Call for proposals for the BOBCATSSS 2026 International Conference on Library and Information Science

There is a call for proposals for the BOBCATSSS 2026 International Conference on Library and Information Science taking place 20-22 January 2026 at  Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. The theme is Thinking for Tomorrow: Redefining Information Networks in the Digital Age. Deadline for abstracts is 31 October 2025.
"BOBCATSSS is an annual symposium in the field of library and information science. It is a tradition which has been passed on from one country to another since 1993. It is held under the auspices of EUCLID (European Association for Library and Information Education and Research) and is organized by students from at least two universities." This year the universities are Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania and Faculty of Letters and Arts, and Romance Studies Department, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. 
More detail here https://bobcatsss2026.org.ro/conference-theme/

Information Literacy & Information Behaviour in performing arts

An interesting lengthy blog post from an arts librarian, reviewing some literature on the information behaviour of practitioners and students in performing arts, and adding her own experience to draw some conclusions. 
Ross, C. (2025, October 2). Reframing Traditional Models: Research Needs in the Performing Arts. ACRLog. https://acrlog.org/2025/10/02/reframing-traditional-models-research-needs-in-the-performing-arts/ 
One article she cites is: 
Fleming-May, R. A. (2025). The information needs and behaviours of creative artists: A meta-ethnography of research, 2019-24. Information Research, 30(CoLIS), 551-566. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30CoLIS52315 
Photo by Sheila Webber: old photo of the Boathouse in Bamberg, September 2025

Webinar: Advancing Women’s Health Information Literacy

A free webinar from the Institute for Information Literacy at Purdue, USA: Advancing Women’s Health Information Literacy: Global Researcher Spotlights on 17 November 2025 at 10.00-11.00 EST (USA Eastern time; which 1s 15.00-16.00 GMT, UK time).
"The Institute for Information Literacy at Purdue is thrilled to feature two research teams in our upcoming ID:EALS 2025-26 online speaker series whose respective projects examine women’s health information literacy needs and future solutions.
"Leili Seifi and Neda Zeraatkar will present their research project, Access and Strengthen Health Information Literacy: A Toolkit to Alleviate Information Poverty in Pregnant Rural Women in Iran. Seifi and Zeraatkar aim to understand the health information awareness of pregnant women in rural Iran in order to develop tools for strengthening health information literacy in regions that lack health centers and libraries. Seifi and Zeraatkar will share findings from their expansive literature review, which will inform future data collection efforts.
"Professor Anwarul Islam will share his team’s ambitious project, AI and Health Information Literacy: A Study Exploring the Perceived Usefulness, and Readiness Among Women in South Asia. Across five countries, the team seeks to identify South Asian women's perceptions of AI’s usefulness and their readiness to utilize AI technology to support health information needs. Professor Islam will share early research findings from focus groups conducted in India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka."
Register at: https://lnkd.in/ggwjER5m

New articles: Banned books; Feedback literacy; Decision makers' IL; Teaching with AI

- Chakraborty, M., & Ford, S. (2025). Reading Between the Lines: Celebrating Banned Books Week Through the Lens of the Information Literacy Framework. College & Research Libraries News, 86(9), 376. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.86.9.%p  

- Hui, L., Ippolito, K., & Charalambous, M. (2025). Agency Development and Valuing Peer Perspectives: Lessons from an Intervention to Enhance STEM University Students’ Feedback Literacy. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 13, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.13.45 

- Al-Azri, H. M., Al-Harrasi, N. H., & Al-Aufi, A. S. (2025). Exploring variations in the experience of information literacy among decision-makers of Omani government companies: A phenomenographic study. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000625135703 

- Seeley, S., & Cournoyea, M. (2025). “I’m Not Worried about Robots Taking Over the World. I Guess I’m Worried about People”: Emoting, Teaching, and Learning with Generative AI. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 13, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.13.43
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn rose, Sheffield, October 2025

Call for proposals: California Conference on Library Instruction

There is a call for proposals for the California Conference on Library Instruction (CCLI) taking place on 29 May 2026 at Cal State University Monterey Bay, USA, with the theme Library Instruction in Changing Times. Deadline for proposals is 29 October 2025.
"Instruction librarians are teaching and leading in a time of seismic shift. Lightning-fast technological innovation, divisive politics, and threats to equity and inclusion are all converging in a time of tightening budgets. These factors impact our students and our instructional roles.
"CCLI invites instruction librarians to reimagine how we teach, learn, and lead at the intersection of these forces. Imagine library instruction that not only keeps pace with changing times but actively shapes a more inclusive, informed, and hopeful future. Share how you are reimagining library instruction and your innovative teaching methods with colleagues to transform uncertainty into opportunity for the students we serve."
Note also that there are links to slides from previous conferences on the CCLI website.
More info at https://www.cclibinstruction.org/

Call for proposals #LILAC2026

There is a call for presentations for LILAC 2026 (the UK's Information Literacy conference) which takes place in Sheffield, UK (at my university!), 30 March - 1 April 2026. The deadline is 13 November 16.00 GMT (UK time).
"There are no set themes for LILAC 2026, the focus is simply information literacy. We welcome proposals from all sectors and contexts. We ask that your presentation makes explicit reference to your innovative practice or research in information literacy."
Proposals can be for short or long presentations, workshops, panel discussions, open review, lightning talks, "wildcards" and posters.
For more information go to: https://www.lilacconference.com/lilac-2026/call-for-presentations-1
There is a webinar for those who would like more advice abour submitting abstracts on 3 October 2025 at 12 noon - 13.00 BST (UK time) - register at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cilipinformationliteracygroup/1850273 

AI + Age-Friendly Media and Information Literacy: Gerontechnology: slides #ECIL2025

Today's post is a link to the presentation that Bill Johnston and I gave at the European Conference on Information Literacy last week, AI + Age-Friendly Media and Information Literacy: Gerontechnology.
In the presentation we defined Ageism, and looked at the intersection of AI and Ageism. The AI generated images on the title slide (presented here) show how ageism is embedded (notably the small older woman sitting with the big AI robot pressing on her toes!)
We defined Gerontechnology ("the interaction between aging individuals and technology, aiming to develop technologies that promote the health, safety, independence, and social engagement of older adults” (Ji et al., 2025, p2) and then looked at Ageism + AI + Gerontechnology (The World Health Organization has published a report on this).
In response we highlighted: firstly the 3 Media & Information Literacy roles for older people that are proposed in our Age-Friendly Media and Information Literate (#AFMIL) model (Webber & Johnston, 2019); secondly, the need to exlplore older people's Digital Repertoires (rather than concentrating just on digital skills) and finally we presented Birkland's (2019) interesting typology of older people's technology use. A goal is to to create gerontechnology which is life-wide, creative, and going beyond a focus on care and health.
You can download a copy of the slides (in pdf format) from here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ut9j6fIvHa98c44rdEk5hTwW_bUkuTlg/view?usp=drive_link

#ECIL2025 Book of Abstracts

I'm back in the UK, and the first ECIL conference catchup is to highlight the book of abstracts which is freely available here http://ecil2025.ilconf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2025/09/ECIL2025_Book-of-Abstracts-final_v2.pdf.
The abstracts are one page informative references with references, so they give a good deal of information.Also a reminder that you can find all the ECIL liveblogs here.

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

Academic Librarians’ Responses to Mis/Disinformation: A Cross-Country Study #ECIL2025

On the final afternoon of the ECIL conference this is Sheila liveblogging Academic Librarians’ Responses to Mis/Disinformation: A Cross-Country Study authored by Laura Saunders, Joumana Boustany, Karolina Brylska, Mariangela Fujita, Maureen Henninger, Nicole Johnston, Tjaša Jug, Denis Kos, Anna Mierzecka, Angela Repanovici, İpek Şencan, Dijana Šobota, Sonja Špiranec, Katarina Švab, Ana Lucia Terra, Polona Vilar, Pavla Vizváry, and Hilary Yerbury.
This was a panel which reported on a cross country (16 countries) study examining how academic librarians conceptualise and address mis/disinformation challenges in their professional lives. The study was introduced by Joumana Boustany. There were 1721 respondents from the 16 countries, addressing four core areas: perceptions, instructional roles, pedagogical practice and faculty collaboration. There were 14 questions (drafted in English and translated into relevant languages) in the questionnaire and it was distributed via library associations and professional networks. Not all countries were represented at the conference. There was a lot of detailed information in these presentations, and I have just blogged some of it, hopefully without too many mistakes (I'm afraid there are likely to be some).

The Australian contribution was presented by some asked at the last minute, who was not involved in the project, so she did well! 62 academic librarians in Australia participated, what concerns them most re mis/disinformation is social media (79%) and then 71% for news media, followed by academic publications. There was no clear consensus on how to tackle isssues of AI, although AI was seen as connected with mis/disinformation. Some librarians were currently teaching mostly info sources, other more explicitly IL. Some felt that there was a collective responsibility across the LIS profession to tackle mis/disinformation. There was a feeling that IL frameworks needed to be expanded to include AI.

Vizvary presented the Czech contribution - they had 58 respondents of which 58.6% actively teach information literacy. They were concerned about mis/disinformation's impact on democracy, mis/disinformation in social media and then in news media. They all agreed the importance of IL teaching. 34 were involved at least now and then in IL teaching in classes. They were more likely to include the topic in lessons if they had been teaching for longer. 86% most commonly pointed students to Libguides. Faculty often did not feel the topic of mis/disinformation was relevant to their teaching, which is obviously a barrier.

Kos presented on Croatian results. 93 of 527 academic librarians responded. Almost all were strongly concerned or concerned about the impact mis/disinformation in news and social media, and a slightly lower number also felt concern about academic publications. There were some respondents very concerned about most of the offered options, and they were also concerned about the impact on democracy. 43% said they teach IL, mostly part of specific projects or in other classes, and a third were in small-sized institutions and most liaised with one or more academic departments. Of those who teach and liaise, 25% point students to guides, 20% consult with faculty on mis/disinformation material. About three quarters address mis/disinformation in their teaching. If they didn't do this the largest response was that faculty didn't request it or that it should be addressed elsewhere in the curriculum.

Brylska reported that in Poland they received 65 responses. Librarians were concerned about mis/disinformation in academic publications. They mostly agreed on the importance of humans in fact checking etc., and a lot fewer agreed that AI could be using. Of those who taught IL (I think about 40%) the majority said it was not applicable to teach mis/disinformation, and most of the rest said they did not teach it. Top reasons for not doing it were that there was no time or faculty did not ask for it. This is an interesting result and the speaker mentioned that in Poland are not recognised as teachers and there is a lot of dependence on using simple online tutorials.

Terra presented results from Portugal and Brazil (both used a questionnaire in Portuguese). In Brazil there were 101 responses and in Portugal 53. In both countries there were great concerns about all aspects of mis/disinformation - social media came top (both 4.8 or 4.9 out of 5) but others came close. The lowest was belief in ability of AI solutions to combat mis/disinformation. The Portuguese (54%) were more involved in teaching IL than those in Brazil (21%). Also Portuguese librarians liaised with academic librarians more than Brazilian (41.5 vs 11.8%) and addressed mis/disinformation more in class (37.7 vs 14.9%).

Repanovici reported on Romanian results. They had 543 responses, with about 65% involved in IL teaching. In Romania you are not allowed to teach formally unless you have a PhD and (I think) are a faculty member. Nevertheless some librarians did tailor material to courses. Reasons for not integrating mis/disinformation notably included not having time, and then that it was not requested by faculty. The impact of mis/disinformation on News Media, Social media and democracy was of most concern (by 80%-88%). Those librarians who collaborated more were also more likely to teach mis/disinformation, and those who rate interventions highly are more likely to teach it.

Jug and Svab reported on Solvenian results. They mentioned the terminology used, and not used, in Slovenia (direct translations of mis/disinformation are not commonly used). Also as librarians mostly do not have the required qualification they cannot formally teach and don't see themselves as teachers. They had 88 responses. 95% agree that IL is imporatnt in teaching mis/disinformation. 89.9% are concerned about the impact of mis/disinformation on social media, 88.6 on news media, and 65.9 on academic publications, 77.3% that mis/disinformation impacts students ability and 71% see it as threat to democracy. 22.7% address mis/disinformation in classes they teach. Time constraints and lack of faculty requests were seen as chief reasons for not including mis/disinformation teaching.

Sencan gave information on the Turkish results. There were 160 responses. There was less concern about the impact of mis/disinformation on academic publishing, and on democracy, than in some other countries. About 33% taught IL. 47 librarians worked with academic departments. The most frequent reason for not including mis/disinformation in teaching was that faculty had not requested it, and next that it should be elsewhere in the curriculum. 

Boustany showed the response from each country (my observation - the UK seemed rather low). She highlighted some differences e.g. very high concern about social media in Brazil and least in Estonia (though all were over 4 out of 5 on the likert scale). She also highlighted the Czech response as distinctive. Romania had the lowest teaching, France had high teaching engagement, and Czech had low incorporation rate despite high conviction of its importance. Boustany noted an assessment gap in most countries. As regards faculty collaboration, there was multimodal collaboration in the USA, balanced in Nordic countries, and a Liaison-Consultation gap in the Czech Republic. She identified implications for library administrators, policymakers and professional associations. Future research could include longitudinal, observational, experimental and qualitative investigations.
Photo by Sheila Webber: door, Bamberg, September 2025

 

Enhancing Health Literacy through Expert Collaboration: A Community Engagement Approach #ECIL2025

Enhancing Health Literacy through Expert Collaboration: A Community Engagement Approach, authored by Ann De Meulemeester, Muguet Koobasi, Nele S. Pauwels (Ghent University, Belgium) presented by De Meulemeester.
She started by describing the Knowledge Centre for Health Ghent, which services not just students but also clinicians and patients and the public. Their remit includes social outreach and policy support. One goal is opening up academic knowledge for the general public. De Meulemeester explained why health literacy development matters, referring to statistics on how people gain information on health. Libraries are not the total answer, as they can be intimidating to those with low literacy, it can be difficult to reach vulnerable groups (there may be no local library), library staff may lack knowledge to support health literacy. They developed sessions Dr Google: looking for reliable health information which are free, sharing reliable information and expert knowledge. In a 2 hour session they have 30 minutes from an information specialist and 90 minutes from a healthcare specialist. They also do tailored one hour sessions.
Topics include healthy sleep (with Dept of Public Health & Primary Care), AI in skin cancer detection & sun protection (with the Department of dermatology - University hospital). They aim to find a popular/concerning topic and a relevant health expert who is willing to partner. The interprofessional team includes graphic designer, policy advisor, health experts, information specialists etc. Organisational partners include AVANSA (a community-based organisation), the City of Ghent (giving access to community centres etc.) and libraries. "The public" is very varied so they aim to find out information about the target group so they can customise the session a bit, they always give time for questions, they use everyday language (avoiding unfamiliar terms e.g. no English) and visuals, and a structured approach. The researchers are motivated as they want to know the societal worth of their research, and also they get new research questions provoked by the interaction with the public.
De Meulemeester emphasised the need for organisational and communication skills and contextual awareness. Also this work is done on a voluntary basis so "you need to have a heart". She gave some recommendations, such as defining roles and expertise, evaluating outreach activities, using all your various networks, and focusing on the topics & needs of your target group. They are looking for ways to make the initiative sustainable whilst reaching broader audiences, and they are currently applying for a train-the-trainer grant (so health care providers can be trained).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Statue of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Bamber, September 2025

Combining Information Literacy and Metaliteracy to Advance Transnational Group Learning about AI #ECIL2025

This is Sheila liveblogging on Combining Information Literacy and Metaliteracy to Advance Transnational Group Learning about AI. Learning Process and Learning Outcomes, Results from a Case Study authored by Joachim Griesbaum, Stefan Dreisiebner, Emina Adilović, Justyna Berniak-Woźny, Subarna Bhattacharya, Jini Jacob, Tom Mackey, Tessy Thadathil at the ECIL conference. It was presented by Mackey, Griesbaum and Dreisiebner. They are reporting results from an intercultural course part of the IPILM project, which involves institutions in India, Poland, Germany, USA, Austria and UAE. They noted that the course was worthwhile but demanding, requiring motivated students. The project https://ipil.blog.uni-hildesheim.de/ fosters intercultural learning whilst learning about information literacy and metaliteracy. It is an example of Collaborative Online International Learning which involve course co-creation, interactive learning, accessibility, and students based at the home institution. There is an explanation of COIL here). The course combines information literacy and metaliteracy in a seamless way. Learners work in team find synthesising content and evaluating tools they are using, the learners also have to reflect on themselves and their learning. Outcomes include critical thinking, knowledge production and collaboration.
The concept of IPILM involves the community (including the LMS and other collaborative tools), the learning cycle (course structure) and transnational groups (including learners from at least 2 locations). The idea emerged from the collaboration between universities in Germany and India, and developed in terms of course design (to have a winter and summer course) and to the different countries. This year there were 7 instructors, and 34 students from India, Poland, Germany, USA, Austria, UAE.
They onboard students, then there is the main part where the students collaborate and then a public online conference where the student groups present. The students, who are from different disciplinary backgrounds, are given some initial readings and then the collaborative knowledge construction starts. They build up their knowledge on the allocated topic then present and discuss interim results. Each group has to produce an artefact that addresses the problem and which is accessible to people outside academia. This is usually a video. There is iterative discussion and feedback and then the presentation.
The learning topics addressed by the groups all focused on AI this last time. e.g. AI impact on democracy; Politics; AI impact on local culture: presentations are here.
For their project they have research questions about the IPILM concept and the learning success of students. For the first aspect - they have run IPILM for 7 years and with no funding. They just did per and post surveys and asked learners to write reflections. They only had 1 student dropout after onboarding. The students said they were motivated. 10 out of 19 respondents had had group conflicts, which were addressed by course tutors. The learners judged course structure as good and teaching support as very good. For learning outcomes, they assessed IL and intercultural competency pre- and post-course. There was not a significant increase in IL but was in intercultural competence. This all seemed to show that the IPILM was feasible and enjoyed by the students.

The information literacy landscape in Germany – challenges, best practices, and trends #ECIL2025

Nicolas Kusser, Gemeinsame Kommission Informationskompetenz von dbv und VDB and Sabine Rauchmann  from Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg spoke about the history and development of IL in Germany. Librarians in Germany have developed a diverse IL landscape in collaboration with a range of stakeholders. This presentation will give an overview of the landscape and highlight best practice and current challenges. IL was established in 3 stages: 1. the Political stage, 2) the regional stage and 3) the collaboration stage across Germany. These three stages provide an understanding of how IL is taught in libraries.

In the 1980s and 1990s, training in libraries was restricted to technical functions, but there was little holistic understanding of IL and little interest in pedagogy. However it has become apparent that a focus on pedagogy was needed. From 2001, the PISA study found that German students had weak language skills, and it was also found that most students and lecturers gained IL skills through auto-didactic learning. Policymakers responded by identifying IL as a key competency and that it needed to be explicitly taught. A key document was this one Libraries should take an active role in teaching of IL, and collaborate with others in the universities to achieve this.

In the regional stage, libraries gradually responded to this policy, and individual libraries pioneered the development of IL teaching. Regional working groups were formed to standardise practice, share methods and materials and were platforms for the formal exchange of best practice in IL education. The first information literacy standards were formed in 2003. The Bavarian group were very productive and created recommendations for pedagogy, doctoral students, relationships with schools, etc. see https://www.bib-bvb.de/web/ag-ik/home

In the collaborative stage, the German Library Association and the Association of Academic Libraries established the joint commission on Information Literacy in 2012 https://www.bib-bvb.de/web/ag-ik/home. This acts as the central interface for IL in Germany, and creates policy and recommendations, it monitors IL activity across the country. It organises networking events and a best practice competition, and it maintains the national IL statistics. In 2016, it adopted the IL framework of reference, and in 2021 it released a German translation of the ACRL framework for information literacy, which defines the competencies and dispositions that learners should gain from IL teaching. 

In 2024, we have a snapshot of the state of IL in Germany. Public libraries are busier than ever, and focus workshops on children and teens. Public Libraries provide 30 workshops and tours for children and teens every year, and the number is increasing. Academic Libraries didn't get the same bounce-back after the COVID pandemic that public libraries have seen, but still provide a large amount of information literacy teaching. In academic libraries, the groups that are most targeted are UG and PGT students, but the amount of teaching provided to doctoral students and researchers has increased. Topics taught include catalogues and databases, document delivery, legal and ethical;, electronic publishing and academic writing. The number of individual consultations and webinars is increasing.

The majority of IL teaching is voluntary, and only a minority of libraries have managed to establish credit-bearing courses for information literacy. This often depended on the librarian being in the right place at the right time to influence this aspect of education. They showed some examples of best practice from university libraries, but knowledge of these is limited to people in the field. For example, the LOTSE project in Munster, and the Information Expert Passport Programm. The 2021 translation of the ACRL framework sparked a new conversation on pedagogy for IL, and by 2024 18% of librarians reported actively using the framework, 23% still worked with the older standards, and 43% took an individual approach with no overarching framework adopted for their teaching. Implementation remains fragmented. However, IL is viewed as a core responsibility in academic libraries; a study in 2024 revealed that most institutions have an IL sub-department or a specific person responsible for IL. In most institutions, IL session are carried out by staff from different departments who teach alongside their other duties. In 2024, recommendations were produced that sais that IL teachers should be identified in the organisation chart. The responsibilities and priorities must be defined. All teaching librarians should have professional development, and pedagogical approaches should be based on IL standards, and IL teachers should work collaboratively to develop IL teaching. IL teaching should not be left to the individual, but should be defined by institutions. 

The German framework for IK allows for a standardised component of IL in all librarian education in Germany. The Informationskompetenz online platform brings together statistics about information literacy in the country, which are more detailed than the government, and provides a better overview of IL teaching across the country. A roundtable facilitates the exchange of knowledge and practice, the 10th round table took place last year in Hamburg. Each year, the roundtable features different topics and takes place in a different city. The 2025 roundtable will take place in Ilmenau. The information literacy day features collaboration between three countries: Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In 2026 this will be in Augsburg, although it is German-speaking! 

The state of public libraries: there are a lot of very varied activities taking place, so it is more challenging to get a good overview of what is happening, as fewer statistics are collected. They provided some examples, many of which commence with very young children, and are integrated with school learning. The online tutorial Sputnik, which was developed by the Bavarian group and some students, is an interactive tutorial to teach IL to high school students and includes a module on AI. 

In summary, German academic and public libraries do a huge amount to support IL development across the life-course, and this activity is increasing. However, there are some more opportunities, challenges and gaps.

In terms of opportunities, a new Handbook Bibliothekspedagogik was published, which showcases the diversity of approaches and covers IL pedagogies in detail. It defines IL across all services in the Library, and the ethical use of information, including addressing fake news and AI. These are particularly important for public libraries. It also covers novel pedagogies for online teaching, drawing on experiences from the COVID pandemic. In terms of challenges, the underdeveloped IL guiding structures undermine the IL teaching of librarians. A more formal governance could recognise the strengths of IL teaching librarians, and support higher quality programmes. IL teaching needs to address IL development across the life-course. The framework is mostly used in academic libraries, greater collaboration across different professional groups and internationally. The gaps include that publications are often limited to field reports and experience papers rather than peer-reviewed publications. Bachelor's and master's theses contain some useful research, but they are not widely disseminated. A dedicated journal in German with a focus on IL would be an improvement. A structured onboarding process for new teaching librarians would support new professionals.

Germany has built a strong foundation for IL, through political recognition, regional initiatives and national collaboration. However, there is a need for further professionalisation in teaching and establishing sustainable organisational and staffing structures to promote IL in the long term.

Photo by Sheila Webber: canoers, Bamberg, September 2025

Fostering Reflective Learning through Visual Search Stories #ECIL2025

Here at ECIL 2025 this is Sheila blogging about Fostering Reflective Learning through Visual Search Stories by Luca Botturi, Giovanni Profeta, Elena Battipede, Mirna Saad, Deirdre Fels, Petra Mazzoni, Franziska Baier-Mosch, Martin Hermida, Carolin Hahnel, Silvia Giordano. The presenters at the conference were Battipede and Botturi.
They had given teenagers search tasks and collected over 1000 "search stories" which produced numerous findings. Firstly, many did minimal searches taking little time, also there was not an easy correlation towards complexity of search strategy and good results. They then looked at whether had different styles at different times: about 30% always had a minimal style. Additionally checking something did not always result in better understanding than no checking (they might just find the same wrong information in different places). The search behaviours were different for different tasks. They also found that people who said they have high digital skills tended to be (or get) worse the more at searching (being over confident).
they have developed the ROSE instruments Reflective Online Search Education. They developed a platform with teachers, and experimented with 30 classes. The system collects data on the students' searches which can be used for reflection etc. by teachers and learners. There was a brief demonstration of the system showing the detailed information you could get on each search. It includes observations and hints. The teacher can produce a visualisation for the whole class. Some teacher feedback included need for tutorial and clarification of the non-judgmental aim of the feedback, options for filtering the teacher's class map. The researchers also did user experience testing with 237 students. The students did not find it that much fun, but fairly easy to use (and other positive things). Teachers provided class examples and emphasised that use of AI needed to be addressed. The ROSE website(logo above) is https://rose.education/

Exploring Games for Learning Transliteracy: TLIT4U Project Findings #ECIL2025

This is another liveblog from Sheila at ECIL 2025 Exploring Games for Learning Transliteracy: TLIT4U Project Findings authored by Giulia Conti (Università di Modena e Reggio, Italy), Marina Encheva (University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia, Bulgaria) and Francesco Zanichelli and Anna Maria Tammaro (Università di Parma, Italy). It was presented by Encheva. She started by defining Transliteracy. The TLIT4U project website is here https://translit-eu.unibit.bg/ and the focus of this talk was about a game selection tool.
They started with a model for games based teaching, then a guide for teachers to develop games, then design of game scenario and learning analytics tools, then developing a game for teaching transliteracy. The game aimed to guide students through the research process, connecting with previous knowledge, developing research questions etc. so the students could then apply the scientific enquiry process in other contexts, and also develop skills concerned with engaging critically with learning.They developed their own game, however also identified other relevant games.
In terms of the game selection tool, the team selected 20 serious games for learning about transliteracy, that the learners could choose between (I spotted some familar titles like Fake it to make it and Harmony Square). Ones highlighted by the speaker included Memory reLOADED, Datak, Checkology, Syrian Journey, Interland.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Christmas window already, Bamberg, September 2025

Ten Years of Information Literacy for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers at the EUI: Statistics and Lessons Learned #ECIL2025

Pam here, I was excited for this session as it was presented by a graduate from the University of Sheffield's distance learning programme: Library and Information Services Management, Federica Signoriello from the European University Institute, Italy. Sheila and I both taught Federica, and it's lovely to see her in person rather than on a screen! Federica spoke about statistics collected from 10 years of information literacy teaching at the European University Institute, which only has doctoral students. They have a calendar of information literacy teaching and also offer individual support sessions. They use the SCONUL annual statistic return format so they can benchmark against other institutions. They collect quantitative data on the amount of training offered, staff hours used for this purpose and the number of learners taking part. They also gather qualitative feedback through user surveys and informal feedback.

For a small institution, small changes in provision can make a big impact, for example, in years where they take part in academic writing month, they have more sessions. Having a person dedicated to do outreach work to advertise IL sessions increased engagement. The online offer developed over COVID was very popular. The data reveals that communication is key, and that social media is an important platform for marketing their information literacy sessions, as there are restrictions on emailing large number of students.

They get good attendance from students who are remote to the university for online sessions, and sometimes they offer the same session both online and in-person. They have always paired taught sessions with individual consultations, the so-called "boutique approach". They have also invested in informal events such as tours and cafes, a Christmas event, etc, which help create good relationships with learners. Individual support sessions often focus on very niche requests, which then prompt the team to develop new LibGuide support.

The qualitative feedback reveals that learners are generally happy with the support offered, and users had several suggestions for sessions they would like e.g. AI tools for research and productivity. Some suggestions mean that staff have to develop competencies in new tools, e.g, GIS, so they often reach out to others in the institution to help develop teaching. They also exchange sessions with other universities in the city.

Some reflections at the end: data collection is laborious, but it helps to have one person dedicated to this task. It's helpful to analyse long-term trends, as this supports the allocation of resources. They intend to collect statistics related to the production of asynchronous materials and answering emails.

Photo: Lamp on a building in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

“Help RobAI Fix Its System Bug”: An Escape Game Assisting Teaching AI Literacy #ECIL2025

Sheila again logging at ECIL 2025 “Help RobAI Fix Its System Bug”: An Escape Game Assisting Teaching AI Literacy presented by Zuza Wiorogórska (University of Warsaw, Poland), Tatiana Sanches (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal), Zuzanna “Zu” Sendor (University of Warsaw Library, Poland).
This was a comparative exploratory study with Polish  and Portuguese students. Step 1 was ChatGPT exercises (defining IL in English and asking for articles; asking for info on the instructor; writing an introduction to a topic; shorten a text and translate to your language; summarise english task and assign keywords; and asking ChatGPT to convert a bibliography from one style to another). For each ChatGPT task the students had to assess the results from ChatGPT. The assessments varied between the cohorts from the two countries.
The students found ChatGPT useful for some tasks e.g. translating texts, generating abstracts but also had concerns e.g. innaccurate content, impersonal tone of replies. The overall view was the view that it could support academic but must be used with critical thinking and human oversight.
The second step was an Escape Game. They developed the game themselves with an application. Mission 1 was understanding what influences CHatGPT's responses and how it can support academic work. The 2nd challenge was about truthfulness and the 3rd challenge was identifying true and false statements about GenAI's capabilities and limitations. If you succeeded you got a number that enabled you to tackle the next mission. They had a cute cartoon robot (RobAI) accompanying them, and had, for example, drag and drop answers, answers where you had to choose either the true or false statement. The robot cried if you failed. When you won and fixed the robot it was happy - the students liked this aspect.
The advantage of the game was reinforcing key concepts and enabling reflection on integrating AI in a critical and ethical way. There were some cultural differences between the two cohorts (who were in 2 countries and also one on campus and one online). Future research could explore long term impact and cross-disciplinary use. They gave a link for the game as https://tinyurl.cm/ujp7y278 though it wasn't loading for me (I will try and check up on that).

A New Model for Teaching Information Literacy and Academic Writing #ECIL2025

 Pam McKinney here, live-blogging from the third day of the ECIL conference. In the first session after lunch,  Helene N. Andreassen, Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, Torstein Låg from the UiT The Arctic University of Norway spoke about their work to develop information literacy and academic writing teaching. They have iKomp, which is an online asynchronous introduction to information literacy, library staff in synchronous teaching sessions and academic writing support, mostly taught by the program staff themselves. In 2023, they needed to change the support due to some institutional revisions that made it compulsory for all bachelor's programmes to include a mandatory digital stand-alone asynchronous information literacy course. This posed some problems, because the librarians were convinced that practice is essential to develop IL and academic writing skills, the practice should be discipline-specific and take place over time, and there needs to be problem-solving exercises for students to engage with.

There are some tensions: i.e. between the discipline-specific nature of IL and the need for interdisciplinary teaching that saves time and money. There is increasing demand from academic departments for high-quality teaching, but there are few staff in the library who are all busy. It wasn't obvious how the librarians could offer this mandatory training suggested by the university management. Eventually, it was decided that this mandatory training should consist of 2 parts: two digital asynchronous interdisciplinary self-study components, and secondly, learning and assessment activities that are more longitudinal, synchronous and delivered through academic departments.

The academic writing (aks) self-study online component now covers a range of topics, and is intended to be used as an "encyclopedia" of techniques that students can go back to. It is simple and visually appealing. The information literacy resource focuses on the core of information literacy, with more examples, videos and activities. They have created an online resource bank for teachers to develop their synchronous teaching, with examples of classroom activities and assessments. 

Photo: drawing of a Labubu (I think!) on the glass wall of the conference venue, Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Humanities, Humanism and Ethics in a Digital Context: Challenges for Digital Literacy Research and Learning #ECIL2025

It's the afternoon session at ECIL and this is Sheila Webber liveblogging Humanities, Humanism and Ethics in a Digital Context: Challenges for Digital Literacy Research and Learning authored by Paula Ochoa and Leonor Gaspar Pinto (Universidade Nova, CHAM, Portugal), Ana Novo (Universidade Aberta, CIDEHUS-UÉ, Portugal) and presented by Novo. There was a background of project collaboration e.g. specialised course development on digital culture and participation in a think tank. So this collaboration evolved organically. Novo presented Critical Information Literacy as a framework for considering the question "what challenges arise at the intersection of humanities transformation and digital literacy research and learning?" Digital fluency was seen as going basic competencies and literacy, but there are challenges. These include operational focus (looking to much at the skills agenda) and conceptual ambiguity.
Humanistic Information Studies was presented as having as key concepts of information experience, information creation and information work, with a culturally situated and reflective approach. This perspective on Information Science brings it closer to Digital Humanities.
Novo identified the need for digital ethics and an evolving ides of digital literacy. Arising from this they have recommendations: commitment to interdisciplinarity; instutionalisation of the process (embedding digital literacy fluency) and focus on systematic change.
Photo by Sheila Webber: under the linden tree in Bamberg, Germany, September 2025

Bridging the Digital Divide: A Practical Workshop on Digital Inclusion in Adult Education #ECIL2025

Sheila here, and the next workshop I'm blogging from the ECIL conference is Bridging the Digital Divide: A Practical Workshop on Digital Inclusion in Adult Education run by Violeta Trkulja and Juliane Stiller (Grenzenlos Digital e.V., Germany). The latter is a non profit organisation which aims for a joust, informed and inclusive digital society. They started by differentiating between equality (where everyone is treated the same) and equity (making unjust conditions into fair ones, so giving people different support to achieve eqity). I think they used this definition https://www.digitalinclusion.org/digital-inclusion-101/
They went on to talk about the term digital divide, which can be seen as a rather binary way of thinking about things. Unequal access, skills difference and differences in offline outcomes have been seen as different aspects of the digital divide. The presenters identified that now this is seen to simplistic a way of looking at things, and rather one would talk about digital exclusion and inclusion. They mentioned factors for exclusion and talked about digitally vulnerable groups (which might be "exposed to deeper new social and economic risks" through being digitally excluded.
In developing a programme, they have asked - what are the characteristics of the target group? how can we motivate, what are the competencies, how can we evaluate it? In terms of the courses, there needs to be 4 stages: recruitment, onboarding of participants, course format and support to guide people through the course.
Our activity involved adopting a persona of a target groups and address questions - what are the possible hurdles to participating in your course, what do you need to know about these? Which of the stages (see above) has hurdles? What do you need to do to overcome hurdles at each stage?

Information Literacy on the Edge: Exploring the Needs of Doctoral Students #ECIL2025

Pam McKinney live-blogging from day 3 of the ECIL conference.  Pavla Vizváry from Masaryk University, Czech Republic spoke about her research to understand the information literacy practices of Czech doctoral students. Students are mostly aged between 25 and 37, the graduation rate is only about 40%, which is due to a range of complex factors and the challenges of PhD study. For example, they have limited finances, often have to work alongside their study and have a negative work-life balance, which affects family life. They don't get a lot of training in academic skills, information gathering and information literacy generally. However, they have high internal motivation to pursue PhD study and are researching a topic they are interested in.

In the research, Pavla wanted to understand how Czech doctoral students solve information issues in their academic activities. She worked with 9 volunteer students from 3 faculties. They had to complete diaries in one semester and then a 90-120-minute follow-up interview. 

PhD students built information pathways through problem-solving, but these became rigid over time. They mostly solved their information problems themselves, and even if they had failures, they mostly didn't seek help and tried to solve their problems themselves. A key finding is that Doctoral students need support at the beginning of their studies. Students were aware of their weaknesses, but a lack of time meant they didn't work to address these weaknesses. They need "just-in-time" help without barriers from librarians, which is neutral, where librarians don't push their own agenda. The library is important for PhD students, and support needs to feature personal support from a librarian. Supervisors were not always the primary source for any information issues experienced by students, but there was a lot of peer support from other students, particularly with "small" questions, e.g. how to cite a conference. They had a lot of trust in the academic community. They had some questionable approaches to the ethical use of information, but they did mature over time. Openness emerged as a key value, openness of knowledge, open science, and the transparency and re-use of information. Students mostly worked with electronic information; they use Google Scholar, proven databases and proven Journals. They didn't seem to have a good conception of the use of the library catalogue and the physical resources that are available in the library. They are cautious users of AI. They liked citation generators, rather than reference management tools. 

Pavla created 3 PhD "personas", the lifelong academic, the awakening searcher and the professional searcher based on the research. In conclusion, doctoral students need IL education that meets them where they are, in the moment of need, not in the classroom.

Photo: cobblestones in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Visualizing Information Literacy #ECIL2025

 Elizabeth Gross (speaking) and her colleagues, Ashley Crane, Heather Adair spoke about their project to visualise information literacy with library science students. In the school context, the librarian is the only person expected to be fully information literate, but many students who want to be school librarians are there because they are passionate about reading, not because they are interested in information literacy. They wanted to examine school library students' ability to teach information literacy through screencast videos. Many of their students are teachers who want to move away from teaching, but they need training in how to be a librarian. They collected the videos that students created for a class, which were 1-3 minute screencasts showing IL skills e.g. provide a demo of a search and provide a commentary. 

Technical content was a strength, but some of the examples used by students weren't very aligned with learners' needs, and some videos were very long. Elizabeth showed an example video created by one of the student librarians. Some of the students produced videos that had outdated authenticity markers. The resources had unclear differentiation between websites, databases and curated resources. Many assumed that learners "just know" what's credible. There was little articulation of learner characteristics or learning outcomes. 

The recommendations for the programme are to infuse information literacy more intentionally throughout the programme. The team need to provide some examples of good videos for students. Creating video resources is a useful skill for school librarians.

Photo: a museum in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Validating Design Principles for Teaching Information Problem Solving in Higher Education: A Library Professionals’ Perspective

 Josien Boetje from Utrecht University spoke about a project she ran with Stan Van Ginkel, Matthijs Smakman, Erik Barendsen, Johan Versendaal, Esther Zeedijk, They based their research on the term "information problem-solving", There are lots of frameworks for information and digital literacy, but how to use the frameworks to develop teaching? We have educational theories and information literacy theories, but how to bring these together to inform teaching? They did a systematic review of the literature on teaching IL in higher education and developed the IPS-EDP model that expresses 7 design principles for developing information problem-solving competence in higher education. The seven principles are learning task, instruction embedded in the curriculum, modelling, practice, learning activities, support and feedback.

Then they used the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a framework to understand how this model could be applied in practice. They surveyed 61 academic libraries and then conducted 5 focus groups to discuss the results. In the questionnaire results, librarians scored the usefulness quite highly, but the ease of use scored much lower, indicating that there is a barrier to using the framework. The focus groups revealed several variables affecting the use of the framework, for example, the student characteristics, the faculty characteristics and the librarian characteristics (e.g. prior competence, workload). They found that collaboration between the faculty and the librarian was a significant factor in the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of the model. Embedded instruction works best through librarian-facility cooperation; together they create meaningful, relevant and sustainable learning experiences for students. 

Photo: Pavement tile in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

An Innovative Approach Using Picture Books to Empower Critical Information and Digital Literacy in Primary School Education #ECIL

A workshop at the ECIL Conference today, which I'm liveblogging (Sheila here) was An Innovative Approach Using Picture Books to Empower Critical Information and Digital Literacy in Primary School Education, with the material prepared by Dora Sales, Serap Kurbanoğlu, İpek Şencan, Sarah Pavey, Stéphane Goldstein, Konstantina Martzoukou and and Heidi Enwal. Not all authors were able to attend the conference.
They were presenting on the international BRIDGE project involving 6 countries, funded by the European Union. The website is here https://bridgeinfoliteracy.eu/. The project goal was " to create a transnational cooperation network for the exchange of good practices and resources for the joint promotion of information and digital literacy as a way of underpinning education in equality values in primary schools" and they have created learning and teaching resources which can be downloaded and used freely (at the above link), including some picture books for each country that can be used in teaching 8-11 year olds.
The focus of the workshop was presentation of the online training material for educators that supports them in using the materials. It is available in English, Finnish, Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Greek and  Catalan. The project uses picture books as part of inquiry based learning, to encourage critical questioning. The booklet for educators explains the underpinning pedagogic approaches and models, such as dialogic reading and critical information literacy.
The process starts by asking learners to ask questions prompted by the book cover (what does the title mean? what is happening? how do you feel?) Then there are prompt questions for the inside cover and prompt questions while reading, and after reading (e.g. what do you now know about the topic, what more do you want to know?) This can lead to art activities, searching, question forming, organising information etc. A goal is stimulating learners to reflect, question and communicate. The example of the Finnish picture book which is "silent" (with no words, but pictures) was used. The books have been chosen to provoke discussion on topics such as helping others, economic difference, refugees, nature etc. The books are mostly ones would you would have to get from your library or buy, but there are some which can be downloaded. One of the researchers, Dora Sales, was author of one of the books!
The workshop part was discussing how one of the books could be used - my group had fun discussing and critiquing this one.

Being Information Literate or Having Academic Integrity #ECIL2025

Pam McKinney live-blogging from day 3 of the ECIL conference, in the second session of the morning. Danielle Degioirgio from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, spoke about a project she did with colleagues Hilary Yerbury, Nicole Johnston and Maureen Henninger to understand the university response to generative AI. TEQSA: The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency asked all universities to create action plans for the use of generative AI and created a national generative ai toolkit. However, libraries were not central to this conversation, and in many universities, were not consulted at all. So the broader role of information literacy in this space may not have been considered. The team bring academic and professional perspectives to developing a snapshot of 39 library responses to generative AI. Most had created some kind of guide to AI use, but what are the characteristics of these guides? If AI is being introduced into Lib Guides, what does it look like? Does this align with traditional conceptions of information literacy? LibGuides are considered to be resources that are owned by the library to connect users with information, provide access to resources and highlight new technologies. 

Data collection featured a systematic search of the university library website, Lib Guide directory and Google search, only resources that were publicly available were included in the analysis. Resources that explicitly addressed generative AI or broader AI concepts. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the content of the guides. Out of the 39 universities, 25 used the LiBGuide platform. 10 had guides that sat outside the library, and 4 universities did not have any publicly available information. Three categories emerged: information literacy (47.1%), academic integrity (32.4%) and AI Literacy (20.6%). However, none of the guides featured algorithmic literacy.

33 guides specifically linked AI use to academic integrity, and 29 to referencing, but only 19 featured prompting as a focus. Danielle then showed a few examples of AI guides drawn from the study. Under academic integrity, resources emphasised academic misconduct, detection in assessments and ethical use in Learning. Characteristics of the IL guides were referencing, prompting and research, and AI Literacy guides focused on AO basics, types of AI tools and evaluation of AI tools.

Libraries are responding, but are only through the lens of academic integrity, which means that information literacy is muted as a concept. The absence of algorithmic literacy is a problem. The very concept of IL is shifting, which risks the de-professionalism of information literacy. Libraries need tgo be in this future.

Photo: house in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

What is Even Real Anymore? – The Case for Personal Agency Being at the Forefront of What it Means to be Literate #ECIL2025

 Hello, this is Pam McKinney live-blogging from day 3 of the ECIL conference David White, Dean of Academic Strategy from University of the Arts London, gave the keynote presentation this morning. The University of the Arts London is the largest creative arts-focused institution in Europe, and they are launching online master's courses. He is chair of the university AI group, which brings together people in various roles from across the university to discuss AI and the implications for the university. He expressed ambivalence to AI, and enjoys creating his own art as "an antidote to email". The idea that the mainstream large language models have stolen the web, and any framework for IL must include the idea that it's Ok to refuse to use AI on ethical grounds, as ion it is a technology of plagiarism. Not just that people can use it to plagiarise, but that the whole basis of the technology is plagiaristic.

Framing is really important, so we need to explore how we conceptualise AI is as important as exploring how we use it. Being human is a finite thing, and technology gradually gets better at things we thought only humans could do, so being human gradually shrinks. But it's better to think that beiung human is constantly expanding and changing. AI forces us to reflect on the value of what we try to do, and in particular, what it means to learn - if it isn't hard work and doesn't require effort, then it probably isn't learning. Learning is hard! So if a technology appears that seems to make everything easy and no effort, then this is not learning. David is interested in IL as a "surface' of learning, and what AI means for learning. 

The nature of the discourse around AI is the same as it has been around other technologies. Humans love thinking about what it means to be human, and AI is just the latest thing that allows us to ask that question. We are fascinated by the boundary between living and not living (e.g. Frankenstein's monster, a golem, the Turing test, AI). AI is a technology of cultural production, and others previously have been language, printing, libraries, the web, wikipedia. The conversation around AI is similar to the conversation we had about Wikipedia 20 years ago. So we've sort of been here before. There is often a moral panic around new technologies. Every time we have a new technology of cultural production, we experience a rupture, with defined stages e.g. a "kill" or "save" polarisation, AI will either kill us or save us. It is assumed that new technology will create jobs or make jobs disappear, and this decentres education institutions. There are 2 schools of ideas about literacy: Teleological, which is output-based, everyone should become a useful, productive, skilled worker (i.e AI is everywhere, we just need to use it). The second is ontological, which is about developing the attributes of a person (AI must be critically engaged with). 

David is interested in metaphors and myths. There is a proliferation of metaphors about AI, which demonstrates how difficult it is for us to explain exactly what we mean by AI. The digital environment has been described as a "place" where people connect with others, but AI is never a place; it doesn't bring us together, it separates us. Generally, we think of AI as a person rather than a place. asking people to declare the metaphor they use for AI is an important first step to discussing the value of AI. There's a relief and enjoyment when we realise that AI is a bit stupid. It would be better if we could get AI large language models to stop referring to itself as "I", as this encourages us to think about the AI  as a person. Its apparent intelligence comes from its ability to hide its own mechanisms, e.g. that it has been trained by humans. AI can be useful, but we need to see it as a machine. Some people think of AI as a "phantom", magical or sacred: it is omniscient, omnipresent, unknowable, powerful and has the promise of immortality. Let's discuss this before getting into the question of what AI can do. Free will is hard work, so it can be relieving to offload some of this thinking / learning onto AI, but really, the human has to always be at the end of the process; we need to take control. 

David posed us some questions: questions that he had asked ChatGPT, and also his team. He asked the question  "what do you think the cockney phrase "that's a right old bucket of frogs' means, and the audience was able to spot the AI answer from the three options given on the screen. 

David posted a list of alternative terms for "information literacy" and his favourite is "always think about it literacy". Rapanta et al. 2025 pose three new skills for the generative AI context: interrogation, adaptation and epistemological reasoning. Really the question for us is which part of a larger process can AI be applied to? If all you do is in the AI, then that is not good. Figuring out when not to use AI is an important literacy. There is a hierarchy to the practice of academic writing from purely skills-based approaches (e.g. referencing) through to making a contribution to a subject, and a hierarchy of information seeking from discovering facts to creating meaning and new knowledge. So we need to think about at what level we apply AI use.  Using AI at the bottom of the skills hierarchy can mean that we lack the skills basis to move up the hierarchy - AI can disrupt skills building in a very unhelpful way. 

There is a concept of "workslop": the AI has produced a lot of content, but it's all rubbish and takes a lot more work to make it make sense and to improve the quality. The expectation is that AI will help, but there is a risk of "poverty of meaning". There is also a problem of "Hyponiscience" which ios the false assumption that you have access to all knowledge - AIs do NOT have access to the sum of all knowledge. AI is good at taking a guess on something that doesn't exist - it is good at inference, but it is not good at reasoning.

AI allows us to be unintentionally productive: you put a prompt in and get loads of content back. In terms of IL and AI, we just need to be intentional and think about what we're doing 

Photo: Frogs in a toy shop window in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Giving TikTok a Home to Advance Digital Media Literacy #ECIL2025

 This was another session from day 2 of the ECIL conference that Pam attended: Gretel Juhansoo from the Baltic Engagement Centre for Combating Information Disorders, University of Tartu, Estonia spoke about an intervention called "TikTok House" to advance Media and information literacy in the general public. In 2022, Gretel was a second-year bachelor's student, and as a final assessment, Gretel had to design and carry out a media literacy intervention. Tartu has an annual Christmas village consisting of glass houses containing food, animals, and exhibitions. So Gretel and her team booked one of the houses for their media literacy intervention. They had to define a goal: this was driven by their own experiences, and they knew that they hadn't had any media literacy education at high school; there was a gap in school education. At the time, there was a lot of discussion about who owned TikTok, he safety of TikTok, and how algorithms drive TikTok use. So they wanted to talk about TikTok and the TikTok algorithm. It was important to have a physical space for this intervention, because online campaigns tend to reach fewer people without financial amplification because of platforms' profit models. 

Their goal was to make the glass house mirror the colour scheme and "look" of TikTok. It contained pieces of information to inform people about the TikTok algorithm and how to influence one's own algorithm. A large mirror was included to encourage selfie posing, which then exposed people to the information in the intervention. The information was provided in a very brief format, so that it was easily digestible. They also had some "fun facts" on the wall that expressed guidance from the government, but they tried not to just scare people away from TikTok. In the summer of 2023 they created a second TikTok house for an Estonian festival. 

They linked in with a government initiative; if people made a video of themselves in the TikTok house and shared it online, they could be entered into a prize draw. The Christmas village had 80,000 visitors, and over 70 videos were submitted under the hashtag. They had 1.5 million views of all of these videos.

Lessons learned: need to involve your audience, as they will know how to get the attention of the target audience. The target for this was young people: 53% of TikTok users in Estonia are 15-24 year olds, so the intervention needs to be oriented to them. The key to the successful physical intervention was the design - it needed to "scream TikTok", all the paper had to be laminated to protect from the weather and to be robust so that people could touch it. It is necessary to think about how to measure the impact of the intervention. Gretel got an A grade for the project and now works with the professor- a very impressive outcome!

Photo: A wooden door in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Encouraging Students’ Information Literacy through Embodied Experience of a Library

Pam McKinney, catching up with the live blogging from day 2 of the ECIL conference. Adrienne Warner from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque spoke about the library as a physical space for students. Libraries and information literacy are related, but their relationship is relatively ill-defined. In the USA, "information literacy" is usually taken to mean the ACRL framework, which mentions librarians but not libraries. Adrienne referenced the work of Annemaree Lloyd, who established the role of embodied or corporeal information as one of the modalities in the information landscape in her theoretical work. The corporeal modality refers to physical information drawn from the body or the bodies of others. Adrienne also referenced the work of Andrew Cox, who has researched the experience of students in academic libraries, which students experience "intersensorially". 

The tour of the physical library was once an important aspect of student inductions, but Adrienne thinks they still have a lot of value. She created a self-guided online tour. She asked students: "Looking back on the tour, what sticks out to you?". Student responses revealed that they understood the epistemic norms for the space shared in the tour, i.e. that some spaces are quiet. The social information from the tour was experienced as challenging the assumptions they had made about the library space based on unwritten social norms. In terms of the physical modality, each student could develop an understanding of the library by moving through the space. They could observe others; there are sights, sounds and smells. The tour helped students develop information literacy about the physical library, different from engaging with the library website or catalogue. 

Photo: statue of Christ in Bamberg (Pam McKinney)

Humans in the Loop: Advancing Metaliteracy for Generative AI Learning Environments #ECIL2025

Sheila here, liveblogging a panel session Humans in the Loop: Advancing Metaliteracy for Generative AI Learning Environments with material created by Thomas P. Mackey, Brenda Van Wyk, Megan Eberhardt-Alstot, Kristine N. Stewart, Kristen Schuster and Matt Moyo. Mackey, Stewart and Moyo were there to present. [added 8 October - the slides are here]
Mackey introduced it with images created by Eberhardt-Alstot showing that pre-GenAI programmers were directing AI behaviors with the lay user having a more passive experience (e.g. auto correction on text). Post-genAI blurs the line between expert and non expert, so you have non-experts with natural language agency with the AI. Factors include peer acceptance, faculty and institutional policy, learning integrity (do you value learning and the learning process), cognitive understanding, awareness of expert Humans in The Loop (HITL) and self-exploration.
Mackey went on to talk about metaliteracy. I've blogged about his metaliteracy work numerous times and the website is here https://metaliteracy.org/ Mackey presented the metaliteracy framework highlighting various aspects including metcognition, affect, and the social / collaborative aspects. The associated learner roles are producer, publisher, researcher, participant, communicator, translator (not just of language), author, teacher, collaborator. Then there are the learning domains: affective, behavioural, cognitive, metacognitive and finally the learner characteristics: adaptable, open, productive, collaborative, informed, reflective, participatory, civic minded. Hopefully, then, someone will end up with a metaliteracy mindset. Mackey identified that the latest iteration of learning objectives included AI.
Mackey presented some selected results from Eberhardt-Alstot's mixed-methods PhD study, which identified the persona of the AI learner (who values learning and works with AI as a tool to support that goal) and the AI user (using AI for efficiency, using it to replace human cognitive effort). This struck me as being similar to the approaches to learning research (the deep and surface learner). Eberhardt-Alstot has also connected the characteristics to related metaliteracy characteristics.

Moyo presented on AI and postgraduate research, work with Van Wyck. Spervisors need to be able to "help students critically and ethically engage with information, knowledge production, and now also AI technologies". From that point of view, supervisors should become the "human in the loop". In other words they will be be critically ebvaluating, validating and refining: this aligns with a metaliterate approach. AI Literacy, Metaliteracy and Research literacy overlap in a synergistic fashion.  Mishra (2025) was cited - the was the false confidence trap, dual expertise challenge, novice's dilemma, expert's advantage. The four elements can be on both the supervisor and student's side in relation both to subject domain knowledge and knowledge of AI.
Moyo identified benefits of extending the Human in The Loop definition to include use of AI in research and supervision e.g. bias mitigation, improved trust in findings. The challenge was seen in the supervisor being able to keep up, and that the research landscape (and its bureaucracy) can be slow to adapt. In conclusion, students may feel tempted to take shortcuts, which can be countered by supervisor support. 

Stewart then talked about culturally sustaining pedagogy (work with Schuster). A key element is inclusive curriculum design. Schuster has taught cataloguing and data mangement to mostly international students, and she encourages students to "play with language" "using stories that poke fun at my own English language skills" e.g. practical differences in American and British usage. Thinking about ambiguity and interpretation is useful when creating metadata. Underpinning this is a desire to recognise diversity and promote accessibility. This is connected to AI as you can think of AI in different ways, AI depends on language, and also it can be used to explore and critique linguistic bias.
The next aspect that Stewart addressed was representation in AI. Stewart give some information about her context, working in a federal university in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), who are predominantly female, Emirati and ESL (English as Second Language) students. Stewart had been asked to develop training for ethical use of AI in research. As students didn't seem very engaged, she asked them to generate an image "of this class" with only 4 attempts allowed, and Stewart showed an example of 4 images, which increasingly looked like the class (though never perfectly). This exercise naturally raised discussion about issues such as gender bias (the first image was men who all looked the same). It helped the students to think about how they are represented in AI. This highlights learners' responsibilities in critical evaluation of AI output and experience in the development of knowledge.
Stewart talked about  how this work connects with metaliteracy goals, for example developing ethical roles as producers and consumers. Also Stewart talked about development of an AI assistant for research (called Aish) with students contributing to Aisha's development. Again this involvement can help them think about their identity and relationship with AI.

Mackey then returned to talk about a Digital Media Arts programme. This has given opportunity to discuss many AI-related issues, and also to collaborate in production. One example was a discussion of the work Theatre d'opera Spatial (an AI work that was submitted to, and won, an art competition) with questions such as - is it art? what are ethical concerns? what is at stake for creativity? Another activity consists of creating a digital object and then doing a written reflection (on tools used, ethical issues, what they learned about the role of AI in creativity). Digital Storytelling is another area where they can explore issues around use of AI. Also Mackey explained that at the end of the course students have to reflect on metaliteracy characteristics (e.g. which one best describes their growth on the course)
Mackey finished by identifying some strategies to empower users with AI including supporting ethical production of AI-generated content, creating scenarios to reflect on metaliterate roles.
Photo by Sheila Webber: statue of ETA Hoffman, featuring (I imagine) Kater Murr, Bamberg, September 2025