Closing session of #ECIL2025

This is Sheila, blogging the final session of the ECIL conference (although there will be some catch-up posts still to come).
It started with Bill Johnston summing up the conference. He referred back to Sonja Špiranec, at the conference start, reminding us how many years we have been engaged in ECIL. He felt that there was a wind of change, with the wind at our backs! He had noted how, in the conference sessions, people were reporting fewer one-shots and more integrated and expansive IL teaching. Bill said how he had observed the same trend at the WILU conference in Canada last year. Next, the expansion of information literacy seemed a trend: he mentioned the previous session at ECIL reporting on an international study of mis/disinformation and also the session charting the development & state of IL in Germany.
The other big deal was AI, and Bill saw IL as a powerful analytical tool to be applied to AI (not the other way round!) Not only are the AI tools deficient in a number of ways, there is also the problem with the people running the tools. Bill thought that seeing AI as running education was wrong - he saw the way in which tech entrepreneurs are consulted about the importance of AI was like consulting a gambler about gambling. Also he noted the number of slides used in presentations at ECIL which were created by AI. This made him think of Paulo Freire and Freire's work on literacy, which also resulted in citizens thinking about inequity and the structure of society. In particular, asking people to draw things was part of Freire's process. Thus people's use of AI in creating images for their own work, and using image creation in pedagogy, can be seen as "not new" and Freire's practice can stimulate its use in education.
In conclusion Bill then posed the question "What about literacy?" and he advocated reflecting more on this fundamental concept. He also recommended looking at what is going on in the wider social landscape (not just our own professional/ institutional world). Finally he urged us to think more about creating a public pedagogy, and how we could harness the technology and our own skills and knowledge to reach out more widely.

Then there was a report from Joumana Boustany that this year's delegates came from 37 countries, with 39 from the USA and 35 from Germany, then 15 each from Finland and Switzerland. One issue for underrepresentation was that some delegates did not get visas. Boustany also talked about the distribution of different types of contribution. Following this, there were thanks to the local organisers, the originators of the ECIL conference, the reviewers and editors. Matthew Moyo gave an announcement about next year's International Conference on Information Literacy, which will be hosted University of Nairobi, Kenya, in October 2026.
The venue of the next ECIL was also announced. It will be hosted the University of Coimbra, Portugal. It will take place in 18-21 October 2027 in the Convento de Sao Francisco
Photo by Sheila Webber: ECIL delegate bag and my badge, September 2025