Educational Futures on Social Media #ECIL2025

The next liveblog from me (Sheila) the ECIL conference in Bamberg is Educational Futures on Social Media presented by Stig Børsen Hansen, Martin Rehm, and co-authored with Tove Faber Frandsen (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark). As this is a liveblog it is just my impression of what was said.
First they looked at what prediction of the future can involve, where you can design scenarios for the future, but also there are moods or feelings about the future (e.g. people feeling the future is doomed).
Then they moved on to discuss Futures Literacy (see https://www.unesco.org/en/futures-literacy/about) you can look at technologies or consult industries to predict the future, but these approaches can miss out groups and the neccessary attitudes for future literacy.
Coming to the question of how to study futures. Studies are often based on big data analysis, but also you can use more qualitative methods. The presenters wanted to focus on moods and feelings because there are both pessemistic and optimistic feelings about tech, and also the idea of "futurelessness" has been identified (with feelings of anger, depression, hopelessness).
One research question was - to what extent can we find collective feeings about education on X. They  did this by using hashtags such as #futureoflearning July 22-November 23. They used NLP (Natural Language Processing) to do sentiment analysis and opinion mining and also used Social Network Analysis (SNA).
They discovered that people talk mostly about the present, next most about the past and least about the future. Anxiety, anger and a bit of sadness drive the negative side. Delving more deeply shows the nuance e.g. anger about less funding to school libraries currently, anxiety about the future, but also constructive discourse about what the future could look like. From the SNA, negative feelings about the future of education had gathered a larger following, but you can also discern the conversation under this.
They concluded that this use of data science also can be used to include and discover creative minorities, that are drowned out in the bigger discussion, and (for example) enable them to connect with each other or promote themselves better.
Photo by Sheila Webber: courtyard of museum building, Bamberg, September 2025

Climate Action in Libraries: Creating a More Sustainable Future by Engaging and Inspiring Youth #WLIC2022

The last formal session I attended at WLIC in Dublin was Climate Action in Libraries: Creating a More Sustainable Future by Engaging and Inspiring Youth, organised by the IFLA Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Section, Libraries for Children and Young Adults Section. There were six short talks 

 1. The Libraries Inspiring Young People toward Sustainable Futures: A Danish Example from Søren Dahl Mortensen, Odense Central Library, Denmark. The focus of their project was sustainability and also new ways of lending. They decided to make recycling kits for lending out, asking young people about what should be in the kit. The first is a DIY kit has tools and guides useful for when you move away frm home e.g. drill, tool box, instructions so people can do practical things like put up pictures and shelves. The 2nd is a Party Kit with popcorn/candyfloss machine, lights etc. There is also an Outdoor kit, a food/gastronomy kit and a Scrap Sculpture kit. There were discussions abut whether these were things for libraries to do, but the answer is, yes they are! 

2. Coatian Libraries Engaging Youth in Sustainable Practices from Alica Kolaric, University of Zadar, Croatia . The speaker identified that there were lots of library initiatives and she highlighted some of them. (1) "we sow and plant" sowing and monitoring growth of plants (2) Celebration of World Bee Day (3) Children learning about local meadow plants (planting some more bee-friendly plants) and bees (4) Creating a picture book with stories from local folk tales and ecological messages (5) Making a wooden composter (6) Ecologically themed puppet show (7) Stribor Forest project, an instructive trail - the library collaborating with a local hiking group (8) Book shelves aith ecologically themed books (9) Lavender days - children harvesting this local crop and making lavender bags etc. in the library (10) Eco themed storytelling (11) Green library project in Zagreb with exhibitions, walks etc. 

 3. Training for Teachers and Librarians About Sustainability Through Picture Books and Comics. An Example from the Bibliothéque Nationale de France (BnF) from Emilie Bettega, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, France. She provided a full text paper here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1998 She highlighted that the new Bibliothéque Nationale building contains in the middle an urban forest with cute animals! There is a reading room for sustainable development and also a section of the website devoted to sustainable development. They collaborate with the EAC on training teachers about how to use picture books and comics in sustainability education. Also they collaborated with Cite des sciences et industrie, and a key part of this was enabling teachers to help pupils create their own comics, learning how to use an app that supports creation of comics. This led in turn to the idea of having training for librarians. 

 4. Youth and Environmental Emotions Project – Public Libraries Supporting Youth to Treat and Express Their Emotions and Views Concerning Environmental Issues from Veera Visuri, Helsinki City Library, Finland. There also is a paper for this https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1957. This started from the fact that young people are experiencing climate anxiety and thinking about the role of public libraries in countering this anxiety. The project involved libraries in 4 cities: main target groups were people aged 13-20 an also librarians (who can continue the work). They carried out a survey to get the young people's own ideas. There were lots different ideas (see the picture above) in libraries, some also in schools and youth centres. They also used social media e.g. TikEok, Instagram, Youtube etc. on themes such as tips, environmental feelings. They had campaigns which solicited questions and then experts answered them in videos. Providing the information, events etc. where the young people were situated was important (physical and virtual places). They are publishing a practical guide to events and activities, to support people organising these. 

5. Tales, Videos, Games and Environmental Education to Engage Children and Young Adults: Looking for Funny Approaches to get Involved With SDGs from RECIDA (Spain) from Rosario Toril Moreno, National Centre of Environmental Education, National Parks Autonomous Agency, Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Spain (coauthored with her collagues). There is a full text paper here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1962. RECIDA is a network of green libraries with working groups for different projects. Their website is http://www.recida.net and they participate in a lot of social media platforms. They loan collections, suitcases with different materials in them, have mobile libraries and run things like environmental storytelling. They have incorporated SDGs into readings that teachers can use, and create videos e.g. on how to take care of animals and the forest. They have created games e.g. SDG escape room. They encourage young people to carry out investigations and activities e.g. creating gardens, monitoring air quality. 

 6. Green Initiatives Towards a Sustainable Future: Insights From Libraries in Kenya from Arnold Mwanzu, Aga Khan University, Kenya. His paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1956. As not much was known what was being done in Kenyan libraries to address these green issues, they did some research. They used interviews, observation and document review and looked at libraries in a variety of sectors. May librarians were not familiar with the concept of green libraries, but in fact they were carrying out green library practices. Examples are rain harvesting, using natural lighting, tree planting inside the library (all had planting either or inside the library, and sometimes students were involved), discouraging printing and generally using less paper, using solar energy. Young people are involved in greening events (e.g. collaborating with a school on tree planting). They propose more involvement of young people, having performance evaluation for the green aspect of libraries and maintaining the green library standards.

Recent articles: infolit and information behaviour of nurses; adolescents; students in Malaysia and South Africa

- Mohammed, A., & Haliru, Z. A. (2019). Exploring the postgraduate students’ perceptions, usefulness and effectiveness of information literacy skills at University of Malaya library. International Journal of Library and Information Science, 11(4), 23-34. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJLIS2016.0735 (open access)
- Kwafoa, P. N. Y., Anhwere, B. K., & Manu, A. E. (2019). Use of electronic resources by postgraduate students in University of Cape Coast. International Journal of Library and Information Science, 11(2), 7-13. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJLIS2018.0829 (open access)
- Lee, A., Alving, B. E., Horup, M. B., & Thrysoee, L. (2019). Information retrieval as a part of evidence-based practice: Retrieval skills, behavior and needs among nurses at a large university hospital. Nordic Journal of Nursing Research.(early publication) https://doi.org/10.1177/2057158519866612 (I think this is priced) - results of a survey of nurses in Denmark "The most used electronic resources for retrieval of healthcare information were the local intra-net and Google, while bibliographic databases were used to a lesser extent.... Significant differences in competences and use of bibliographic databases were found between nurses who had graduated before and after an educational reform in 2011."
- Park, E., Kwon, M., Gaughn, M., Livingston, J. and Chang, Y-P. (2019). Listening to adolescents: Their perceptions and information sources about e-cigarettes. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 48, 82-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2019.07.010 "adolescents receive information about e-cigarettes from advertisements, family members, their peers, social media, and internet." (priced)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Darling Harbour, Sydney, July 2019

Tranforming Information Literacy Knowledge and Skills across Practices #ecil2013

Tranforming Information Literacy Knowledge and Skills across Practices Camilla Moring at the European Conference on Information Literacy. She espoused a socio-cultural approach to IL. She questioned the idea of transfer as moving skills/knowledge from one part of life to another, as the skills/knowledge was tied to the specific practice context in which they were developed. Her ideas were informed by a research study that was looking at transition from school to university in Denmark. This aimed to improve general academic study competencies at school, as preparation for university. The competencies (divided into subject and general competencies) did not explicitly include IL, but some items in the competencies could be identified as parts of IL. Ability to seek and evaluate information was listed as a general competence whereas one could argue it is a subject competence.
In a pilot study, 8 students were interviewed at school, 4 of whom were able to go on to university (and were interviewed again), and the teachers were also interviewed, as well as documentation being examined.
Moring went on to define transfer as "the use of knowledge and skills learned in one context to qualify actions in another" - undepinning this are ideas such as - that there are general principles which can be used in both contexts. However, Moring put forward the idea of transfer of practice, which took account of social and symbolic elements that were associated with practice.
She presented a triangle of meaning (discourses, narratives etc. of the situation and practice), materials (transport, access, distribution) and competence (requiring transformation, recontextualisation and adapation). So with the example of the students: meaning for them when still at school was learning to use subject related methods, competence was related to subject knowledge and methods, and the materials were articles and a variety of other things. However, when they went to university, students were confused about meaning, and the competences they felt they needed were related to things such as "structure and write assignments", but they were struggling to fit their existing knowledge in this new situation. Also the materials they were using were more limited in university.
This all has implications for how (or indeed, whether) this practice can travel across contexts.

i3 report: everyday information practice #i3_conference

Camilla Moring (pictured right) talked today about Studying information practice from a practice perspective: Outlining an analytical model of information practice, at the i3 conference at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen http://www.i3conference2011.org.uk
She undertook an ethnographic study of sales assistants who had just started working for the Danish train company. Her theoretical base was the work of Etienne Wenger, with focus on situated practice and communities of practice (CoPs). Moring emphasised that the theory of CoPs was really an analytical tool (rather than a management tool!) She talked about issues of negotiation (e.g. negotiation of meaning in whether to follow or bend the rules about railway ticketing) and identity (with the idea of "trajectories of participation", identity developing through time and through engagement with communities).
There were a number of interesting findings presented, but just to pick out part of this, Moring identified four focus points in development of the newcomers' information practice. These were about the participants:
- asking (which provided information about rules),
- observing practice (so they learnt sales behaviour and locally negotiated ways of doing things),
- overhearing conversations (learning norms and values) and
- seeking printed and electronic information resources (to explore possible identities as salepersons, and keeping track of news to keep up-to-date).
As I said, there was a lot more of interest in this presentation, including the diagram you get a glimpse of, above, I will add any links I find about her research.