://www.framerspace.com/course/climate-change-mil/?cid=66c4d62fd5a7ecdca11b28b3

Evaluative Framework for assessing AI tools

Librarians at the University of Birmingham have produced a short Evaluative Framework for assessing AI tools "to help a researcher critically assess a tool before using it" AI tools licensing review guidance "a quick review checklist aimed at researchers evaluating the terms and conditions of a tool", and "a full review aimed at supporting anyone formally purchasing an AI tool for a group of users". They have kindly made the documents available under a CC BY licence so it can be reused.
Go to https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/libraries/copyright/researchers/responsible-ai-tool-selection.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: yellow rose, July 2025

Webinar: Evidence-based Mindsets in an Era of Information Confusion: An Information Literacy Approach

Purdue University's Institute for Information Literacy has organised a webinar, Evidence-based Mindsets in an Era of Information Confusion: An Information Literacy Approach on 12 September 2025 at 13.00 US Central time (which is 19.00 in the UK, BST). The speaker is Professor William Badke. Thi is part of the Institute's Information and Democracy: Education, Access, Libraries, and Society (ID:EALS) series.
"One of the most significant crises in today’s world is information confusion, the inability of many people, including our students, to determine what information is trustworthy and what is not. This has led to wild conspiracy theories, information silos, a distrust of scholarship, and a general sense that we have lost our moorings and no longer can see the shore.
"Professor Badke's work with information authority and his interactions with students in 40 years of information literacy credit courses has given him an understanding of the issues and a possible path forward. While he does not claim to have unassailable answers, Professor Badke’s talk will provide some direction to attendees that takes us away from facile answers like “Use a checklist” or “Only access scholarly sources" in order to address the challenges we face in today’s information environment."
Registration at https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/Gj9V4ifiT7OPHEGimAcwfQ#/registration
More about the Institute and the ID:EALS series: https://lib.purdue.edu/IILP

#ECIL2025 programme available

The programme for the 2025 European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) is available, taking place 22-25 September 2025 in Bamberg, Germany. I (Sheila) will be
- chairing and presenting on a panel, Developing an international research agenda for Information Literacy, with Professor John Budd, Bill Johnston, Dr Karen Kaufmann, and Professor Clarence Maybee.
- presenting a paper, AI + Age-Friendly Media and Information Literacy: Gerontechnology, with Bill Johnston
- and am honoured to be invited to give feedback in the doctoral forum
Other University of Sheffield Information School presentations are:
- The opening keynote from Dr Andrew Cox: The Dimensions of AI Literacy
- Co-producing research priorities for Health Literacy with marginalised communities: Dr Pamela McKinney, Dr Laura Sbaffi, Dr Andrew Cox, Professor Peter Bath
- Female engineering students’ information experiences: Preliminary findings from a PhD study: Laura Woods
The programme is here: https://www.conftool.org/ecil2025/index.php?page=browseSessions
Information about registrationis here: https://ecil2025.ilconf.org/registration/

Qualitative research videos

Dr Helen Kara has a very useful Youtube stream with short, clearly-expressed videos about various aspects of qualitative research methods ("Research principles, methods and ethics") e.g. What Is Grounded Theory (in under 2 minutes!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rybz_AjXc8 and Why Informed Consent is a Myth https://youtu.be/dEKBDyMhrHA?feature=shared. There are also some videos from the International Creative Research Methods Conference.
The stream is here https://www.youtube.com/@HelenKaraWriter
Photo by Sheila Webber: pink roses, July 2025

Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2025 – Feature Conference

Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2025's Feature Conference is Minds Over AI - MIL in Digital Spaces hosted by UNESCO and the Republic of Colombia 23-24 October 2025 (Bogota time, 5 hours behind GMT) in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The conference is free and you can register to attend in person or online. It will "focus on the intersections of media and information literacy (MIL) and artificial intelligence (AI), exploring how AI is reshaping the information landscape and how MIL is crucial to empower individuals to critically engage with AI-driven content."
Go to https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/global-media-and-information-literacy-week-2025-feature-conference

Scholarly Horizons

A useful bulletin that has been going for ages is Denise Nicholson's Scholarly Horizons, which has updated lists of resources to copyright, scholarly publishing, predatory publishing, open science etc.
Go to https://scholarlyhorizons.co.za/Photo by Sheila Webber: plant, July 2025

Call for submissions: Project on Open and Evolving Metaliteracies (POEM)

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries' Project on Open and Evolving Metaliteracies (POEM) is seeking contributions: "engaging classroom activities, thoughtfully designed assignments, and interactive exercises that help high school and college students develop critical thinking habits as they increase their digital fluency and the ethical awareness needed to advocate for more just and equitable digital futures." Deadline is 17 September 2025.
POEM aims to be a "dynamic collection of teaching resources that addresses crucial digital literacy challenges across three interconnected domains: understanding AI and algorithmic systems, working with data critically and ethically, and navigating media and disinformation."
It will bring "together practical classroom materials created by experts and educators who understand the urgency of teaching these topics in our rapidly evolving information landscape."
Contributions are welcome from educators, librarians, researchers, and creators working with high school or college learners. The formats can be: Lesson plans, syllabi, video tutorials, interactive exercises, podcasts, games, quizzes, assessments, etc. They can be in English or Spanish and will be peer reviewed. The call is here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O3QFnaawxoy8plCZfxxylShzr9a86yNVkGHyc6IW2Fs/edit?tab=t.0
Photo by Sheila Webber: beauty on the pavement, July 2025

DISINFO

The EU DISINFO Lab has a newsletter, with the latest issue being 15 July 2025. It lists news, resources, initiatives etc. to do with disinformation. They also point to their conference, #DISINFO2025, which will take place 15-16 October 2025 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The newsletter is at https://www.disinfo.eu/disinfo-update-15-07-2025/
Photo by Sheila Webber: ice plant, July 2025

Impact of Google AI summaries

An article from Pew Research Center summarising results from one of their reports: they captured (with permission) search histories from 900 people, to see what the pattern was when there was an AI-generated summary from a search. Basically, "For searches that resulted in an AI-generated summary, users very rarely clicked on the sources cited". Also "Google users are more likely to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with an AI summary than on pages without a summary". This is the article:
Chapekis, A. & Lieb, A. (2025, July 22). Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/
This is the original (May 2025) report: What Web Browsing Data Tells Us About How AI Appears Online https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2025/05/23/what-web-browsing-data-tells-us-about-how-ai-appears-online/ (the full methodology is on the third page)
This is the article that gave me the link to the Pew report: it has useful discussion of how this lack of click-through is affecting news/information sites (there are a lot of ads on the page btw):
Uren, C. (2025, August 3). Google AI summary feature deals blow to link clicks and website traffic. Euro News. https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/03/google-ai-summary-feature-deals-blow-link-clicks-and-website-traffic
Photo by Sheila Webber: front door, July 2025

Generative AI and imagining alternative futures

A useful and thoughtful read about generative AI and libraries from Andrea Baer: 

Baer, A. (2025, July 15). Investigating the “feeling rules” of generative AI and imagining alternative futures. In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2025/ai-feeling-rules/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Californian poppies, Botanic gardens, July 2025

One-day Conference: Inclusive digital literacy for all: bridging communities for a United Future

A satellite meeting of the World Library and Information Conference (WLIC) is Inclusive digital literacy for all: bridging communities for a United Future, taking place on 15 August 2025 in person at the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University Scientific Library, Astana city, Kazakhstan. The speakers are:
- Zoltán Sándor Kovács Digital security awaraness and public libraries in the 21st century
- Dr Neeza Singh Role of Public Libraries in Transforming Communities through Digital Literacy in India
- Naomy Mwaurah Towards an Inclusive Digital Literacy Framework
- Dr Sharon Yang Teaching Digital Literacy
- Dr Leili Seifi From Palm to Platform: Addressing the Digital Literacy Needs of Rural Date Farmers in Sistan and Baluchistan
More details at https://lib.enu.kz/en/events/1407
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rhododendron, May 2025

MIL campaign in Ukraine

A report from UNESCO on media and information literacy (MIL) campaigns in Ukraine, which also encompass Critical Thinking Evenings: https://ukraine.un.org/en/291548-unescos-campaigns-media-and-information-literacy-empower-millions-ukraine-think-critically
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath Pond edge, August 2025