Recent articles: Collage effect; Engineering IL; International students; LibGuides; Embedded librarians

Volume 44 issue 6 of the priced Journal of Academic Librarianship includes the following articles:
- Effective Engineering Information Literacy Instruction: A Systematic Literature Review by Margaret Phillips, Amy Van Epps, Nastasha Johnson, Dave Zwicky
- How Are We the Same or Different: Information Needs and Barriers of Domestic and International Students by Sei-Ching Joanna Sin, Kyung-Sun Kim
- Lessons Learned From a Failed Research Project: An Informal Examination of LibGuide Design and Use Became a Professional Growth Opportunity by Doris Van Kampen-Breit, Renée H. Gould
- The “Collage Effect” – Against Filter Bubbles: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Combating the Pitfalls of Information Technology by Péter Kiszl, János Fodor. "Based on our experiences we believe that current and future readers can be reached through intriguing collages of credible information. The use of collages can compensate for the effects of filter bubbles, and librarians may become the masters of creating digital information collages."
- Embedded Librarianship in Research in Nigerian Universities: Practices and Sources of Practice Knowledge by Samaila Inuwa, A. Abrizah. "Six themes that emerged from the embedding practices are (a) doing research and publishing papers; (b) being editor of a national journal/reviewing manuscripts of publication; (c) managing the life cycle of data; (d) disseminating research output; (e) providing scholarly publication service and bibliometrics analysis; and (f) conducting research method course."
Go to https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/the-journal-of-academic-librarianship/vol/44/issue/6
Photo by Sheila Webber: sprout stalks, December 2018

European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014: 1st report

I am attending the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. Despite the title, the focus is mainly on media literacy, influenced by the fact that this is also the final conference for the EMEDUS project (http://www.eumedus.com). However it also reflects the fact that media literacy has more of a hold on national and international agenda (something that information literacy people have to take action on...)

In the session at the moment ("Formal Education: New Curriculum"), the focus is on Media Literacy in the curriculum, with contributions from different countries. Firstly Sara Pareira (University of Minho, Portugal) has highlighted the lack of ML in the curriculum in Portugal, hwoever now there are being introduced ML guidelines for several levels of education. Other important documents include the Braga Manifesto on Media Literacy (2011) and National Educational Council's (2011) recommendations for ML. However these have had relatively little impact, and more is expected of the new Guidelines.
Next, Lazslo Hartai (Hungarian Institute of Educational Research and Development) has explained that media literacy only becomes a separate option at upper secondary level (before that it was, I think, seen to be part of visual literacy).

Unfortunately I have just lost some of my blogging (connection problem, grrr), but I will try to remember what I blogged! Carmen Campos (Spain) stressed the importance of having media literacy as a subject, but also intergrated into the curriculum transversally, and she saw teacher education as vitally important (teachers being supported to teach all forms of literacy). Ditemar Schipek (Austria) felt that ML was well intergrated in Austrian school curricula. He cited the work of the Austrian national library, broadcasters etc. in developing children's ML and also mentioned a conference on gaming aimed at young people. He identified "doing" as important - e.g. children learning how to be broadcasters. He also talked about ways of assessing whether schools are dealing adequately with ML (a "minimum standard"). Patrick Verniers (Belgium) pinpointed ways in which ML might be in the curriculum, but felt that at the moment it was rather reliant on the teacher's individual enthusiasm/ initiative. He proposed a framework for media literacy education (I took photos of those slides, so I may blog that later).

At the moment in the session, the speakers are coming forward again to consider ML education in Europe, as opposed to in their specific country. Interestingly, some speakers see things as having got a worse, posibly due to the Bologna Process of harmonisation of education in Europe. Frequent themes are the lack of requirements for media literacy education as part of teacher education, and the lack of a clear policy framework. Laszlo Hartai mentioned the lack of substantial data on what is going on in classrooms around Europe and some confusion around the concepts of ML, information literacy and digital literacy. The contribution from Natasa Slavikova (Slovakia) included mentioning translating the UNESCO MIL curriculum for teachers into Slovak.

EMPATIC report: IL in Hungary

In this post on the EMPATIC project seminar on Information Literacy (IL) in the Schools Sector, held in Krakow, Poland on 8 June 2011, I will summarise some points from the presentation by Tibor Koltay (Szent Istvan University, Hungary): Musings about information literacy in school settings: old and new questions. The old questions included whether “present educational practice prepares schoolchildren for using information critically” and whether putting IT equipment in schools led to equality: in both cases the answer seemed to be no.
Koltay cited Godwin , who asked whether education for IL was solely up to public librarians,;deciding that it was a wider responsibility. There was still the question of whether the lack of IL was of more importance to information professionals than to others.
Koltay mentioned that Hungary has a new Digital renewal Action Plan (published in 2010) which uses the Hungarian terms for both IL and digital literacy, but both of them restricted to the efficient use of information technologies, showing ongoing misunderstanding about IL and neglect of non-IT skills. He also said that there was too much mythology about “digital natives” because he agreed with William Badke that this generation was not good at information handling, and was also heterogeneous.
Koltay said something about IL education for library and information students, where there was really a minimal framework in Hungary although they emphasised the importance of IL for lifelong learning. The exception is the University of Pecs where they have a specialisation in information literacy pedagogy. There used to be a qualification for teacher librarian in Hungary, but that does not exist any more. Koltay also mentioned in passing a Hungarian project Digital Fortress (where children have to get out of the fortress by solving information problems, so learning through gameplay/problem-solving).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Visiting Professors House (where I stayed), Krakow, Poland, June 2011.