Kenyan MIL competencies workshop

There is a short report on a UNESCO-supported Training-of-Trainers workshop in Kisumu. Kenya, in August 2023, aiming to "deepen participants' competencies on Media and Information Literacy to address disinformation and hate speech on digital platforms". This was part of the UNESCO EU Social Media for Peace initiative.
Go to https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/kenyan-coalition-members-trained-media-and-information-literacy-digital-peace-building
Photo by Sheila Webber: train (just seen) drawing up this morning, September 2023

Ghana's Media and information literacy market roadshow

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has a detailed report about an initiative in which its Kenyan partner Penplusbytes https://www.penplusbytes.org/ literally went out on the streets to make people aware of misinformation and ways to combat it. Their initiative included playing a radio drama in different languages (Twi, Ga, Ewe, Hausa and English) about misinformation found online, a dance contest and handing out flyers which mostly consisted of infographics. This was part of Global MIL week celebrations. The report is here:
Bodine, A. (2022, 2 December). Ghana's market roadshow: Media and information literacy for semiliterate users. https://akademie.dw.com/en/mil-for-illiterate-ghanaians/a-63955851

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.

Digital Media Literacy and Youth Civic Reasoning in Kenya @TheYouthCafe #MILCLICKS

Published by the Youth Cafe on 4 August are a set of reports on digital and media literacy of young people in Kenya. The baseline report provides a literature review, and summarises findings from two focus groups and two interviews, finishing with recommendations. Two further reports go into more detail about the findings from the focus group and interviews. 

Their goal was to gather evidence and guidance to prepare a media literacy handbook for Kenyan young people. There are recommendations to Government (the first of which is "The national government should make digital-media literacy a segment of ICT education at all levels and incorporate it into the new curriculum" - a straightforward recommendation lacking in the UK's recent media literacy strategy), Youth organisations, Multilateral organisations, young people themselves (thus putting responsibility on youth, as well as responsibility on others), and for the design of the proposed handbook. A recommendation for the handbook that caught my eye was that "While civic reasoning is the goal for the media literacy handbook, media literacy also affects other areas such as mental health and employment. It is necessary to design the handbook for ease of adoption for such themes as a sustainability strategy." 

Altogether it is an interesting set of documents, and it is only a pity that the potential role of librarians doesn't get mentioned. The baseline report's reference list is useful in focusing on the Kenyan context (since so many studies of critical media literacy look at Western contexts).

Digital Media Literacy and Youth Civic Reasoning in Kenya: Baseline report: https://www.theyouthcafe.com/tools-and-publications/digital-media-literacy-and-youth-civic-reasoning-in-kenya-baseline-report 

Digital Media Literacy and Youth Civic Reasoning in Kenya: focus group discussion report: https://www.theyouthcafe.com/tools-and-publications/digital-media-literacy-and-youth-civic-reasoning-in-kenya-focus-group-discussion-report 

Digital Media Literacy and Youth Civic Reasoning in Kenya: Key informant interview report: https://www.theyouthcafe.com/tools-and-publications/digital-media-literacy-and-youth-civic-reasoning-in-kenya-key-informant-interview-report

Librarians Teaching Faculty and Students: Copyright Literacy in Higher Education #wlic2017

My second post on the mini-conference on Models for Copyright Education in Information Literacy Programs at the 2017 World Library and Information Conference held in the Dolnośląska Szkoła Wyższa (University of Lower Silesia), Wroclaw. The post-lunch session was on Librarians Teaching Faculty and Students: Copyright Literacy in Higher Education (Part 1). It was moderated by Lisa Hinchliffe, the new chair of the IFLA Information Literacy Section (who is shown standing to chair the first panel of the day: photo Mirek Antoniewicz).
Firstly Min Chou, New Jersey City University Library (US) talked about Academic Libraries’ Role in Teaching about Copyright and Fair Use. This was based on her doctoral research. In the US digital copyright laws (DMCA and TEACH) require insitutions to have copyright policies. Her research was explore the state of copyright policies, and the extent to which fair use was covered. She undertook a qualitative study used Lessig's model of the modalities of regulation (identifying norms, architecture [technical], law, the market as four forces). She examined material from 115 universities, looking at policies and guidelines, endorsed at the university level, published on university websites. 50 institutions had official policies on fair use, 33 more had advisories on fair use. Few covered case law on fair use, and some policies were out of date. Longer did not necessarily mean better. Some were shorter but comprehensible and referred to fuller documents. The speaker identified that policies had to be proactive to incorporate change, and also making policies should involve stakeholders in dicussion.

Rodney Malesi, United States International University-Africa (Kenya) talked on Building Information Literacy in Copyright, Licensing, and Related Legal Matters: A USIU-Africa Library Experience. He started by explaining something about his university. The learning outcomes for the university included "Integrity": complying with copyright falls under that (other outcomes included lifelong learning and academic freedom). Kenya is a signatory to the TRIPS and WIPO copyright treaties. INASP has been key in copyright education for librarians. The speaker identified that copyright was part of information literacy education: ideally this involved collaboration with faculty, but as in other countries this could be a challenge. Sustaining student interest was also challenging! Copyright training included definition of terms, plagiarism, fair use, copyright, public domain and creative commons. Ways for the future include incorporating the General Assessment Committee's recommendations on information literacy, examining IFLA's guidelines on copyright literacy, and exploring gaming (e.g. Secker and Morrison's card game).

Finally Kathy Kristie Anders and Emilie Algenio, Texas A and M University (US) talked on Copyright Education for Graduate Students: A Scalable Model. They identified the ACRL IL frames "Information has value" and "Scholarship as conversation" as relevant for copyright. The context for the copyright education was an information literacy programme for graduate students (a non-homogenous group). Copyright was relevant in terms of ownership, reuse and distribution. They have 14,000 graduate and professional students, so the baseline is an online copyright tutorial that students have to pass, covering copyright basics. The second tier consists of face to face and online workshops (some of which are embedded into other programmes; they also work with the Writing Centre), and the third tier consists of one-on-one consultations (which can be idenitfied through interactions at the second tier, or there may be referrals). What it means to be a responsible copyright owner is one of the common messages. Challenges include scaling up deep learning, and getting contact before the need gets urgent. Success strategies include collaboration, advertising, hooking into university inititaives and institutional goals.

3 articles: public libraries and IL in Kenya; Faculty perceptions in Spain; IL for distance learning

Kingori, G., Njiraine, D. and Maina, S. (2016). Implementation of Information Literacy Programmes in Public Libraries. Library Hi Tech News, 33 (2). http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/LHTN-09-2015-0063 (priced) "The aim of this study was to examine the implementation of information literacy programmes in the public libraries in Kenya as demonstrated through a case study of the major public library in the country - Kenya National Library Service.  .... Major findings of this study indicated that the majority of users at the Kenya National Library Service library relied heavily on the print information materials while some users especially researchers utilized the internet for their academic work or research. The findings indicated that information literacy should be embedded in the information literacy programmes in all public libraries. ... The study will encourage users in public libraries to appreciate the importance of information resources and also sensitize public library administrators to support information literacy programmes."

Pinto, M. (2016). Assessing disciplinary differences in faculty perceptions of information literacy competencies. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 68 (2), 227 - 247. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/AJIM-05-2015-0079 (priced) "Uncovering faculty members’ conceptions of Information Literacy (IL), as well as exploring their perceptions with regard to the importance given to a previously defined set of core IL competences grouped into four categories: searching, evaluation, processing and communication and dissemination. Ascertaining the possible differences among the five knowledge branches (arts and humanities, sciences, social and legal sciences, health sciences, and technical disciplines); and understanding the importance granted to a set of learning improvement initiatives by the faculty. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach - The survey was completed by a set of faculty members from the University of Granada (Spain).  ... Results suggest that more than half of the surveyed faculty have what the authors define as an Academic Concept of IL."

Reichart, B. and Elvidge, C. (2015). Information Literacy in the Changing Landscape of Distance Learning: The Collaborative Design of a Flexible, Digital, Asynchronous Course. Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice, 3 (2), 144 - 155. Available at: http://tinyurl.com/z3yenb7 (open access) "This paper offers a case study of the collaborative development of an information literacy course for students enrolled in an online, proprietary college. This credit-bearing course was created in accordance with ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education as well as the newly adopted Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The course treats information literacy as a meta-competency that encourages students to explore a variety of research tools, from social media to scholarly journals, and to develop critical thinking and research skills. In order to incorporate current best practices in information literacy pedagogy into the course itself, institutional factors needed to be addressed; these factors are reviewed here. This paper also explores implications for the future of the course, including assessment, the need to constantly adapt to the changing needs of students, and the ever-changing digital environment."
Photo by Sheila Webber: butterfly and blossom (1) April 2016