Presentations from #LILAC22

Recordings and presentations from the LILAC 2022 conference (held in April) are available at https://www.lilacconference.com/lilac-archive/lilac-2022-1
There are the pre-recorded videos of keynotes:
- Susan Connor, Ray Smith (he/they), Imogen Webb (she/her), Rachel Wilding (she/her) (Manchester Metropolitan University’s iSchool) - Student Panel
- Marilyn Clarke (Director of Library Services at Goldsmiths, University of London) - Decolonisation as a means to creating an equitable future
- Emily Drabinski (Critical Pedagogy Librarian at the Graduate Center, City University of New York) - Structure and Power: Information Literacy for Liberation 

There are links to presentation slides, as follows:
- Augustine, K. & Hollcraft, J. Implementing the question formulation technique in a first-year composition course throughout the pandemic
- Bagger, A., Ramsgaard, L. & Tang, H. Educational design patterns: going beyond the classic information literacy concept
- Belantara, A. & Drabinski, E. Sharing information literacy concepts through sound: sounding the radical catalog
- Beveridge, L. Dyslexia creativity and information seeking: how can academic librarians acknowledge neurodiversity in their information literacy practice?
- Bickley, R. Information literacy as activism: standing up to the academic e-book industry
- Brittle, K. & Newbigging, C. Are you a teaching librarian? How two ‘imposters’ grew a library help centre
- Brookbank, E. Serving and supporting students as whole people
- Cannon, P. Exploring how university lecturers construct their knowledge of information and digital literacy and what that means for teaching in universities moving forward
- Connell, B. Designing information literacy materials using student voice - building self directed blended learning programme for lifelong learning students Institute of Technology Carlow
- Dawes, L. & Anaya, T. Is hybrid here to stay? Developing flexible instruction that support community inquiry and active learning
- Dunlop, S. The future of feedback: evaluation of information and digital literacy teaching in higher education
- Flood, J. & Coxhead, B. Critical sustainability research workshop: an example from UAL Libraries' Sustainability Toolkit
- Goldstein, S., Secker, J. & Harding, A-L. MILA Framework workshop
- Hamlett, A. Laying the foundation how faculty led IL instruction improves students success
- Harding, A-L. Introducing information literacy at the House of Commons
- Haworth, A., Grant, V., McIndoe, S., Sadler, R. & Taylor, D. Moving forward as one University: the impact of reshaping information and digital literacy to integrate with refreshed graduate attributes
- Howard, H. & Phillips, M. Transitioning from academia to the workplace: information literacy experiences of business students
- Inskip, C., Hicks, A., Lloyd, A., Mckinney, P. & Walton, G. Leveraging information literacy: mapping the conceptual influence and appropriation of information literacy in other disciplinary landscapes
- Jenkins, R., Love-Rodgers, C. & Dozier, M. Librarian consultations - supporting student researchers in the hybrid world
- Kaufmann, K. Factors that impact the relevance of information literacy to college students: the kaleidoscope effect
- King, M. Inclusive teaching practices to improve the learning experience for neurodivergent learners: practical strategies from the perspective of a neurodivergent librarian
- Lapham, J. The value of librarian -led information literacy lessons for higher education students in the further education college environment
- Lincoln, H. & Chiu, T. Perceptions of the ‘find it out yourself method’: developing self efficacy and students as tourists in academic communities of practice
- Long, J. & Hicks, J. Maker literacy: connecting IL within the maker movement
- Love-Rodgers, C. & McDonald, S. L. Catapulted by COVID: hitting new information literacy targets at the University of Edinburgh
- Maniates, R. Revisiting the one-minute paper: personal reflections student engagement and assessing the assessment
- Maybee, C. & Kaufmann, K. Information literacy: elements of a maturing discipline - McAndrew, E. Wikipedia student activism and the Ivory Tower
- Mckinney, P. & Webber, S. Using theories of change to evaluate information literacy initiatives - this presentation isn't linked on this site, but you can find it here ;-) https://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/using-theory-of-change-to-evaluate-information-literacy-initiatives
- Minta, L., Gregory, N. & Thompson, E. Breaking out of the library bubble: information literacy and curriculum alignment
- Morrison, C., Secker, J., Wakaruk, A. & Gareau-Brennan, C. COVID and the copyright literacy community of practice
- Naughton, J. & Robertson, S. Turning a challenge into an opportunity: health literacy training for NHS knowledge and library staff
- Newnham, P. Information literacy and the transition to university education. Reflections and initial findings from Lancaster University Institute of Curriculum Enhancement (ICE) fellowship research project
- Nierenberg, E. & Dahl, T. I. The development of students as information literate individuals: results from an 86% complete PhD in information literacy
- Panes, M. & Mellifluo, L. Community building in complex settings: exploration based on Swiss multi-library initiatives for gamifiers
- Pavey, S. Looking for information literacy in the English National Curriculum and exam syllabi
- Pavey, S. What if no-one had information literacy skills?
- Penton, S. Using educational technology to convey complex Information Literacy topics: animating OSCOLA referencing and copyright
- Peppard, C., Parkhill, S. & Chalkley, A. Self service or checkout confusion?
- Phillps, K. & Joel Burkholder, J. A wolf in sheep’s clothing: genre confusion and Fake News
- Preest, K. & Sewell, C. Increasing inclusivity: developing a HEA accredited teaching course for librarians
- Randall, S., Naylor, N. & Wills, D. Trusted information in unprecedented times: reflecting on two years of learning from the PIF TICK trust mark for health information
- Secker, J., Tilley, E., Mizrachi, D. & Grim, G. Students academic reading and information literacy in a time of COVID
- Soderman, J. The power of collaging in unlocking research topics
- Thomson, K. Teaching how to structure literature reviews via 1990s movies
- Thorpe, C. & Paterson, F. Supersize my session. Reflections on redesigning a small scale workshop for a large scale setting in-person and online
- Trowell, C. & Meehan, L. Reuse recycle repurpose - moving from a plagiarism guide to a sustainable good academic practice toolkit
- Usova, T. Teaching data visualization as a one-credit course - Walsh, A. Changing signature pedagogies for information literacy
- Walton, G. Tailoring information literacy instruction using the information discernment diagnostic questionnaire
- Walton, G. Mainstreaming information literacy: analysing Educational Preventing Violent Extremism programmes (EPVEs)
- Wegener, D. Information literacy in Asia: the case at the Singapore Institute of Technology
- Westbury, M. & Hicks, A. JIL: Getting your writing groove back
- Whitworth, A. Information in isolation: the arrival of high speed internet in a very remote country
- Williams, J., Hicks, A., Baer, A., Hollister, C. & Westbury, M. Prioritising Inclusion and Equity in Information Literacy Scholarship: A Panel Conversation with the Editors of CIL and JIL
- Woodcock, J., O'Hara Mia & Pothecary, J. Developing a systematic review search strategy through online and peer active review

Photo by Sheila Webber:lilac, 2022.

Information Literacy award winners

Apologies for not reporting this last month! Library and Knowledge Services at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust won the LILAC Conference Information Literacy award for raising the profile of health literacy in Berkshire adolescents.
"Library and Knowledge Services at Royal Berkshire and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trusts collaborated on a pilot project to promote health literacy to those aged 16+ in local schools. The project was funded through a competitive bid to Health Education England (HEE). Health literacy levels have a huge impact on how individuals manage their health. In England 43% of the population are health illiterate and adding in numeracy this increases to 61%.
"Victoria Harrison, Deputy Library & Knowledge Services Manager, said “We really appreciate the recognition of our project - it’s been fantastic to see the impact that our work has had, and the team has gained such an understanding of how we should be targeting health information. We’ve already started presenting our learnings to other libraries, and we have more plans for how to develop the project in the future.”
"Overall, the project has raised awareness of health information in the young people and their tutors alongside raising the profile of health literacy in both NHS Trusts. Training is being delivered to clinicians and students utilising the findings, with the project presented to senior management, providing a platform to build on in the future. It has encouraged other clinicians to develop similar projects including how to reframe pain ensuring we use the right language to suit the demographic. Training is being arranged for new T-level cadets on placement in the Trusts and to Young Health Champions in collaboration with local authority public health teams."
Source: https://www.royalberkshire.nhs.uk/news/posts/library-and-knowledge-services-at-royal-berkshire-nhs-foundation-trust-wins-information-literacy-award/
Photo by Sheila Webber: rhododendron, May 2022

Others blogging from #LILAC22#LILAC2022

Other people (than Pam and I) have been blogging about the LILAC 2022 conference that took place last week ;-)   so far I've picked up:
- Laura Woods, who blogs here: https://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/ ,
- Ruth Jenkins: who blogged here: https://kangarooth.wordpress.com/2022/04/19/and-were-back-lilac22-conference-in-person/
- Jane Secker, who has blogged here: https://janesecker.wordpress.com/2022/04/19/lilac-coloured-joy-and-focus/
- Nicola Semple, who blogged Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.
- Eva Garcia Grau at https://infolit.org.uk/lilac-returns/
- Also Edinburgh University's Wikimedian in Residence, Ewan McAndrew, asked delegates what their favourite Wikipedia pages were: the answers are at https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/wir/down-the-rabbit-hole-with-wikipedia-lilac-2022/

Just as a reminder - you can find all the liveblog posts on THIS blog here |(from me and Pam on day 1, from Pam on days 2 and 3) https://information-literacy.blogspot.com/search/label/LILAC22
Pictured: the MILA freebies on the stand next to ours!

Factors that Impact the Relevance of Information Literacy to College Students: The Kaleidoscope Effect #LILAC22

I’m catching up with my final LILAC conference session post - my laptop battery gave out at the start of the session (my one LILAC grouse - not enough power points (as opposed to powerpoints) in the lecture rooms!) Therefore I had to resort to taking manual notes and photos of slides. Karen Kaufmann was presenting on Factors that Impact the Relevance of Information Literacy to College Students: The Kaleidoscope Effect. Kaufmann summarised findings from her doctoral work:
Kaufmann, Karen F. (2018) Sociocognitive relevance of information literacy: The impact on student academic work. (PhD thesis). Queensland University of Technology. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/123999/
She also gave examples of how it influenced her own practice and gave us the opportunity to reflect on how her work might influence how we engaged with learners.
The aim of her research was to explore how learners perceived the relevance of information literacy to their academic work, using both quantiative and qualitative methods. First, she tested and administered a questionnaire, in which she was asking learners about the usefulness of information literacy (how valuable IL was in completing assignments) and about the meaningfulness of IL (when IL competencies are useful in completing assignments).
The respondents (there were 134) were asked to relate their answers to 10 competencies: these competencies were ones identified in the old ACRL Standards and/or the new ACRL Framework (which was just being launched at the point when the research was done). A key thing to emerge from this part of the research was that the obvious demographic factors - like gender and discipline - were not statistically significant, and so didn’t account for why learners’ perceptions varied.

This “why” question was addressed in student focus groups. After analysing the data, Kaufmann identified one "uber" overarching factor affecting the students' relationship with information literacy, which was their existing knowledge base. Then there were 9 key factors, and 11 dimensional factors which interacted to affect the learners' perception of the value and relevance of IL.
The nine Key factors identified were (see first screenshot): "(a) Digital Literacy, (b) Academic Discipline, (c) ILC [information literacy competencies] Awareness, (d) Acquiring New Knowledge, (e) Real World Application, (f) Research Process, (g) Critical Thinking, (h) Scholarly Conversation, and (i) Curiosity/Passion/Motivation."
The 11 dimensional factors were: "(a) User-Friendliness in Digital Environments, (b) User Experience in Digital Environments, (c) Current Information, (d) Authoritative Sources, (e) ILC Articulated, (f) ILC Integration, (g) ILC Instruction, (h) Personal Relevance, (i) Professional Relevance, (j) Organizing Information, and (k) Comprehension."
Kaufmann's research identified that these factors interact and are intertwined - thus she described her model as a kaleidoscope. Kaufmann gave some examples from her own teaching: for example having a session where (1) She asks the learners to think about the meaning of literacy and information (2) She gives them information literacy definitions (3) She asks them to think about examples from their everyday life e.g. apps on their phones (4) Discussing IL and its relevance in the academic context. She talked about "asset-based" pedagogy - working from what the students already have.
Kaufmann also talked about the importance of metacognition and how she interprets and explains threshold concepts (the 2nd screenshot). At this point Kaufmann showed us a few minutes of a kaleidoscope video - not this one but here’s an example there you could watch for a few minutes like we did. She likened this to the way in which people experience learning and how the elements interact:

After watching this in Kaufmann's session it struck me that it was also like learning in that it can be engaging and enchanting, but also sometimes unexpected and make you look at things in different ways - which can be challenging.
Following on from this Kaufmann asked us to discuss how these ideas related to our own teaching of IL and there was very active discussion in small groups. In fact I got so caught up that I didn't take notes on this part! I do remember a lot of interest in the ideas that had been presented, and discussion about how it was difficult to approach the complexity of IL in short and limited sessions.
Kaufmann's model does illustrate how important it is to help students discover "where they are" in relation to IL, so you can help them move forward. As Pam already reported, Kaufmann also identifies IL as a discipline, which students have to understand.

#LILAC22 Perceptions of the “find it out yourself” method: developing self-efficacy and students as tourists in academic communities of practice

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the lilac conference. This session is led by Heather Lincoln and Tiffany Chiu from the Imperial College London, and reports on research that took place as part of an Masters in Education. Heather mainly supports business students, and the university has an information literacy community of practice. Heather was keen to understand students’ experiences of IL learning, as there is limited literature on how business students develop IL and integrate it in their course more widely from the context of a one-shot IL teaching session. This was a qualitative research project, using 6 focus groups with masters students in the business school. Heather undertook thematic analysis of the data, grouped the codes into key themes. Three of these themes were presented today. The first was IL learning and self-efficacy. Students spoke about the diversity of their prior educational experiences, and the fact that they don’t know what they don’t know. They have a focus on assessment, and around passing their course. In the second theme, the find it out yourself method Students recalled their induction sessions, but not their subsequent IL teaching. There is a deficit model of education where the environment is “supposed” to be challenging, and students don’t feel like they can ask for help. Students thought that the stand-alone sessions were sufficient, and they tended to deprioritise learning outside the core curriculum due to time pressures. Also, low attendance at the sessions signalled that the sessions weren’t important.

 Engagement in Communities of practice starts with legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger). Tourists in CoPs are identified as having low levels of participation, and only engage in a superficial way. Students were appreciative of the vast range of resources available, but actually this didn’t translate into wide use of those resources, linked to the notion that information resources are significant artefacts in the  CoP. Students weren’t willing to commit the time needed to learn how to use resources.  The library has Bloomberg terminals, which is a resource that is widely used in the business context, and this is a “boundary object”, but still few students gained proficiency in searching it. Some students were very anxious about plagiarism, but others weren’t bothered at all. Avoiding plagiarism is part of the academic community of practice. 

#LILAC22 final keynote with Emily Drabinski

 Pam McKinney live blogging from the Lilac conference, at the final keynote with Rosie Jones hosting a discussion with Emily Drabinski. Emily spoke about how library structures affect the way we can engage with collections, and her experiences as a union activist, expressing solidarity with union members at the conference. Emily spoke widely about the impact of power structures on libraries and librarians. It’s important to open up conversations with learners about the nature of their searching, and encouraging them to reflect on the interfaces they use and what their behaviours are. It much easier for al of us to under and the content and structure of information in library databases, but impossible to understand what google is searching, and how results are retrieved, and what information is excluded - capitalism prevents us from having this understanding. There’s a tension between educating students to do what they need to do to engage with university structures (like the library) while still giving them agency to express themselves in the ways they want to. This is why it’s important to have conversations about power so that students are aware of the environment they are engaging with. Critical information literacy is hard when students just want to know the “right” answers, but learning is more compelling when the teacher can open up discussions with students. It can be easy to illustrate power structures to students using searches on contested topics e.g. native peoples and discussing the subject headings associated with these. Giving people a sense that structures can be changed, e.g. by building alternative information structures - and by lobbying library of Congress to change their subject headings. We need to share positive stories with each other about how to move forward positively.

 Post COVID we have a space problem, and we need to reflect on what our physical and digital spaces are and how they should be used. There’s such a spread of opinions about the correct behaviours for public spaces, e.g. around mask wearing, that it’s a real struggle to accommodate everyone. 

Lecturers are really happy to engage with conversations about power structures in the library, and are interested in how information is classified and organised. Often these issues dovetail with their own research areas. Academics “know” the information in their discipline, what librarians bring to the table is understanding of how that information is organised, and the power structures that are behind that organisation. 

It was a really thought provoking conversation which I enjoyed immensely 

#LILAC22 What if …. No one had information literacy skills?

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the final day of the Lilac conference in Manchester. After a lively conference dinner and disco last night I’m at the first workshop session of the day led by Sarah Pavey @Sarahinthelib. Sarah took us through an activity that she does with her clients, with the premise that’s it’s easier to define the value of something if we think about what life is like without it. The activity could be repurposed for different audiences and Sarah encouraged us to do just that. People have many conceptions of IL, but they encompass a range of really important skills and qualities that are vital across the life course. What would happen in education contexts, health contexts, everyday life, the workplace, and as a citizen if you didn’t have information literacy? We then worked in groups on flip chart paper to define what life would be like if you didn’t have IL in a specific context. Following this we looked at the UN sustainable development goals and how lack of IL would affect the achievement of these goals. It was a really interesting session, and helped surface and articulate how pervasive and important IL is for global society and underlines the relevance of the UNESCO definitions of IL as vital for citizenship. 

#LILAC22 Information literacy: elements of a maturing discipline

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the Lilac conference. Dr Karen Kaufmann and Dr Clarence Maybee presented a session about the discipline of information literacy. IL is a soft applied discipline (c. Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston!) “emerging” in 1999 and “maturing” in 2017. Sheila and Bill outline the historical progress of IL, and a case for IL as a discipline, and the factors that negatively affect this (see here). Il is a sociocultural practice through the life course. The elements of a discipline are outlined by Becher and Trowler (2001), as having knowledge practices and knowledge community. Karen mentioned the paper very recently published by myself, Alison Hicks, Geoff Walton, Annemaree Lloyd and Charles Inskip where we examine the way that IL has been leveraged in other disciplines, where we say that IL is often conceptualised as a skill, but this impoverishes our view of IL. 

Karen spoke about the need to theorise IL, and understand how this relates to practice. We need a shared vocabulary, to strengthen our IL narrative. In the university context, If IL is understood by other disciplinary faculty, it’s easier to integrate into the curriculum, and it’s possible to develop credit-bearing courses, which in turn allows for more dialogue about IL as a transdisciplinary concept. 

Karen then introduced some characteristics of a discipline, developed by a global interdisciplinary group, and how these relate to IL as a discipline. First is that there is a community of scholars, with groups, organisations and communities, that meet and discuss, present research findings and methods. Next communication networks e.g. academic and scholarly avenues for publication, online platforms and special interest groups. The third element is about having ethical concerns, addressing equity in the use of information such as privacy. Next is the tradition and history of inquiry, so we can identify a timeline of maturation and history of the literature, and that we have standards and frameworks adopted by professional bodies. The next characteristic is having specific modes of inquiry, using specific methodologies e.g. phenomenography, acknowledging epistemological approaches, or ways of knowing. The last element is knowledge and curricula, the body of knowledge, skills and values that comprise IL.

Karen posed the question, say we said that IL was a discipline (like Psychology), what would be the sub disciplines? E.g. media literacy, digital literacy, visual literacy etc. We then had a small group discussion to explore the idea of IL as a discipline. There were some really interesting ideas shared in a lively discussion, but I really feel that this was a useful and timely discussion to have at LILAC.
Photo: Karen with Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston, 2022

Using theory of change to evaluate information literacy initiatives: workshop at #LILAC22

Yesterday Pam McKinney and I gave a workshop at the LILAC conference in Manchester, UK: Using theory of change to evaluate information literacy initiatives. We had 32 participants and it was wonderful seeing people's engagement in working on their own ideas during the major part of the session. We started with a very brief introduction to ToC and the slides are embedded below.

This is our abstract: "Theory of Change (ToC) is a participative approach to evaluating the impact of projects, programmes and initiatives. Librarians and information professionals engaged in change processes, development projects and research studies can use ToC to generate evaluation data and articulate the impact of their activities, working closely with stakeholders such as students, academic staff, teachers and other professionals. The ToC process generates new understandings of how and why project successes have been achieved, and can form the basis of justifications for current and future funding. ToC has been widely used to evaluate the success and impact of projects in a variety of sectors (often community and public sector initiatives), and in educational development (Hart, Dierks-O’Brien & Powell, 2009) including Information Literacy initiatives (McKinney, 2014; McKinney, Jones & Turkington, 2011). causal narrative between project activities and outcomes. A plan and evaluation framework is then developed from these indicators, and stakeholders design data collection instruments. Connell & Kubisch (1998) have identified that a good ToC should be plausible, doable and testable. In the version of the ToC process used in CILASS projects, stakeholders are asked to identify the drivers for change in the current situation; the longer term impact they envisage the project will have; the intermediate outcomes that the project is expected to achieve; activities that would need to be undertaken to achieve outcomes and enabling factors and resources required to support the project (Hart, Dierks-O’Brien & Powell, 2009). Stakeholders collaboratively design a Theory of Change poster that defines key project indicators and develops a causal narrative between project activities and outcomes. A plan and evaluation framework is then developed from these indicators, and stakeholders design data collection instruments. Connell & Kubisch (1998) have identified that a good ToC should be plausible, doable and testable."

 

#LILAC22 self service or checkout confusion: Exploring independent information literacy learning methods and their effectiveness

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the lilac conference. This presentation from Cathryn Peppard. at the royal college of nursing focused on the challenges of supporting a nationwide body of users with IL teaching. They used Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” to conceptualise the needs of users, so reflecting on what learners already know, and the tasks they can do unaided and using this to identify what their learning needs are. They used a UX approach to develop resources, each participant was given a topic to search on the CINAHL database, and told them to look for helping the library website with this search. The participants then engaged with the online help, and then repeated their search. The team then interviewed the participants about their experiences. They used a online poll to ask the lilac audience what format they would choose for a self help resource, choosing from video, pdf guide or interactive resource. The results were a fairly evenly split. The participants for the UX research were from a range of professional contexts: students, nurses, academics and retired members. Students were the most comfortable with the searching activity, as they were probably doing this kind of activity anyway. One participant had never used CINAHL before, and it was good to have a range of abilities. There was no real difference again the kind of help they would like, but generally they wanted help resources that would be quick to access (for them!). Participants liked to have help with the process of searching e.g. in identifying synonyms. The research showed that participants didn’t immediately go to the “support” section of the website because they thought it was about IT support rather than support for literature search. One key reflection was that these self-help resources worked as an adjunct to library workshops, not as a replacement. Speed of access was important, so the team are planning on developing a suite of very short videos that are no more than a couple of minutes long. Also, the pdf guides were more popular than originally thought.

#LILAC22 the power of collating to unlock research topics

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the lilac conference. This session is a workshop led by James Soderman from Queen Mary university. This is a replication of a workshop offered to PhD students. James worked with a learning development team to create this session “visualise it” which is one part of a 4 strand workshop design. We were all given a big sheet of paper and asked to write a research topic in the middle. We had some magazines, and were encouraged to cut images out of the magazines to help visualise our topics, and cover up the words we had used to define our topic. This was a fun way to engage with a topic and think about the breadth of it. We then had to explain our topic to a partner, and were encouraged to think about which part of the topic we were most interested in. The next stage was a reflection stage, but we skipped this due to time! Then James spoke about his experiences of running this workshop. Feedback from students was really positive, they liked the visual aspect, and found it useful to think about their research in a different way. During COVID James found the workshop more tricky to deliver online, he encouraged students to collect images from Pixabay rather than using magazines. Comments from the audience were that this could be tricky to run with taught students at university because it is difficult to “get” time from lecturers for IL workshops, however this is good for an audience of PGR students who self select development opportunities.
Photo by Pam McKinney: her collage

#LILAC22 2nd keynote Marilyn Clarke

 Pam McKinney here live blogging from the second day of the lilac conference in Manchester. This morning the first session is a keynote from Marilyn Clarke, director of library services at Goldsmiths university in London. The format of the keynote is for delegates to watch a pre-recorded presentation, then for the keynote to feature questions posed by the audience. Marilyn spoke about the need to have difficult conversations about challenging issues of race and gender, and the need to confront feelings of guilt, uncertainty and being uncomfortable. One theme discussed was around decolonising the library, and dismantling the colonial structure. Marilyn has been addressing racism in her work at Goldsmiths,with a working group called “liberate our library” in response to student activism to create a fairer and more inclusive university. They created a new collection called “liberate the collection” featuring resources recommended by students of underrepresented authors and communities. They have created a zines collection, which represent hidden voices, and work with authors to develop meaningful subject headings to aid discoverability. There’s a need to diversify collections, but alongside this to address why the situation is as it is, and why we have biases. For example, why did it take until 2019 to form a group to address the lack of black authors, thinkers etc in the UK school curriculum. 

Marilyn spoke about the need to address diversity at all levels in university, from resources, to teaching, to the environment. Libraries have a role in increasing diversity in publishing, and seeking out resources that represent a wider range of authors with diverse backgrounds - we have some agency here, due to the huge amounts of money that we all spend on materials.

Librarians have a role in speaking to academics about the resources they recommend, and to increase the diversity of materials that are offered. Most people are open to these conversations, although it isn’t always easy work. Look for allies, and use these relationships to impact on a wider circle. We need to use our power where we can to address equality and social justice, and to empower ourselves.

At Goldsmiths they run IL workshops on citing underrepresented authors, and use open access resources to do this. This is one way to increase inclusivity in the university and bring in alternative voices to the academic discourse. It’s important to acknowledge where resources have outdated terminology, and be explicit that librarians are working towards addressing these issues with collection management, rather than simply removing these resources. We need to document the journey towards inclusivity. 

Representation of BAME people in libraries needs to be increased, this is important for the sector. We are now seeing more professional BAME networks and this is vital. We need a plan of action, inclusivity isn’t just going to happen by itself. (Side note: the work we have been doing @ the information school as part of our Athena Swan bronze award is part of our departmental journey towards equality and inclusion, and I’ve found this to be a good start, but it’s not the end!).

Marilyn encouraged us to read books about decolonising the university, as a way to develop ourselves and inform ourselves about this issue.

Photo by Pam McKinney: the keynote interview.

Sharing Information Literacy Concepts through Sound : Sounding the Radical Catalog #LILAC22

My (Sheila's) final liveblog post from the LILAC conference is Sharing Information Literacy Concepts through Sound: Sounding the Radical Catalog, presented by Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski. The usual caveat of this being my impression of the session applies.

They started by talking about the Catalogers at work project, which aims to "capture the complexities and decision making processes of cataloguing; amplify the invisible labour of cataloguing; make the power of knowledge organisation audible & understand how decisions are made as cataloguers attempt to organise the world's knowledge" This is framed as part of exploring & developing critical cataloguing.
The project asked cataloguers to think-aloud as they catalogued. They said that this sound recording surfaced counternarratives, and the compromises that cataloguers had to make. It also revealed how cataloguers pushed back against constraints of the system (e.g. quotas, local guidelines) and made time for cataloguing. 

The recordings of the cataloguers was used to make a composition Sounding the radical catalog: catalogers at work. The presenters then played this work - so you can pause and do that now! There is a transcript at: http://tinyurl.com/soundingcatalog and the audio is at https://soundcloud.com/kinokophone/sounding-the-radical-catalog 

After this we were asked to think about questions: What did you learn about how information is organised in libraries? how might this change your perspective of information literacy in libraries? what questions surfaced? what do you think students would learn from listening?
Some of the comments made by the audience at this session included: the issues of the "decisions" made by algorithms; the humanisation of cataloguing in this soundscape; the engagement of the cataloguers; the loss of expert humans doing cataloguing; the usefulness of creating similar resources/narratives/soundscapes localised to different places and disciplines; the beauty of the soundscape; being informed about the biases present when you are searching the catalogue; using a dialogue about zines when engaging with students. (Also, it is something that I think we'll be using on our Information Organisation module.)

The presenters continued by emphasising that it was valuable to teach students that information is organised and described by people (this ties in with the ACRL frame Information creation is a process). The presenters highlighted issues concerned with knowledge organisation & epistemic justice: that there are constraints in the system; building understanding in the learners and build capacity for people to change the system (as well as break the system). They are currently working on an oral history project - in particular they are interviewing people who have created alternative classification systems. Paired with that is advocacy for this work, and advocacy for change in the ingrained systems.

#LILAC22: teaching how to structure literature reviews via 1990s movies

 Kirsty Thomson from Herriot Watt university presented a really interesting workshop based on her teaching practices. She mostly does one-shot sessions where she only meets students once. She realised that while students are fairly confident in finding literature, but the next stage of actually reviewing it and writing a lit review was more tricky. She wanted a practical exercise as it’s widely accepted that students learn more by doing. She didn’t want to set a pre-task, as asking students to commit an hour of their time is unrealistic. Students read at different speeds, so getting them to read in class is problematic. She also wanted to design an activity that was fun and informal, so they looked back favourably on the class. She developed an exercise that was based on sessions she had taken part in at a previous lilac conference, where students would work in groups to summarise films and identify their themes, as a step towards creating a literature review, pointing out that creating summaries while reading is a productive activity. Kirsty has run these workshops face to face and also online using blackboard collaborate and shared some of the tips I recognise from my own use of collaborate! She uses Titanic, Jurassic park and Romeo and Juliet as example 1990s films, because they have been on tv a lot and most people should be familiar with them. We then took part in the same activity that Kirsty’s students would do. We were asked to work in groups to write a summary of each film, and tags we would give it, then Kirsty created a class summary based on our answers. She then tried to identify themes that were common across 2 or more films e.g risk/failure, romance etc. This is away to identify themes for a literature review. Kirsty advises picking films that have overlapping themes, older films tend to work better as students feel more confident to critique these. These 3 films work well as they are so familiar, and the stories are well known even if someone hasn’t actually seen the film. It was a really fun session, perfect for the end of a long day :)

Turning a challenge into an opportunity: health literacy training for NHS knowledge and library staff #LILAC22

This is another liveblog post from Sheila, from the LILAC conference - Turning a challenge into an opportunity: health literacy training for NHS knowledge and library staff presented by Joanne Naughton and Sue Robertson (Health Education England). To make change you need to be embedded in strategy, and for HEE this is identifiied in the strategic report Knowledge for Healthcare - about "using the right knowledge and evidence, at the right time, in the right place" with the ultimate outcomes of excellent healthcare and health improvement. A key part of this is addressing inequality - including helping everyone to get access to high quality health information. This was always a goal, but the pandemic brings it into particular focus. 

The speakers outlined the strategy for developing knowledge and library specialists - skills development and access to resources, resulting in the impacts of shared decision making, skills for engagement with the public and tools for tackling inequalities. This is carried out in partnership with other professional colleagues in the health service. They talked about some of the approaches and tools they used: and delivery ranging from the starter 15 minute Health Literacy Awareness session through to a 3 hour Train the trainer session. In the "train the trainer" session there is a big emphasis on ideas for delivery and giving the trainers practice. 

Before the pandemic, these sessions had a strong face to face element, but obviously they had to switch for the pandemic. They were in any case launching a new set of training sessions, which included virtual options, and the pandemic meant they had to go over to online entirely. They played to their own particular strengths (e.g. to start with the librarian with most technical experience led on that side, whilst others developed their technical expertise). They had to be adaptable, as the learners had different circumstances and equipment: they discovered that there wasn't a one-size-fits all solution, you have to adapt to the specific learners. 

Issues included: technology barriers (e.g. people who could only join by phone, which limited participation); Human issues (e.g. coping with people arriving at breakout sessions late; building trust); How (whether) people value virtual training (e.g. people who cancel more easily); Maintaining (and improving) the quality of training. As regards trust issues, they have ground rules (e.g. about confidentiality); they encourage camera-on; they role play/give examples for more complex activities to give learners confidence. They have had strong demand for the online training. They also mentioned their community of practice and that they have joined a National Health and Digital Literacy partnership, this includes a partnership to upskill the public in different parts of the country. 

At the end they identified a tool http://healthliteracy.geodata.uk/ Health literacy in England - where you can focus in on results for a particular part of England (the screenshot is from that resource).

#LILAC22 Changing signature pedagogies for information literacy

 Andrew Walsh, @PlayBrarian, spoke about the concept of signature pedagogies - the way we approach IL teaching: there are 3 levels the surface structure I.e. the acts of teaching e.g. using particular softwares. The deep structure is about our beliefs about teaching and how people learn and the 3rd level is the implicit structure, our assumptions and understandings. Going from having a library qualification to being a “teacher” is quite a journey, but often this isn’t explicitly talked about or developed. The CILIP PKSB used in accredited courses controls what is taught in LIS departments in the uk. But this is quite functional and skills based, but many librarians have a much more critical and broad understanding of IL. Signature pedagogy for librarians 10 years ago would have focused on a very functional competency building skills-based approach, but now an information literacy signature pedagogy is more nuanced, critical and contextual to the learner, it’s more about enabling and supportive. In Huddersfield university the library subject team have been trying to develop a team-based approach to developing IL teaching, that is compassionate, inclusive, empowering, transformative, reflexive and reflective. Initially this was at the surface level, but increasingly ,y they have been trying to look at the deep structure of their signature pedagogy. Is it possible to move towards a new national signature pedagogy for IL. 

#LILAC22 Moving forward as one university: integrating IL with refreshed graduate aatributes

 Pam McKinney live blogging from the LILAC conference. Vicky Grant and team from the university of Sheffield presented about information and digital literacy (IDL) at the university and the research approach (action research) used to strategically plan, analyse and evaluate their activity. There is a 5 year strategic planning cycle at the university, and IDL was well represented in the 2015 strategic plan.  The library used action research and appreciative inquiry to develop an information and digital literacy framework that drew on the ACRL framework. Participatory action research with students and academics was used to develop subject-specific aspects of the framework. They presented some reflections from this process: students don’t always understand the range of resources available, the support from the library is excellent, there needs to be better integration with feedback mechanisms on turnitin, graduates are at an advantage if they have strong IDL skills, support needs to be integrated into the curriculum. There is a greater need for consistency across programmes, and for IDL to be embedded. The offer from the library was a little fragmented from the other attribute development at the university. The terminology was not familiar to students, but they are willing to engage with it, so they put a lot of thought into that language used to present the IDL offer. Reading list provision, fully integrated into the VLE has the potential to support students effectively with their learning. 

Action research is a methodology for achieving change, and it’s widely used in professional contexts. It encourages reflective practice. Participatory action research encourages librarians to work WITH students and other stakeholders.  Currently the library is focusing on the “portfolio” aspect of the strategic plan,  and using this to develop approaches to creating more effective reading lists. They identified a need for more consistency, and for more digital resource promotion. Previously there were delays in getting reading lists online for students, and the process wasn’t working. Initially more staff were used to create reading lists,  but the team then reflected on the needs for academics to have more autonomy in the creation of their own reading lists, and produced a lot of guidance for academic staff on how to use the online system. They were also able to give academics more information about how students were using their reading lists. They are working towards 100% adoption of legs to reading lists across the university.

Another strategic priority for the university is around employability, and there is a clear role for IDL in this space. The student skills and Employability group was established which defined the strategic plan and the library was a key member of this. Terminology used was different, often academics and students referred to “research skills” , “critical thinking” and “digital capability”. While the term IDL isn’t used in the graduate attributes, all the 6 aspects of the library’s IDL framework are present. They used the new university visual identity for skills development in the library provision. There was a noticeable increase in the number of students signing up to the library workshops, so the team are convinced that the change in language helped students engage with the library offer. 

Alongside this, the university launched a new reflective platform for students to record their development called “my skills”. Changing the language used to talk about IDL enabled the library to more immediately link in with this agenda, and provide better support for students.

Now the team is working on refreshing the library’s research skills and critical thinking offer,  through using more student-centred language. There is increased support for students as creators of information, and further integration of critical literacy.

The next steps for digital capability is for the library collaborate with many other departments to refresh the concept of the digital commons, and create a multidisciplinary space for digital skill building. The library is aiming to be reflective and responsive. Tapping into the student voice has been vital. While COVID was really disruptive, it’s been a catalyst for the embedding of the library offer into teaching as a whole, and working as part of a “one university” approach.

Language is important, in a professional context they would still use the term information literacy.

Librarians' wellbeing: Student panel #LILAC22

The first keynote session of LILAC (Sheila here) was a panel from four students at the iSchool at Manchester Metropolitan University: Susan Connor, Ray Smith, Imogen Webb, Rachel Wilding. We had been asked to view their 15 minute panel video beforehand, and the focus live was on responding to questions posed to them beforehand. 

Questions included: whether people should take responsibility for themselves in creating boundaries; how the information literacy community could support/prevent burnout; where people could take action against the causes of burnout; how easy is it to work out what personal information about clients is OK| to share (even if you know about GDPR (regulations about data sharing) this can be difficult to judge); whether there is still a stereotype of librarianship as a quiet job; whether there should be more support for librarians having to deal with clients who are distressed; whether CILIP etc. should provide guidance about librarians running social media accounts, in particular to protect them against abuse and give them rights not to use social media; is it the librarians' role to teach people to use social media; the extent to which you might update people about terminology used to describe groups, if you feel that they are using inappropriate terms. 

Points raised by the panel included the following. There are implications for employers and professional associations like CILIP;
- that taking responsibility for your own wellbeing/boundaries was not incompatible with also requiring support for wellbeing;
- that there was a problem of maintaining boundaries work/life: e.g. because of pressure to answer work emails outside work time, the pressures of underfunded work environments. It was difficult keeping boundaries when e.g. you might be on a temporary contract, want to get on in your job etc. (so there is pressure to DO the extra work in your own time, to keep your job or develop your career)
- The need to be able to talk about how personal information about others is upsetting YOU (i.e. that this is something possible and supported in a work context)
- The need for good training & knowledge about what the law and guidelines are about data access, confidentiality and sharing
- How there is a lingering stereotype about librarians (including being challenged as to why you'd need a Masters qualification). The lack of recognition about the challenge and diverse nature of a library career can cause stress and anxiety
- There is definitely a need for more training and support in dealing with clients who are upset. This is also connected with making the role and purpose of the library and librarians clearer. Wellbeing/caring may be connected with the library, but most librarians are not experts in wellbeing support and mental health, and signposting rather than providing direct support should normally be the answer. (Trying to cope with these issues without support or expertise can end up with the librarian sacrificing their own wellbeing). If the library is putting on e.g. "wellbeing" sessions this can raise false expectations. It was important to think about why you were organising wellbeing events and what you would actually do if someone wrote or talked about something very personal and upsetting.
- There was agreement that there needed to be more guidance/regulations to protect librarians using social media as part of their job. The problem of it still being treated as if it were something librarians were doing "on the side" was pointed out (or e.g. being given as a task for interns). Social media was used used differently in different organisations, and guidelines which covered these different uses would be valuable.
- Broadly, there was a "yes" answer to the issue of librarians training clients in the use of social media. Social media has become part of the information world, and in particular there is the problem of mis/dis information on social media, where librarians have an information literacy education role. There was sennsitivity about imposing your ideas of what was "correct", more obvious was the role in developing information literacy skills.
- If faced with people using outdated terminology there might be different responses: if it was a question of helping with something like search terms, it was clearly a good idea to help people understand the current preferred terminology to help with information retrieval (in addition to the educational aspect. Otherwise it could be up to the individual librarian, their own preference and comfort, but also considering the wellbeing of the client they are engaging with.
- Questions which the panel might ask of employers about wellbeing, in a job interview, included: what occupational health support was there; what were policies and guidelines concerning employee wellbeing; what accredited schemes had they participated in.

Overall a main conclusion was the need for the profession to talk about and pay greater attention to these wellbeing issues.

Librarian consultations – supporting student researchers in the hybrid world - #LILAC22

This is Sheila liveblogging from the LILAC conference: I ALSO liveblogged a session that Pam already covered (we are coordinated better now!) - so you might as well have my angle as well! This was Librarian consultations – supporting student researchers in the hybrid world, authored by Ruth Jenkins, Christine Love-Rodgers (presenters), Marshall Dozier and Chung Yau Yiu (University of Edinburgh). 

Jenkins identified how students may struggle with their research, specifically the information literacy aspects. She talked about the characteristics of the university and the composition of the academic library team: they have 13 academic support librarians and 3 college focused teams. They do a variety of generic, targeted sessions and individual sessions, mostly postgraduates (with 14% undergraduates and 5% staff). The Librarian consultation Service is offered by the ASLs, and students are given individual support with searches, including systematic review. The length of the consultation varies between discipline (e.g. longer if it involves a systematic review). Since 2020 they’ve had an online service (though there is a little transition back to face to face now), and in 2021 they had a relaunch of their services to arts and humanities students. 

The librarians wanted to learn more about what students thought of the service and how it could be improved: inspired by a study from Dalton (2019). They had 77 respondents to their questionnaire. There was a spread of disciplines, though more from some disciplines (e.g. 19% were from education, only 1% from engineering). Some glimpses of findings: most frequent way of finding out about the service was via lecturers, and about 70% were very satisfied with the service. There was a free text section, and some points were respondents did become more aware of databases on their subjects and felt the librarians had given them guidance. 

Respondents were asked what they would do differently. This included using more tools and resources (including other sources such as interloans), realising you could ask for help, doing more complex searches and thinking about them more strategically. Conclusions included: identifying the importance of connecting with supervisors (to influence students). They will continue to get feedback on the service to continue to improve it and to make it sustainable.

Introducing Information Literacy in the House of Commons #LILAC22

Sheila here, liveblogging from the LILAC conference. Anne-Lise Harding talked about Introducing Information Literacy in the House of Commons. She started by explaining what Select Committees were: groups of Members of Parliament from different parties who investigate key issues e.g. connected with Bills being put before parliament. A variety of people - mostly experts in the topic and stakeholder groups - provide testimony and evidence to teh committee so that the Select Committee can provide informed conclusions. Harding is Senior Liaison Librarian, so based with the select committees and working with senior researchers. Her background in Information Literacy was one of the reasons why she was selected for the role. The researchers she works with tend not to use formally published reports, but more with news reports, grey literature and also direct consultation with experts to collect original evidence. The researchers only work for a limited time in one area, as they get shuffled round periodically. The focus is on enrichment rather than (as with students, say) developing skills, so the support needs to be refined. 

Harding conducted (online) some information needs and information behaviour research: including the research process within different types of committee. She shadowed inquiries, she looked at scoping documents and carried out interviews. She found that early career generalists spend more time researching and analysing. Early-career Specialists spend more time managing the knowledge. For mid career specialists they have developed their specialist skills, but have not developed their general IL skils so much. The generalist, by contrats have had to develop IL skills to deal with the range of topics they investigate, but lack the more specialist subject skills. Harding identified two Liaison Committee reports which focused the initiative on a goal about inclusion and social justice: the reports were The effectiveness and influence of the Select Committee system and Witness gender diversity. 

Harding contrasted the way in which her role in education was teaching students to be performative (so students could do well in their studies) whereas in her current role she sees a broader goal to do with democracy and giving people a voice. 

Following on from Harding's research they created some development modules which could be delivered by MS teams (delivered live and recorded, so accessible afterwards). The modules were: Introduction to library services;  research biases; searching diverse sources; evaluating diverse sources; diverse current awareness; communicating in a diverse manner. The material was peer reviewed by several people (including diversity champions). They have solicited feedback, but it is on-the-spot, and they want some evidence about longer-term impact