New articles: infolit beyond school; epistemological development; teaching about bias; Generative AI; Marketing IL; Source evaluation

The latest issue of the open access journal Communications in Information Literacy (Volume 19, Issue 1, 2025) includes the following tasty reading
- From Novice to Expert: Exploring the Relationship between Information Literacy Threshold Concepts and Epistemological Development by Amanda L. Folk
- "Some Level of Skill for Life": Secondary Teacher Librarians Supporting Student Information Literacy Skill Transfer Beyond Secondary School by Kasey L. Garrison and Kay Oddone
- What Language Are We Speaking?: Marketing Information Literacy on University Library Websites by Aleksandar Golijanin
- From Cynicism to Trust: Strategies for Teaching Students Source Evaluation Skills by Mandi Goodsett and Melanie Gagich
- Visual Literacy Instruction at Scale: Developing Asynchronous Learning Objects for First-Year Art and Design Students by Jacqueline Huddle and Sarah Carter
- Generative AI for College Students: A Collaboratively Developed Online Microcourse on GenAI in the College Classroom by Amber Willenborg and Tessa Withorn
- Exploring Positional Knowledge: Using Theory To Teach Bias by Thomas C. Weeks and Melissa Johnson
Go to https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/vol19/iss1/
Photo by Sheila Webber: June roses, 2025

#LILAC24: Developing metaliteracy skills with art and design students: findings from an action research project

This is Pam McKinney continuing to liveblog from LILAC. Laura Wood from Leeds Arts University and my @infoschoolsheff colleague Leo Appleton presented about an action research project that took place in Leeds as dissertation research that Laura conducted as part of her MA in Librarianship. Leo has worked in Arts Libraries, has chaired ARLIS conferences, and has an interest in metaliteracy in the context of Art and Design students.  There are a number of Arts education-focused institutions in Higher Education in the UK, and arts departments based in traditional universities. There is recognition that students studying art and design have particular styles of learning, that are different to students studying other subjects, and this is extended to their use of libraries, for example a need and desire for print-based resources. Arts students use information in different ways, to stimulate imaginations and creativity, which is a different way of making sense of meaning. The concept of metaliteracy comes out of the work of Jacobsen and Mackey (2011), which unifies multiple literacies, for example, visual literacy, and object literacy. Metaliteracy includes the idea that one should understand their multiple literacies. In the arts library, many resources are physical that require students to approach them with metaliteracy.

Laura spoke about Leeds Arts University which is the only specialist arts university in the North of England. There are about 2500 students taking a range of Further and Higher education courses. Laura hadn't worked with Arts students before so there was a big learning curve for her in understanding how students engaged with resources. Sessions where students have the ability to interact with the resources are more popular than "traditional" IL teaching. Laura's research focused on student understanding of their existing learning styles and IL development, and chose to undertake an action research methodology, as this would closely connect with her own teaching. Laura adapted a teaching session to focus on interactions with special collections and zines. She has only done one cycle of the action research cycle. The teaching intervention was split into 3 sections: teaching, handling and making. The teaching aspect focused on systems of power that shape the creation of information and having a go at some traditional searching. In the handling phase the students were introduced to collections, students could handle them, look through them, and a search exercise was repeated.  In the making phase, students were invited to create a zine in response to something they had looked at from the collection.  This positioned the students as creators of information and encouraged them to reflect on their role as creators and communicators.

Laura distributed a questionnaire at the start of the session, to understand students' understanding of different literacy types.  Media literacy was understood, but students didn't really have a good understanding of information literacy or search skills. Visual literacy was understood as being explicitly related to art and design. Then Laura hosted a focus group which aimed to discuss what students understood "literacy" to mean and how that related to art and design.  There was recognition that students needed a range of skills and abilities including media and computer literacy. They also discussed learning styles, which students were relatively familiar with, but they were dismissive of these labels and preferred to identify their learning as flexible and multifaceted. They spoke about the supportive nature of art school and the importance of communication and sharing ideas.  Then there was a discussion about the material in special collections, which raised issues of terminology.  After the intervention, they had another focus group, and the students were a little bit more positive about understanding their own abilities and skills.  They enjoyed interacting with the special collections and the blurring of boundaries between form and content.  A second questionnaire revealed that students did have a better understanding of metaliteracy, and their confidence about literacy skills was increased.

Art and design students are aware of the differences in their learning styles, but they don't want to be pigeonholed into one learning style. Awareness of metaliteracy and multiliteracies means that art and design students can navigate their learning more effectively. Art librarians could do more to promote understanding of metaliteracy. Students primarily saw the library as a place to support their academic skills development, rather than as a place that occupies a blurred space between the library and the studio, which is a prevalent view in the literature. Library interventions like Laura's can help students join up their literacies. Art library special collections are a great vehicle for developing understanding of metaliteracies, they can support creative practice and collaboration.

#LILAC24 Serendipitous searching: taking art students on a visual research journey

Pam McKinney here live blogging from the second day of #LILAC24 information literacy conference in Leeds. Karen Fisher from Leeds Beckett University presented on Serendipitous searching: taking art students on a visual research journey

How can we embed serendipity in information literacy teaching? Karen Fisher discussed 3 ways to accomplish this. The first involved developing student competence with visual literacy and find images from credible sources.  Students took pictures around campus and then used the photo as a starting point for a research journey, to encourage using images to search. Karen used a phot she had taken as an example and encouraged students to think about words that could be used to describe the photo and open up discussion about keyword terms and narrow and broad terms.  Then students used these words to search on the art store database and chained through images of interest on a visual journey of inspiration.

The second approach was called "the incident room" a teaching design for 2nd year students which allowed the students to present their research in a visual way. This positioned the student as a detective, they were asked to design a re-purposing of a specific building in Leeds.  One week the students had a session on literature searching, and in the second week, the students presented their research to the "chief inspector" librarian as a visual record. This gave the librarian ther opportunity to give feedback and suggest other avenues for research.

The final example is focused on browsing in the library, to encourage students back into the library post-covid, and to use the library stock. They created an area in the library that would be attractive to students and collect journals and magazines that are only available in print to display in this area. The librarians encouraged the academics to also use the space, and bring students in for seminars to get them used to browsing the visual resources.  There is an issue with just searching online as the search is mostly text-based which is quite narrow and doesn't open up access to more visual resources appropriate to art and design students.  

Creators in the Academic Library: Instruction and Outreach

A new book is: Watkins, A. & Kuglitsch, R.Z. (Eds.) (2023). Creators in the Academic Library: Instruction and Outreach. ACRL. US$72.00 (ALA members $64.80); ISBN 978-0-8389-3970-3
There are 17 chapters, including, for example:
- Creative Research and Digital Visual Literacy: Teaching Students to Search for Images Online
- Highlighting Engineers Diverse Information Sources Through Customized LibGuides For Engineering Design Courses
- Creating Information-Literate Musicians in the Academic Library
Information at https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/creators-academic-library-instruction-and-outreach
Photo by Sheila Webber: kingyo, August 2023

New articles: teacher librarians' identity; Data literacy; Information behaviour of artists; Impact of library use on learning

The latest issue of open access journal College & Research Libraries (Vol 83, No 3, 2022) has been published at https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/issue/view/1617/showToc. Articles include:
- Teacher, Librarian, or Both? A Quantitative Investigation of Instruction Librarians’ Teacher Identity by Lisa Becksford
- “Looking for Pictures of Clouds”: Defining the Unique Research Needs of Creative Communities by Laura Dimmit Smyth, Ian Moore, Kodi Saylor
- Data Literacy Practices of Students Conducting Undergraduate Research by Theresa Burress
- Impact of Undergraduate Students’ Library Use on Their Learning beyond GPA: Mixed-Methods Approach by Jung Mi Scoulas, Sandra L. De Groote.
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom in the park, April 2022

Information Literacy and fashion

From the most recent issue of priced publication Library Trends:
Warschaw, O. (2021). Information Literacy for Fashion Students: Translating Visual and Tactile Cues into Searchable Key Terms. Library Trends, 70(1), 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2021.0015 "Emerging fashion researchers often have their first experience with visual and tactile research in postsecondary school. Fashion librarians and educators must be able to assist students in adapting their perspective to include analyses of characteristics like color, silhouette, fabric, weave, and embellishment, in addition to familiarity with the fashion scholarship. However, translating visual and tactile cues into searchable vocabulary bridges can be difficult and exposes a gap in information literacy. In this article the author shares three information literacy exercises that librarians may combine with institution-specific resource instruction to guide students in developing a useful vocabulary for image- and object-based research and meeting their unique educational needs." 

A superficial search for other fashion-related articles included:
- Duncan, A. (2019). Crossing the threshold: innovations in information literacy. Spark, 4(1). https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/125 (open access) "This case study reflects on the use of threshold concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003) within the teaching of information literacy. It describes three embedded classes which were devised and delivered by an Academic Support Librarian, alongside a Fashion Management Course Leader at London College of Fashion. The article examines how and why the sessions were structured around threshold concepts of information literacy, reflecting on the benefits of the intervention."
- Thompson, L. (2017). Fashioning the Framework: Information Literacy for Fashion Studies. Art Documentation, 40(2), 304-315. https://doi.org/10.1086/716735 (priced)
- Art Libraries Society of North America. (2017). ARLIS/NA Core Competencies for Art Information Professionals. https://www.arlisna.org/news/arlisna-core-competencies-for-art-information-professionals## (open access)
Photo by Sheila Webber: the wreath at number 29, December 2021

Feedback on Visual Literacy Framework Companion Document

Feedback on the Visual Literacy Framework , a Companion Document to the ACRL Information Literacy Framework, is sought by the Image Resources Interest Group of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) by 7 July 2021. "We are asking you to consider how you might use this document. We would also like to understand how it could be improved to better align with your needs. We thank you in advance for your input to ensure this document is thoughtful and useful." The draft is here https://acrlvltf.org/feedback/ This is the successor to the 2011 Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (Visual Literacy Standards)

"From fall 2019 to spring 2021, we interviewed a broad community of practitioners and scholars, including architecture and planning librarians. Participants were asked to define visual literacy, identify necessary skills and competencies for their discipline, and discuss what they perceived as challenges and opportunities. By coding the interviews, we identified four themes that serve as the backbone for the current Visual Literacy Framework Companion Document draft. These themes are: Perceive visuals as communicating information; Participate in a changing information landscape; Practice visual discernment and criticality; and Pursue social justice through visual practice."

Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life, May 2021

New articles from @JInfoLit - Academics; Story time; Teens and video games; Learning diaries

Volume 13 No. 1 (2019) of the open access journal Journal of Information Literacy has been published. The articles are:
- Shaking up story time by Bartlomiej A. Lenart and Carla J. Lewis (Looks at the Philosophy for Children (P4C) method)
- What academics really think about information literacy by Deborah Stebbing, Jane Shelley, Mark Warnes, Carol McMaster ""We took a qualitative approach to this research, using semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of participants drawn from nursing subjects and business subjects in a post-1992 university in the United Kingdom. The research questions asked about academics’ perception of IL, the impact of their discipline on IL and their view of the ideal information literate student. Six key areas of concern emerged around the teaching of IL: students transitioning into higher education, developing evaluation skills, the significance of the undergraduate major project and discipline differences, the information landscape and the perceived need for preparation for IL at work. The article discusses the findings, difficulties surrounding students achieving adequate IL and considerations for future practice in delivering focused IL support."
- How do teens learn to play video games? by Ruth S. Contreras-Espinosa, Carlos A. Scolari. "The aims of this article are to identify the main ILS ]informal learning strategies] that teens apply as they acquire and improve their video game literacy, and to develop a series of categories for analysing and classifying these informal learning experiences."
- Attribution and plagiarism in the creative arts by Joanna Hare, Kimburley Choi
- Using learning diaries to evaluate and improve online information literacy and academic skills provision by Aidan Tolland, Dr, Rebecca Mogg, Amanda Bennett
There are also book reviews and conference reports. Go to https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/JIL/issue/view/206
Photo by Sheila Webber: Rose, Sheffield, June 2019

Recent articles: ACRL Framework; #infolit and art; faculty developers; librarians writing

Recent articles from the open access journal College & Research Libraries News include: from Vol 80, No 4, 2019
- Reframing from the ground up: Redesigning a credit-bearing information literacy course using the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education by Shonn M. Haren
- Librarians as faculty developers: Leading educational development initiatives by Katelyn Handler and Lauren Hays
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1124/showToc

and from Vol 80, No 3, 2019
- The art of information literacy: New competencies for art, architecture, and design learners by Linden How, Amanda Meeks, Shannon Marie Robinson, Alyssa Vincent
- Everybody’s publishing but me! How a writing group can help actualize your publishing dreams by Dory Rosenberg, Karin M. Kettenring, Anne R. Diekema
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1123/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom, Sheffield, April 2019

More papers from #WLIC2018 :critical infolit; health literacy; gamification; visual literacy; information behaviour

This is the second batch of links to full text papers from the forthcoming World Library and Information Conference (WLIC, the IFLA conference) which takes place 24 to the 30 August 2018.
- SCHACHTER, Debbie (2018) Critical Information Literacy Teaching in British Columbia Academic Libraries. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 116 - Library Theory and Research with Information Literacy. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2151
- KAZERANI, Maryam and PIRIALAM, Hamed and SHEKOFTEH, Maryam and RAZZAGHI, Zahra (2018) Health literacy training for diabetic patients and the role of public libraries: A quasi-experimental study. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 219 - Health and Biosciences Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2183
- COWING, Jared and LEE, Simon and PUN, Raymond (2018) Level Up for Learning: Integrating Video Game Concepts into Information Literacy and Student Engagement Activities. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 75 - Audiovisual and Multimedia with Information Technology. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2131
- MBAGWU, Francisca Chinyeaka and BENSON, Oyemike Victor and ONUOHA, Charis O. (2018) Challenges of meeting information needs of rural farmers through internet-based services: experiences from developing countries in Africa. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 166 - Agricultural Libraries SIG. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2195
- MATUSIAK, Krystyna K. and HEINBACH, Chelsea (2018) Methodological Approaches for Exploring Visual Literacy Practices. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 116 - Library Theory and Research with Information Literacy. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2150
- LEE, Han Leng and HADDOW, Gaby (2018) Artists' information seeking behaviour. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 162 - Art Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2158
Photo by Sheila webber: Blackheath, July 2018

New articles: misconceptions; IL testing; artists' IL

There is a new issue of the open access journal Communications in Information Literacy; Volume 12, Issue 1 (2018). The articles are:
- Predictable Information Literacy Misconceptions of First-Year College Students by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Allison Rand, and Jillian Collier
- SAILS, Take 2: An Exploration of the “Build Your Own Test” Standardized IL Testing Option for Canadian Institutions by Rumi Y. Graham, Nichole Eva, and Sandra Cowan
- Crossing the Studio Art Threshold: Information Literacy and Creative Populations by Sarah Carter, Heather Koopmans, and Alice Whiteside
Go to https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/vol12/iss1/
Photo by Sheila Webber: travellers in Stavanger, May 2018

Recent articles: Pinterest; Critical inquiry; Outreach

Articles in the priced journal Internet Reference Services Quarterly (Volume 22 issue 2/3) include:
- Talking Through It: Using Student to Student Interviews and Brainstorming Activities for Facilitating Critical Inquiry by Krista D. Schmidt (this is in a chemistry class)
- Dust off Those Encyclopedias: Using Reference Sources to Teach the ACRL Framework Concepts by Kristin E. C. Green
- Library Outreach and Instruction to Academic Departments of Military Science and ROTC Cadets by Leila June Rod-Welch EdD, Barbara E. Weeg & Glen P. Keith
- Reframing Pinterest: Information Literacy for Interior Design Students by Ellen Hampton Filgo & Megan Martinsen
Thanks to Esther Grassian for alerting me to this journal issue. Go to http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wirs20/22/2-3?nav=tocList
Photo by Sheila Webber: beets and squash, Blackheath Farmers market, January 2018

Critical Information Literacy in Art and Design Libraries

3 items- (1) Just one session - but this caught my eye: At the ARLIS/NA 45th Annual Conference taking place in New Orleans (whole conference is 5-9 February 2017): On Wednesday, February 8, 1:15pm - 2:15pm: Critical Information Literacy in Art and Design Libraries with Siân Evans, Stephanie Grimm and Jennifer Ferretti. https://arlisna2017.sched.org/event/8jgo/critical-information-literacy-in-art-and-design-libraries
(2) Accessible to all, there is a dialog between Evans and Ferretti on the ACRLog (May 23 2016, "#libeyrianship: Pop Culture and #critlib in Information Literacy Programs") in which they talk about the LibGuide Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Information Resources. http://acrlog.org/2016/05/23/libeyrianship-pop-culture-and-critlib-in-information-literacy-programs/
(3) I will remind people about the section on ACRL Information Literacy in the Disciplines resource related specifically to art: http://acrl.ala.org/IS/is-committees-2/committees-task-forces/il-in-the-disciplines/information-literacy-in-the-disciplines/information-literacy-in-the-disciplines-art/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Model of Diagon Alley (there was a section devoted to the art and design work), WB Making of Harry Potter, November 2016

New issue of Communications in Information Literacy

The latest issue of the open access journal Communications in Information Literacy (voliume 9 number 1) is available. Articles include:
- “Mind-Blowing”: Fostering Self-Regulated Learning in Information Literacy Instruction by Eveline Houtman
- Education Theory and Pedagogy for Practical Library Instruction: How to Learn What We Really Need to Know by Molly Montgomery
- A Decade of Critical Information Literacy: A Review of the Literature by Eamon Tewell
- Motivational Design in Information Literacy Instruction by Amanda Kathryn Nichols Hess
- Teaching and Learning Information Synthesis: An Intervention and Rubric Based Assessment by Kacy Lundstrom, Anne R. Diekema, Heather Leary, Sheri Haderlie, Wendy Holliday
- Connecting Inspiration with Information: Studio Art Students and Information Literacy Instruction by Katie Greer
http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php?journal=cil&page=issue&op=view&path[]=17&path[]=showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: bee and wild rose, June 2015

Art libraries and information literacy

I'm running a workshop for the ARLIS (art librarians) conference today (on social networking tools; I will be posting about that). Information literacy items I happened to come across whilst preparing were:
- A 43 page document (updated most recently July 2007): Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines at http://www.arlisna.org/resources/
onlinepubs/informationcomp.pdf
- A 6 page report from the Art Libraries Society of North America conference 2007, covering talks from the session called Communication and Collaboration: Working with Faculty for Information Fluency http://www.arlisna.org/news/conferences/
2007/proceedings/ses_02.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Approaching the art exhibition on Cockatoo island, Sydney, Australia, June 2008.

Information literacy/ youtube

Since I last looked, there are a lot more videos about information literacy on Youtube, of various interest and quality. This one on Art History publications (done by an art history lecturer) is quite good in explaining in detail the difference between different kinds of publications: scholarly, professional etc. http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=k-2hziLTSyU

Photo by Sheila Webber: the orchid on my windowsill is now in full bloom, August 2007.

INTUTE tutorials

Intute has just released 8 Internet tutorials for the Arts and Humanities: Internet for Architecture ; Internet for Art and Design; Internet for Media and Communication; Internet for English; Internet for Fashion and Beauty; Internet for History and Philosophy of Science (HPS); Internet for Learning Languages; Internet for Music. This is part of a major programme of change to update and revise all the tutorials in the Virtual Training Suite in time for the new UK academic year (which starts at the end of September). For all the tutorials go to http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Dress and hair pin (using "cutout" effect in photoshop) July 2007.