"All mushrooms are edible but some only once": rethinking information literacy in leisure contexts through hobbyist mycology, Laura Williams. #Lilac26

 Laura Williams is a PhD student in the School of Information Journalism and Communication, but this presentation was not about her PhD topic; instead, this was a topic of personal interest to her. Laura created a Zine as a way to cope with semester 1 library teaching, and this stimulated the presentation today. This is a conceptual paper, that isn't based on research other than reading lots of literatyre about mushroom hobbyists, and Laura's growing interest in mushroom foraging. This is an information-rich hobby: enthusiasts learn about mushrooms, they spot mushrooms and photograph them, go to mushroom social events. Is hobbyist mycology a risky hobby? Yes even the most experienced mycologiest need to continually update their knowledge of mushrooms to avoid dangerous encounters. Laura reviewed the current literature on hobbyist mycology to identify the information aspects to this. Laura dtaws on Lloyd's work to define Il as a socially enacted practice, and Hicks' book on risk in information literacy. Risk-informed information practice focuses on everyday information literacy, but Laura wants to apply these ideas to a leisure context, as much information science literature about leisure hobbies focuses on the joy of the hobby and sharing information.

There hasn't been much research on fungi from an information perspective. There is a growing body of literature on multispecies information literacy, and fungi are mentioned as a fascinating area to look at as they are neither animals or plants. There is a body of literature on risky leisure practices, but information literacy isn't mentioned often or drawn on, even though information is a theme explored in the research. Risk is conceptualised as a balance between potential harm and the desired benefits. Information literacy: the mushroom itself is a source of information (drawing on Bates ideas of what is information). Laura has identified 6 ways that information literacy is enacted to manage risk

Rules of thumb: quick and personal rules to assist decision-making, e.g. "never munch on a hunch". But the problem with these is that they take time to develop and are difficult to share with others, and can be affected by complacency.

Folkways: folk knowledge of mycology and folk practices such as hunting and foraging. The common names of mushrooms are linked to folklore. Some folk knowledge fuels mycophobia and can perpetuate misinformation.

Documentary sources are a critical information source; they contain authoritative information. However, documented knowledge can become outdated. In the UK, mushroom guides might identify a mushroom as poisonous, but a guide in another country might say that a mushroom isn't dangerous as long as it's prepared in the right way.

The body & sensory information. This is incredibly important. Foraging is a physical practice that forces the forager to use all their sensory information: touch, taste and smell are very important. Sensory information must be used alongside other forms of knowledge. Mushroom books contain vivid descriptions of the sensory impact of mushrooms.

Participating in communities: there is a long history of fungi groups, on and offline e.g. facebook groups. Some are only for the scientific identification of mushrooms, others are about foraging and eating mushrooms. There is always the potential that these groups can share poor-quality information. Groups have very specific rule that many photos of a mushroom must be shared in order to invite others to identify a mushroom.

Technologies: AI and social media are affecting the information landscape of mushrooms, e.g. AI image tools to identify mushrooms. AI tools can't engage in sensory information, so they tend to be very bad at identifying mushrooms. Content creators are active on social media to share mycology.

Each of these 6 dimensions could be explored further to investigate aspects of risk in mycology, and could be a rich site of information literacy research.

Matteo Bergamini keynote #LILAC26

The keynote for day 3 of the LILAC information literacy conference is given by Matteo Bergamini (CEO of Shout Out UK (SOUK). This is Sheila liveblogging it. I'll give the usual caveat that these are my immediate impressions whilst liveblogging. 
He started by describing the work of SOUK which "provides impartial political and media literacy training and campaigns focused on democratic engagement and combatting disinformation online". He then talked about the labels used: misinformation (false information shared by mistake, which can lead from e.g. not knowing that "verified" accounts may have just bought that verification), disinformation (false information shared deliberately, using the example of information shared in the Southport riots), malinformation (distorting actual information for harmful purposes e.g. taking it out of context) and false information (e.g. AI generated text, images, videos).
Bergamini showed us some images of people and asked us to guess which are real and which AI, the results of which showed that often it was really difficult to tell. He went on to talk about how algorithms are designed to keep us engaged, therefore feeding us what we might like, to keep hold on us, often showing increasingly emotive and extreme material, leading to desensitisation and seeing such material as normal. Social media can thus become a shield against ideas and feelings which are different to oour own. Bergamini talked about how this process is exploited by religeous extremism and incel/manosphere ideologies, feeding on people's insecurities and reinforcing negativity. This includes fascination with extreme violence, which formerly wasn't seen as a form of ideology. He also highlighted that the number of children who were arrested for terrorism-related incidents was increasing in the UK (20% in 2024 and 4% in 2019). Bergamini said that there is not mass radicalisation, but radicalisation can happen very quickly: it used to happen over months, but now it might happen within 24 hours, so the the time period for potentially intervening is much shorter.
Bergamini presented the solution as being media literacy - the ability to use, understand and create. [Obviously I would say you could also mention information literacy at this point!] He identified the cross curricular initiative in Finland for media literacy, which does seem to have an impact. In France he highlighted a programme with 30 coordination centres for media literacy and also the Welsh digital competency framework. He also mentioned the curriculum review in England which does include requirements for media literacy education (though, I would add, sadly not as a subject in itself and also Bergamini mentioned the lack of specific resources for teacher training so far).
Then he highlighted the Dismiss initiative and the other work of SOUK itself. He explained the ideas of prebunking (aiming to prevent spread of harmful information before the event) and debunking (work after the event - e,g, fact checking). SOUK focuses on prebunking, in particular technique-based prebunking (looking on the different techniques that are used for spread of disinformation etc.) An example of teaching with prebunking is showing a video with someone giving health misinformation and then discussing the techniques that are being used in the video. SOUK has resources to support educators on its website https://www.shoutoutuk.org/ including a podcast and lesson plans.
One question from the audience was about whether SOUK had material to work with adults as well as young people, and the answer was yes. Another issue that came up in the questions was developing scepticism without people becoming cynical and distrusting everything. Things that got discussed including examining the different actors producing the information, also working on this continously, it isn't a one off thing. One useful tip about spotting fake AI was looking at the context of AI generated material rather than looking for "tells" that it was fake (e.g. not how realistic is this picture of a person, but rather how likely is it that they would be doing this in this setting). Another question was about having positive examples as well as negative ones [I was thinking here that highlighting information creators who were open about how they checked and reflected on their practice would be useful].
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom behind Sheffield train station tram stop, March 2026

Co-constructing knowledge justice: faculty and student partnerships that transform library instruction, Heather Campbell, Lea Sansom and Ashley McKeown.

 Pam McKinney here live-blogging from the final day of the LILAC conference in Sheffield. The presenters from Canada have blended roles that involve teaching and library roles. There is a lot of focus on decolonial practice in Canada, and the presenters wanted to enact knowledge justice in their information literacy programme. We are all equal, and have equal capacity to be knowers, but sometimes certain people are privileged as "knowers", and knowledge justice seeks to embed equality. They were unsure about how to do this in their teaching, so this panel is about exploring how they managed to find their way. There are 25 people in the partnership, but only 3 people are presenting. The first question they explored was why collaboration is necessary to address knowledge justice. Lea said that there has to be ways of recognising multiple ways of knowing, so collaboration is essential to bring different perspectives and different ways of knowing in the team. Everyone brings something to the team. They have all had moments of imposter syndrome, but the group can provide support and reinforce that everyone has something to contribute. Ashley spoke about how knowledge justice is very much grounded in indigenous knowledge systems, and expressed a feeling of loneliness and thought she had very different ways of approaching her nursing course. Collaboration was important to keep on her journey, and support her interaction with students who come from indigenous communities and become nurses. The collaborative approaoch supported the whole group to decolonise their teaching and decolonise their minds. Its importa t to trust in the collective, go to communities of practice and read important texts. Knowledge justice has felt overwhelming, but it must be done. The trick was to find collaborators from outside their own white identities.

What does collaboration focus on knowledge justice look like? Lea spoke about collaborating with instructors and other librarians. She is focused on relationship building in her new institution and is bringing the knowledge justice perspective with her. Heather spoke about the timeline of the partnership, and the points at which she's worked with students and the points at which they've worked with faculty. There are different types of collaboration that they have engaged with, including faculty administrative staff, and the centre for teaching and learning. She is leading decolonising initiatives that come through the teaching development team. They did some experimentation in Ashley's class and created some open educational resources. Ashley spoke about the approaoch to partnership and collaboration that is strength-based, so that collectively they can identify work that corresponds to people's strengths. Teaching knowledge justice to students has led to conversations between students and faculty that have led to a gradual dissemination of the knowledge justice in the university. It is important that individual academics decolonise their teaching, but this doesn't lead to systemic change.

What has only be posisble due to collaboration? Teaching and learning librarians have to be invited into sessions by faculty. So the only way that they can enact a knowledge justice approach is in negotiation with faculty. So it's about identifying particular aspects of the content or particular assessments that suit a knowledge justice. Heather tries to make sure that she goes to university committees to spread a knowledge justice approach and tries to support meaningful change. Students who have experienced knowledge justice in the curriculum are able to go into the workplace to spread this approach, but they need support for this as new professionals. It's challenging because as a librarian doing Information literacy teaching, they only impact a small number of people, but raising awareness of knowledge justice can have lasting and profound effects on those people. They spoke about the need to record the meetings they go to and the other teaching activities as "library instruction" even though the audience and the mode is really different.

Publish and Prosper: Self-Reflection and Survey Results from a Research Program for Librarians #LILAC26

First blog of the 3rd day from me (Sheila) of LILAC information literacy conference is Publish and Prosper: Self-Reflection and Survey Results from a Research Program for Librarians presented by Helen Power, Rhiannon Jones and Ethel Gamache (Canada). The abstract is here They explained that they tried a prototype in 2023 using Belcher's Writing your journal article. Then they wanted to find out what the impact of the programme, so they decided to do some research, getting ethics approval. Therefore they ran the programme again, making use of a research accelerator programme that was designed to support librarians doing research (6 weeks online of 1.5 hour session), also supported by CAPAL so it could give a certificate (if you attended 5 out of 6 sessions). It was based on works by Belcher & on Cresswell, adapted for Canadian librarians - this included language, where to publish etc. This was run in summer 2025. There were 35 librarians taking part. There was a Discord, aiming to help create a community of practice.
The first sesssion was introduction, the 2nd on designing research (talking about picking a topic you know, different kinds of research approach, ethics etc.), the 3rd about working on writing, the 4th on developing evidence and interpretation (it was mentioned Belcher here was useful here, also they discussed knowledge justice), the 5th on strengthening our structure, and 6th on preparing for publishing (including dealing with responding to reviewers). They mentioned that on Zoom they used breakouts, whiteboard activities (e.g. where would you publish this title?) etc. Looking at the participants' profiles, on average research wasn't an expected part of their job, had taken a research methods course and published (but it varied).
The presenters then introduced the ACRL Framework for IL in Higher Education and their definition of Information Literacy (I've covered this framework a lot in this blog so I won't describe it here!). Then they they pulled out the elements of the Framework which they found particularly useful for this programme (e.g. that research is iterative, that questions lead to more questions but you also need to know when to stop) and gave examples of how they were used in the programme. As examples (they showed all 6 weeks but I can't type that fast!) they used Information Creation as Process and Scholarship as a conversation (including giving and receiving feedback) in week one. In week 3 the learning outcomes were: discussing approaches to writing literature reviews and articulating claims for significance ("so what?"), and the ACRL Frames were authority is constructed and contextual and searching as strategic exploration. In week 4 the learning outcomes were differentiating between different kinds of article structure and also optimising different strategies for editing documents for comprehensiveness and clarity - the ACRL Frames used here were on Information creation as a process and Searching as strategic exploration. I'll also mention that in week 6 they covered wellness and emotions, when looking at the reasons why papers get rejected, and there was a discussion about predatory journals and how to spot them.
There research of the programme consisted a pre programme survey, mid point survey, immediate post session survey and 6 month follow up. Also they qualitatively analysed the chat and activities (if people did not want to be included in this analysis they were excluded).
In terms of which session was most helpful, this was spread across sessions 2-5, and what emerged was it was the session most useful at the point of individual need. In terms of least helpful, it was again mostly related to the stage they were at in their research/ writing. In terms of the participants' reported skill levels, this showed improvement through the programme and in fact it was strongest in the 6 month follow up. Also they had quotes about confidence going up and benefiting from interacting with peers. Of respondents to the questionnaire 8 had completed a draft of their writing, 7 not, and the 6 month follow up showed that some had submitted and all at least intended to.
In terms of the observations, participants engaged more fully as the weeks progressed (having been less active in information interaction initially). They observed some breakout rooms: dynamics varied between breakout rooms. They had the suggestion of having the same people in your breakout room every time -  positives were that people might be more likely to talk & it saved time as you didn't have to introduce yourself each time, although there were downsides such as getting to know fewer people. Also there was a suggestion on having one on one breakouts, which also had positives and negatives.
Looking to the future they will use their findings to develop the programme and plan to run it every 2 years with (probably) rotation of facilitators. They also plan to write an article!
They also will include material from their programme in a google folder with the slides from this presentation  (I'll add the link when I get it).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Camellias in the Sheffield Botanic Gardens, March 2026