Information and Media Education (IME) in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Perspectives #ECIL2025

Sheila here liveblogging in the afternoon of the ECIL conference in Bamberg. This talk is Information and Media Education (IME) in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Perspectives presented by Yolande Maury (Lille University, France). Firstly she outlines opportunities and potential in education, namely generative capabilities, the educational possibilities e.g. promoting creativity through co-creation. She also mentioned UNESCO's input in developing frameworks for AI competence.
However there are also challenges such as misinformation, critical thinking and ethical concerns (e.g. perpetuating stereotypes, cognitive offloading) and the need for algorithmic literacy. The methodology for her study was to analyse some key texts relevant to French education, e.g. L'IA en education: Cadre d'Usage, and undertake a critical thematic analysis. They identified "a nuanced and multifaceted approach to integrating generative AI into education", with attention to creativity, acknowledging tensions, and reflecting the influence of a French soiciocultral approach. However the place and role of the teacher librarians is questioned.
There are different perspectives found in this literature. The first is regulation, aiming to achieve safe and ethical deployment of AI in education. The recommended regulation varies between the examined texts, including emphasis on privacy, ethical AI use, ethical media engagement, support of personalised and independent learning, fostering transdisciplinarity & creativity, and ensuring inclusion and diversity. The gaps include a focus on instrumental skills (e.g.coding) and neglect of sociocultural integration or clear guidance on developing creativity.
The second is the protection lens, safeguarding the development of critical skills (esprit critique) and academic integrity. There is also a promotional lens. In conclusion, the texts showed a cautious, pragmatic approach to AI - while there is a balance between promotion, regulation and protection, regulation is receiving most attention.

#ECIL2023 Library instruction for mis/disinformation: French and US perspectives

Pam McKinney live blogging (with an unusually stable internet connection!) from the final day of the ECIL conference. Jouma Boustany has had to step in at the last minute to give this presentation, but it was very accomplished nonetheless! There is a rise in mis/disinformation globally, and it isn’t only limited to social media or political arenas. There is a lack of research h on how mis/disinformation is addressed in the classroom. Misinformation is inaccurate information by accident, and disinformation is inaccurate information shared on purpose. News literacy refers to critical skills to analysing, and judging the reliability of news and information, differentiating between facts, opinions and assertions. The media landscape is often controlled by rich men, and it can be tricky to understand the biases that might be inherent in any one media outlet. The research questions focused on understanding librarians perceptions of misinformation. A survey was distributed, to find out how misinformation is taught by librarians, and sent out to librarian list serves. 189 US librarians responded, and 125 French librarians responded. The vast majority of respondents had higher level qualifications, and worked in the university sector, although there was a big range of the type of institutions represented in the sample. 

French and US librarians had quite similar views, all of them are concerned about mis and disinformation in news media, and the threat of this to democracy. Most think that human fact checkers are important to combat mis and disinformation. 75% considered that it was part of their role to teach about this, and there were some differences between librarian roles between the two countries that could be the reason for some of the discrepancy between answers.

Librarians in both countries are concerned about the spread of mis and disinformation on social media, and they think this should be regulated. There was a lot of agreement that it is the librarian role to teach news literacy to combat mis and disinformation. There was a lot of scepticism about the role that AI could play in improving algorithms to combat mis and disinformation. 68% of French librarians already teach about mis and disinformation, and 79% of US librarians. Some librarians are constrained by a lack of faculty support and a lack of time.

IL and ICT literacy correlations; A digital creative writing device #ECIL2023

More belated liveblogging from ECIL (Sheila here). I was presenting in a session this morning from a room with no wifi connection - I will post my liveblogs of the other talks in 2 posts, and Pam also blogged my talk, so that will be posted separately. First paper in the session was: Undergraduate Students’ Information Literacy in Relation to their ICT Proficiency and Psychological Characteristics presented by Danica Dolničar, coauthored with Bojana Boh Podgornik (University of Ljubljana). She started by talking about the frameworks used in their research: the Digicomp ICT framework and the ACRL framework, and noting that ICT literacy doesn’t automatically imply information literacy.
Dolničar introduced the research questions, which were exploring relationships such as between demographics and information literacy, or between the two literacies. They had a convenience sample of 498 students at the University of Ljubljana, with a preponderance of natural science students and female students, and administered three survey instruments (concerning IL, ICT, and motivation).
A few results were: In terms of information literacy / demographics, the only difference was between the 1st & 2nd years and the greater IL of 3rd & 4th years. In terms of software, only the use of general software correlated significantly with IL. The highest correlation of IL was with communication tools, and even more with confidence in using internet. In terms of motivation self-concept about learning, self-efficacy and self-concept about problem solving were correlated with IL and ICT. 

In the same session this morning was Information and Digital Literacies as Written Culture: The Case of a Digital Creative Writing Device presented by Béatrice Micheau. The context is an institutional framework to assess digital devices used in creative writing. The studied device is the Cub’edito from Short Edition. Ethnographic research was carried out with observations and interviews (examining educational use with young people and interviewing teachers, librarians, authors and (in focus group) students). The aim was to assess the device and explore the devices use and relationship with literacies. The device is a cube which enables you write, to exchange text, and to print a short text as a long paper ticket – this helps to surface the links between paper and screen “a covenant between a long term written culture and digital textual practices and norms”.
Also it has some aspects of documentation – e.g. allocating author, title. Micheau showed how the stories could be printed out and arranged or grouped (e.g. a haiku tree hung with poems; stories physically grouped in different ways). She talked about various aspects of reading and writing that were engaged in this project such as linguistic, semiotic, finding your place in the world, aesthetic aspects and socio-pragmatic aspects.
She concluded that we don’t have to indulge in “digital dualism” (seeing the the written and digital culture as separate) but rather that should examiine them together in order to understand literacy today. Micheau also referred to cultural “poaching” between everyday written culture and school culture, and between literacy, information literacy and digital literacy. The studied device can also be seen as an “action apparatus”.
Photo by Sheila Webber: bags of ECIL (each one had free chocolates!)

Being with Information #ECIL2023

My next liveblog from the The European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) in Krakow, Poland (this is Sheila) is of Walking, Meeting Things, Tinkering with Objects and Materials, Being with Information: Some Experiences in Information Culture presented by Yolande Maury (abstract is here). Again these are just my impressions and the wifi continues dodgy (though otherwise a lovely venue!) so I will post when I can.
This paper was based on ongoing research studying changes in information and media education in France, paying attention to emerging trends. 6 researchers are involved. The focus here was on the potential of experiential education for students in the field of information culture. Information is defined here broadly as "related to being informed" (i.e. certainly not just documents). Learners are seen as active and social beings, constructing their own worlds, with their bodies having an active role in this discovery and construction.
The focus is on two schools (college, Hauts de France). Data is collected over time, with an immersed and observational approach. Within that 3 particular projects:
- walking as a geographical learning path (as part of a geography project)
- creative production (rap slam and dance) as part of a local artistic partnership, with learners with disabilities
- "tinkering and making activities" with the library
Maury firstly talked about the walking project, which was used to introduce the geographical project in a living way, experiencing the place by moving through the city. The learners can identify the "function of each place 'seen from below'" and start to form critical ideas about what should be changed and what retained. Learners are encouraged to use all 5 senses to experience place. Having done this, the learners have to construct a story including their feelings, observations and expressions. The latter is the CLEA creative project.
This also is an exercise to co-construct a living culture, and involves collaborating with the rapper and also using the maker-space of the library to "give (concrete) form to projective scenarios" which scenario may start as an abstraction, and the learners are encouraged to be creative in matching the ideas to the type of material they use. Example swas given of a student using their own foot to represent pedestrians, paper trees and a smartphone to illustrate street lighting.
Overall this project involves starting with the students' own experience and knowledge, and leading them from the subjective experience to a secondary experience as they reflect on their experience and construct responses with words and objects. Maury showed a video created by 3 students narrating a story about their city, told through their creations and words. Also in response to a question she talked a bit more about students learning how to express information through gesture, objects etc.
Two references from the abstract
Maury, Y. (2019). Expériences sensibles en bibliothèque: Peut-on parler d’un tournant? Revue Cossi, 6, 27–40.
Maury Y., & Kovacs, S. (2020). In-former le territoire local par l’exercice scolaire. In C. Tardy & M. Severo, Dispositifs du visible et de l’invisible dans la fabrique des territoires (pp. 59–78). Paris: L’Harmattan.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Krakow main square

Hyperdocumentation: what are the limits for documenting processes and practices @asist_ec #ist23

This is a catchup blog post from the Information Science Trends conference which took place in Uppsala, Sweden and online 20-21 June 2023. The final keynote was from Olivier Le Deuff on Hyperdocumentation: what are the limits for documenting processes and practices? I was chairing the session, which is why I couldn't liveblog it (see photo, talen by Isto Huvila), but these are mostly notes that I took during the talk, so as usual, apologies for any false interpretations. A slogan I would lift from this talk is  "Documentation is not dead".

Le Deuff talked about the Belgian bibliographer Paul Otlet, and in particular his concept of hyperdocumentation. Le Deuff has written a book about this. Paul Otlet (1868-1944) started as a lawyer, but found his strengths as a bibliography and went on to (amongst other things) create the Mundaneum ("a google of paper") which housed the index-card based attempt to document the knowledge of the world (finally comprising 15 million index cards). Otlet was also a pacifist, imagining a world of peace.
For Otlet there are 5 stages to hyperdocumentation. (1) Man sees the reality of the universe (2) man reasons about reality and interprets it (3) introduces the document (4) creates scientific instruments (5) connects instrument and document (a fusion). Then there is the ultimate stage where there is a recording instrumentation established for each sense - with documents able to encode and transmit sound, the visual, taste, fragrance and touch. "Hyper" (in hyperdocumentation) means several things: massification; extension (or augmentation); reduction (to better categorise and understand); document diversity; new methods (thinking about machines that could enable hyperdocumentation) and hyper-document.
Otlet connected this work with his pacifism, contrasting hyperdocumentationn (connecting humans) with hyperseperatism. Le Deuff presented a quotation from Otlet's Monde, which envisaged a future where everything is documented as it happens and man could see everything as it happened (together with past knowledge) so that "everyone in his chair could contemplate creation". Le Deuff felt that this was more than "the internet". The cosmographe is the instrument that records everything and the cosmoscope is what gives you access to everything. Le Deuff said that the idea of a "second brain", posited as being a result of AI, can also be seen as Otlet's dream. This vision included interlinking of the smallest and largest elements, and a process of categorising and organising the information. It was an interconnection covering all aspects of civic life. Thus another project was the world city - a "colossal book".
Le Deuff also thought Otlet could be seen as a transhumanist, with humans modified or augmented to improve their capacities for reasoning. Otlet envisioned being able to change the world and regulate society for good through this process. This included the idea of the fluid metahuman. 

To supplement my account, there is the HyperOtlet project (mostly in French) and a useful article in English is:
Le Deuff, O. & Perret, A. (2019). Paul Otlet and the Ultimate Prospect of Documentation, Proceedings from the Document Academy, 6(1), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.35492/docam/6/1/9

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.

De l’information à l’infodémie en temps de Crise Sanitaire mondiale

The French-language conference De l’information à l’infodémie en temps de Crise Sanitaire mondiale (From information to infodemic during a global health crisis) took place 20-21 May 2021. You can see the interesting programme here: https://infodemie2021.sciencesconf.org/ and the recordings of the sessions are here https://www.facebook.com/watch/UnescoStrasbourg/

Recent articles: health information; éducation aux médias et à l’information; teacher attitudes; Informed learning #infolit

Maybee, C., Bruce, C.S., Lupton, M. & Pang, M.F. (2019). Informed learning design: teaching and learning through engagement with information, Higher Education Research & Development, 38(3), 579-593. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1545748 (not open access until 2020) "While higher education teachers are able to use information in sophisticated ways to learn and communicate within their disciplines, they may not be accustomed to teaching their students to use information creatively and reflectively to support their work in a course. This article introduces informed learning design, a curriculum design model by which teachers specifically enable students to learn course content through intentional engagement with information. Drawing from informed learning pedagogy and the variation theory of learning, the design model outlines an instructional pattern for enabling student awareness of critical aspects and features of the object being studied related to both information use and course content."

Frau-Meigs, D. (2019). Créativité, éducation aux médias et à l’information, translittératie : vers des humanités numériques. Quaderni, 98, (Hiver 2018-2019), 87-105. https://journals.openedition.org/quaderni/1482 (not open access until 2022) [In French, English abstract)

Ait Hattani, H. (2019). Media Literacy Education in Secondary School: Teachers' Attitudes. Journal of Media Research, 12 (1), 5-26. http://www.mrjournal.ro/index.php?p=artc&id=1121(open access)

Magsamen-Conrad, K., Dillon, J., Verhoff, C.B. & Faulkner, S. (2018) Online Health-Information Seeking Among Older Populations: Family Influences and the Role of the Medical Professional. Health Communication. (early online publication). https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2018.1439265 (not open access) "The authors interviewed middle-aged and older adults about their online health information seeking behavior and discovered that technology and health literacy are influenced by a collective ability to manage the health and technological needs of a family. ... Findings suggest that health can be co-managed if at least one person in a family unit is technologically “savvy” and able to effectively share health information. However, individuals’ confidence in their own literacy often depends on others, usually family members who tend to “do” instead of “teach.”"
Photo by Sheila Webber: pink blossom on a grey day, April 2019

Doctobib #infolit

Doctobib is a collection of French-language videos aimed at those in the health and medical field, at https://www.youtube.com/user/doctobib The early ones had a "Dr House" type theme (the first is embedded below), but the recent ones are more straightforward tutorials (e.g. searching Google Scholar, or using Zotero). I discovered them because of a new article about them (in English):
Ricaud, R. (2019). DocToBib: an expanding project of video research training tutorials for interns, health students and practicians, three years later. Journal of EAHIL, 15(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.32384/jeahil15307 "DocToBib is a project carried out by librarians all over France to create video tutorials on research training in the medical field. This is an update on how the project evolved since 2015, on the topic of video format, collaboration between librarians, communication and practical uses of the tutorials."

MIL as a defence against misinformation and false news #globalmilweek

MIL as a defence against misinformation, false news, disaster risk reduction and management was the theme of the first plenary at the Global Media and Information Literacy Week in Kingston, Jamaica today, and this is a liveblog of it.
Alice Lee (Department of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist Universy) chaired the session and spoke first. She proposed an integrated model of MIL consisting of critical thing, reflective things and positive thinking in combination. Lee characterised this as "mindful access" with reflexive and positive interpretation of what they discover (for example, considering of taking positive action in their own lives or affecting others). Reflective use and constructive creation followed on from this. This model could guide people at a personal level (leading engaged and meaningful lives) and at a societal level (taking positive action and fight against isinformation).
Rose-Marie Farinella (a public school teacher in France) spoke next. She described her initiative with her children on media lteracy - this included taking an oath on their computer mouse that they would use their computer responsibly. She said that one has to understand what "true" information is, before you can understand what false information is. She runs role playing games (e.g. of a car accident) which helps them understand the contradictory news that might be presented about the same event. Thus the pupil understands the different points of view of participants, and the cognitive bias.
Building on this, they investigate the truth and falsehood, and part of this involves learning how search engines work and asking key questions (what, where, who, why etc.) Pupils learn the importance of contextualising text and images, and ways of identifying fake images etc. She mentioned use, for example of Google images and maps to help authenticate. Farinella said how the students had created texts, drawings and videos during this project, expressing what they find (one of them is at the head of this blog entry)
Liar Liar pants on fire (re-loaded) was the next talk from someone at Deutsche Welle (apologies, I didn't catch his name and he wasn't on the programme - I'll add this when I discover it). He identified the huge number of people on social media, and also the false news created as click bait, and it also meant that any breaking news incident was immediately surrounded by a wealth of false news. This includes memes (e.g. people who are regularly accused of involvement), altered videos and old videos of similar incidents passed off as new new news. Sometimes this misinformation got trapped in the news ecosystem for some time.
Then there were people and organisations deliberately spreading misinformation because of their agenda (e.g. political). Finally, the pants on fire refers that "anything can happen on social media" even a nuclear threat. He saw the deliberate misinformation campaigns as "a pointed gun to journalsim itself", trying to erode trust in journalism and the free press. To combat this there was a need to train people, gear-up and finally co-operate. He mentioned relevant initiatives being mentioned on the DW blog http://blogs.dw.com/innovation
I'll continue in another post!

Espaces publics numériques #2ndEURMIL

More liveblogging from the 2nd European MIL Forum. Amélie Turet, President, French Society for the History of Youth and Sports; Member of the research network ANR TRANSLIT, talked about MIL in French libraries and media centres. She described the public digital access points "Espaces publics numériques" http://www.netpublic.fr/net-public/espaces-publics-numeriques/presentation/: there are 1200 in libraries (as well as ones elsewhere). Turet had carried out research into "professional and activist identity of the players in digital transformation": one issue was librarians not seeing themselves as having the appropriate skills. Indeed, they have had to develop the role of "digital mediator", with people who are not librarians obtaining one of a range of (I think) diploma-level qualifications to build on their existing digital skills. Nevertheless, despite this and other issues, there were important opportunities to develop libraries and librarians further in this role.

Social media and libraries: Twitter and more

Firstly, Alison Skoyles reported back yesterday on an informal survey of library Twitter use she did on lis-link discussion list (asking e.g. what libraries used it for, how often they tweeted): https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1511&L=LIS-LINK&O=D&P=38476

Secondly, The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science (volume 39, no. 3/4: priced publication) has a special focus on Archives, Libraries and Museums in the Era of the Participatory Social Web. It includes:
- Preface: Archives, Libraries, and Museums in the Era of the Participatory Social Web in English and French by Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan, Elaine Ménard
- Influence, Reciprocity, Participation, and Visibility: Assessing the Social Library on Twitter/Influence, réciprocité, participation, et visibilité : Évaluation de la bibliothèque sociale sur Twitter by Lorri Mon, Jisue Lee at http://bit.ly/cjils393_4d
- “Library 2.0” Viewed through the Prism of the French Librarians’ Blogs/La « Bibliothèque 2.0 » vue à travers le prisme des blogs de bibliothécaires français by Bérengère Stassin at http://bit.ly/cjils393_4e
- Social Media in Libraries and Archives: Applied with Caution/Les médias sociaux dans les bibliothèques et les archives : Appliqués avec prudence by Chern Li Liew, Shannon Wellington, Gillian Oliver, Reid Perkins at http://bit.ly/cjils393_4j
Photo by Sheila Webber: house near Kumu, Tallinn, Estonia, October 2015

Electronic/ Print preferences in Portugal and France #ecil2015

I will put together the next 2 studies about print/electronic reading, given at the European Conference on Information Literacy 2015 in Tallinn (one study in France and one in Portugal). Firstly: Student Reading Behavior: Digital vs. Print Preferences in Portuguese Context by Ana Lúcia Terra. Her study was carried out in the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. The 23 item survey was administered March-June 2015. 262 students completed the survey, 73% undergraduate students, 57% male. 53% agreed/strongly agreed they preferred to print course readings. 67% disagreed/strongly disagreed that they preferred electronic textbooks. In comments, preferences for manual handling of books was mentioned. A majority preferred to print items over 7 pages, and 32% preferred to read items less than 7 pages in print (slightly less than the number who disagreed with this statement, 36%). Language did not strongly affect preference. A with studies already presented in this session, students annotated print more than electronic texts, and felt that print was better for remembering and focusing on material. "Portuguese students prerceived print as more suitable for successful learning"- however the students did want a mix of print and digital resources.

Next, Joumana Boustany talked about: Print vs. Electronic: What Do French Students Prefer in Their Academic Reading Material? She started by highlighting how digital technology is everywhere, and the French Government had a goal of making 100% of educational materials in digital format. The survey was the same one as others had mentioned in this session. The author mentioned that it had been difficult to get the questionniares disributed, and she had feared that respondents were biased towards those liking technology as social media was important in recruitment of participants.
1629 completed responses were received, 80% female. The majority were studying at undergraduate level. A majority agreed or strongly agreed that they remember information best, and can focus on and review information better when it is in print. 68% disagreed that electronic was more convenient. The majority of students also preferred to read material in print, and annotated it in print, but not if it was electronic. Preferences were not affected by language (French or another language).
Thus there was a clear preference for print format despite the Government and University push towards the digital format. This leaves a problem for the librarian - to go with user preference or University/Government.

Photo by Sheila Webber: outside a cafe, Tallinn, October 2015

Older people and technology; infolit of teachers

Issue 45 (2015) of Comunicar focuses on Communicating in an Ageing World. It includes (in Spanish and English language)
- Use, Consumption and Knowledge of New Technologies by Elderly People in France, United Kingdom and Spain by Cristina González, Carlos Fanjul, Francisco Cabezuel
- Internet and the Elderly: Enhancing Active Ageing by Carmen Llorente, Mónica Viñarás, María Sánchez
- Active Ageing and Access to Technology: An Evolving Empirical Study by Raquel Casado Fernando Lezcano, María José Rodríguez
- From Digital Divide to Psycho-digital Divide: Elders and Online Social Networks by Begoña Peral, Jorge Arenas, Ángel Francisco Villarejo
- A Mobile Augmented Reality Assistive Technology for the Elderly by Rafael Saracchini, Carlos Catalina, Luca Bordoni
- Using Technology to Connect Generations: Some Considerations of Form and Function by Mariano Sánchez, Matthew Kaplan, Leah Bradley
and a number of others all at http://www.revistacomunicar.com/index.php?contenido=revista&numero=45
There are also some articles outside the main theme, notably:
Álvarez, J.F. and Cervera, M.G. (2015). Information Literacy Grade of Secondary School Teachers in Spain: Beliefs and Self-Perceptions. Comunicar, 23 (24), 187-194. http://dx.doi.org/10.3916/C45-2015-20 The abstract reads "Information Literacy is one of the dimensions of digital competence and, in today’s information and media-based society, it should be a skill that everyone develops, especially secondary school teachers due to their influence on this crucial stage of student development. In this investigation we aim to determine the current level of information literacy of secondary school teachers in Spain. For this purpose we have designed a questionnaire (n=2,656) which is divided into two parts: the first asks questions related to belief and self-perception of information literacy indicators, and the second presents practical cases in which the teachers have to demonstrate their skills in information literacy. The results confirm that secondary school teachers’ beliefs show rather high values but that, even if the level of information literacy that the teachers have is acceptable, there are certain aspects of the indicators related to assessment, management and transformation of information in which the teachers display serious shortcomings. This highlights the need to establish a training plan for information literacy for secondary school teachers in Spain."
Photo by Sheila Webber: pink dahlia, July 2015

Information for civic literacies: an educational priority for school librarians in France #wlic2013

I'm liveblogging again from the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore, in the session on Civic Literacies. It starts with Information for civic literacies: an educational priority for school librarians in France from Didier Vin-Datiche (Ministry of National Education, Paris, France). It is presented in French, with no simultaneous translation and I am finding listening in French and blogging in English a bit challenging, so this is a brief report. In France, schools have an obligation to teach citizenship, and from what I can understand it sounds a more serious concept of this obligation than we have in the UK. The schools have to help students understand about culture and historical memory and their role as citizens. A new part of this is to require schools to include digital aspects of citizenshop: artistic, cultural, economic and social implications of digital information have to be understood, with education for Media and Information Literacy.
There are 3000 "professeurs documentalistes" in school libraries in France: I know that in France school librarians have more education in teaching and it seems also a better status within the school. Therefore they may be better placed than school librarians in other coubtries to take an active part in this kind of activity. The speaker referred to the importance of "la culture d'information" for the pupils, this is a translation of "information literacy" which is more holistic and wide ranging than one which stresses competences. The speaker identified the key role of the librarian both in developing the rights of the citizen to read and to access information to exercise the rights of the citizen. It seems that in France they have an interesting opportunity with this.

Designing innovative online tutorials for PhD students in France

The new issue of the open access IFLA Journal includes:
Malingre, M-L. et al (2013) "Form@doct: Designing innovative online tutorials for PhD students in France." IFLA journal, 49 (1), 45-57.
"At a time when information literacy is a growing subject in doctoral programs, it appears necessary to assess the benefits of online education in this field and its suitability for PhD students, considering their specific working conditions and learning methods. The purpose of this communication is fourfold: to show how Form@doct, an online portal for PhD students, uses its resources to respond to this need, to describe the challenges faced in e-learning, to explain the final structure that learning content, general architecture and online teaching could take and to assess, by a first analysis, whether the use made of this portal validates our approach"
The (French language) resource they created, Form@doct, is at http://guides-formadoct.ueb.eu/ and the pdf of the whole IFLA journal issue is at http://www.ifla.org/node/7637
Photo by Sheila Webber: early blossom, April 2013

Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet: PhD thesis

A French-language thesis on schoolchildren's concept of internet searching has just been put online.
Cordier, A. (2011) Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet : Le cas d'élèves de 6ème et de professeurs documentalistes. UNIVERSITÉ CHARLES DE GAULLE – LILLE III. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00737637
I did not really spend enough time with it (considering my moderate French language skills) to give a good account of what it is about, but I think it is an investigation into 11-12 year old French schoolchildren's experiences of searching the internet, contrasting this experience with what the school librarians have as their goal for information literacy teaching. The latter are urged to pay more attention to the pupil's practice with information and technology.
This is the French abstract "L'objectif de ce travail est d'apporter une meilleure connaissance des imaginaires, représentations et pratiques non formelles développées par les élèves de 6ème sur la recherche d'information sur Internet, et d'effectuer un parallèle et une confrontation avec les pratiques de formation mises en oeuvre par les professeurs documentalistes. Pour ce faire, une étude qualitative, combinant entretiens semi-directifs et observation distanciée, a été menée au sein de trois établissements scolaires français. L'adoption d‟une éco-posture pour analyser la recherche d‟information sur Internet permet de considérer les pratiques de recherche et de formation de manière située, en tenant compte des contraintes opérées par les espaces d'action identifiés. Le sentiment d'expertise personnellement ressenti en matière de recherche sur Internet joue pour les deux types d'acteurs un rôle fondamental à la fois dans l'appropriation de l'outil et dans l'appréhension des séances de formation. L'étude révèle un écart important entre les pratiques de recherche ordinaires des élèves et les pratiques prescrites par les professionnels."
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet more anemones, October 2012

IFLA #wlic2012 >Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?

Liveblogging at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Next up is Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants? (Form@doct: Designing innovative online tutorials for PhD students in France) presented by Marie-Laure Malingre.
This concerned online training of PhD students, a collaboration of several universities in two regions of France. There were 3 main starting questions, about the nature of information literacy for PhD students, whether e-learning was appropriate/better for PhD students and which resources and tools were appropriate.
The project was stimulated by a number of factors including new higher education frameworks and the move to the virtual campus.
They had carried out a study in 2007 which had revealed some of the issues - such as the patchy nature of current coverages, the need for personalised, flexible learning. One challenge was having several approaches in the same tool, another was supporting distance learning without sufficient human resources, and also there was the issue of forming a link betwen clasroom and distance learning.
They had to decide whether they would try to cover all material comprehensive, or be more selective, also there was the balance of practical and theoretical material. There was disagreement over the latter point, so both practice and theory is included. In terms of the balance of general and specific, the material is first of all generic, but with disciplinary material inserted appropriate. There is a hierarchical arrangement, with strong granularity, so specific items can be identified and used. The 4 main ways of accessing are Tree Structure, FAQ, Search Engine and Tag Cloud.
Overall a key problem is that one of lack of human resources to develop and support the resource. However, there have been 89,000 consultations of the 40 guides. The FAQ has had increasing use, and has become a way of accessing the content. They have had some suggestions from learners of resources to be covered, and some individual questions submitted to the FAQ.
I asked whether the doctoral supervisors had been involved, and it was emphasised that the doctoral colleges had indeed been involved in development and understood the value of the material.
Full text at Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?
Translations: [English version here] MARIE-LAURE MALINGRE and ALEXANDRE SERRES (URFIST de Bretagne et Pays de la Loire, France) with ALAIN SAINSOT and HERVE LE MEN (Service commun de documentation, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France)

Information literacy meets E-learning: let’s talk about interconnections and outcomes #wlic2012

At the IFLA World Library and Information Congress on 13 August, in Helsinki, is the session Information literacy meets E-learning: let’s talk about interconnections and outcomes. You have to register for the conference (11-17 August) to attend, but there are full-text papers online already here: http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78/session-93. I will be attending the conference, so I will blog the session here, too. The session is organised by the IFLA Information Literacy Section and E-learning Special Interest Group. The papers are:
- An online information literacy course for undergraduates: early experiences: ANNE WADE and JOANNE LOCKE (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) and PATRICK DEVEY (eConcordia, Montreal Canada)
- Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy:NICOLE KRÜGER (ZBW - German National Library of Economics, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel/Hamburg, Germany)
- Proliferating Information Literacy - e-Learning delivery mode extends reach to IL learners in Singapore: GEE MIAW MIIN (National Library Board, Singapore)
- Embedding e-learning into Science and Engineering Graduate Information Literacy Course: WU MING, WANG CHUN, WANG LI, JIN YING and MA XIAOMIN (National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
- Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?:MARIE-LAURE MALINGRE and ALEXANDRE SERRES (URFIST de Bretagne et Pays de la Loire, France) with ALAIN SAINSOT and HERVE LE MEN (Service commun de documentation, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France)
- Information literacy interconnections using a virtual learning environments: DAVID V. LOERTSCHER and BLANCHE WOOLLS (San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA)
- Designing an interactive virtual learning environment (VLE) with a learner centered approach: LI WANG (The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand)
- E-Learning in Information Management Education in Sri Lanka: discussion of the impact of information literacy: NAMALI SURAWEERA, CHERN L. LIEW and JOCELYN CRANEFIELD (School of Information Management, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)
The main conference website is at http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hydrangea, Sheffield, August 2012.

La culture de l'information en reformation

Olivier Le Deuff's thesis (2009) is available online (in French), dealing with the concept "La culture de l'information" including its relationship with information literacy and transliteracy.
Le Deuff, O. (2009) La culture de l'information en reformation. Université Rennes 2. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00421928/en/
Photo by Sheila Webber: my cherry blossom, April 2010.