New articles: Collaboration; Rebooting; Post-COVID working

The latest issue of portal: libraries and the academy (vol 26 no 2) includes (open access):
- Adopting the Reboot Mindset: The Library Instruction Reboot Revisited by Anne C. Behler
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Library Instruction: A Case for Lesson Study by Alexander Deeke, John Kotnarowski, Kirsten M. Feist, Jin Pennell
- Remote Work Policies in Academic Libraries Before, During, and Immediately After the Height of the COVID-19 Pandemic by Shanti Freundlich, Sarah K. McCord, Sarah Callanan, Natalie Hutchinson, Erica Cataldi-Roberts, Richard Kaplan
Go to https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/56654
Photo by Sheila Webber: blossom, March 2026

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in Latin America and the Caribbean

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2024) of the open access Journal of Latin American Communication Research focuses on Media and Information Literacy (the introduction is here): articles (available in Spanish and English) include:
- Challenges for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) policies in Latin America and the Caribbean by Rosa M. González
- Media and Information Literacy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Challenges and opportunities of an unequal region by Silvia Bacher
- The Pillars of Media and Information Literacy in Times of Artificial Intelligence by Janneth Trejo-Quintana, Alexandre Sayad
- MIL and Democracy in Latin America. Lessons from independent journalism: An overview of Mexico and Brazil by Carolina Montiel Navarro, Laura Martínez Águila
- A Continent to be Known - A comparative perspective between two Civil Society Organizations dedicated to Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in Latin America by Manuel-Antonio Monteagudo, Francisco González
- Media and Information Literacy and Alternative Media by Hugo Maguey
- Contemporary challenges of MIL: Towards an education for emancipation by José Manuel Corona-Rodríguez, Guillermo Orozco Gómez
- Media and Information Literacy Research in Latin America by Eva Da Porta, Paula Morabes
Go to https://www.journal.pubalaic.org/index.php/jlacr
Photo by Sheila Webber: bee on rhododendron, March 2025

Treasure trove of recordings on AI and infolit

Lots of recordings from the 2024 Generative AI in Libraries (GAIL) Conference are available. Examples are:
- Leveling Up Your Lesson Planning: Using AI to Build Bibliographic Library Lessons;
- How to Augment Retrieval Augmented Generation;
- Honing Information Literacy Skills with Gen AI - Building a Modular Lesson;
- Prompted to Action - ChatGPT Generated Essay Prompts, Library Instruction and fostering information literacy skill development.
The playlist is at  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOWNtfTOec9Io34ZHPctluvdk8fjgjBR-
Photo by Sheila Webber: Bournemouth, June 2024 (a real photo, not genAI)

#lilac24 Selling information literacy to the business school

Pam McKinney here live-blogging from the LILAC conference in Leeds. Information school graduate Laura Broadbent presented ‘Selling’ information literacy to the business school through alignment with the employability agenda in higher education" in the first session at this year's LILAC conference. There is a concern that university graduates don't have the skills they need to be effective in the workplace, and the political background to this in the UK is government scepticism about the value of degrees.
The recent Augur review outlined the 6 purposes of post-18 education, however, we need to also consider what students want from their university education, and there is evidence that students want their courses to be employment-relevant. Laura is based at the University of Huddersfield, which has a mixture of international and local commuter-based students.  Most students are young, and there are few mature students. 
Laura was involved in the re-design of the business school curriculum and worked with academic staff to identify modules where students could have information literacy support to link to their curriculum. The module was designed with the principle of constructive alignment to make sure that the activities and assessments are aligned with the learning outcomes. The level 3 curriculum was focused on commercial awareness as a key skill for employability, and it was identified that students needed support in being able to research companies prior to applications and interviews. 
Delegates took part in a sample exercise to identify external factors affecting the chocolate market, which was very much in my comfort zone as it was similar to an exercise I use with the students on my Business Intelligence module, using reports from IBIS World, Mintel and news stories.  It was easy to identify the additional value from the paid-for information sources. When Laura teaches this session with the students she only has 45 minutes which isn't enough, she would prefer a 2 hour session so that she can explore the issues in more depth.

Mind the gap! Embedding IL framework principles across a complex institution #LILAC23

Sheila here, liveblogging a presentation by Elizabeth Tilley (the presenter), Paul Cooke, Laura Jeffrey and Clare Trowell (Cambridge University, UK). She started by giving some context about Cambridge University, in particular that there aree 31 colleges, and teaching and student experience focuses on a student's college. There are a lot of libraries: subject libraries, college libraries and the main university library. This means there is a big variation of spaces and many library staff (450).  

The librarians have colbaoratively developed the Cambridge Information Literacy Framework (ILF) https://camiln.wordpress.com/information-literacy-framework/ which has already been revised 2 or 3 times. It was created in 2016, and the question was raised - how much is it being used? This was partly stimulated by the creation of the the Library Study Skills Catalogue (LSSC), which includes entries for library sessions (the first time they've brought together things going on across the university). Another stimulus was Hicks & Lloyd (2022) (reference below) which categorises learning outcomes as being about "mapping" or "applying". 

The research question was "How far does the IL Framework inform the practice of teaching at Cambridge?". Tilley used Critical Discourse Analysis using ILF and LSSC texts using nVivo text analysis software. The outcomes were also categorised using Hicks & Lloyds - plus there was some additional work e.g. triangulating with library staff.

The first photo shows what kinds of learning outcomes emerged from the learning outcomes given for actual training etc. (entries in the LSSC). There were some learning outcomes that didn't have a good match with the ILF - sometimes because they may be peripherally related to IL, or in some cases it is possible the ILF is not inclusive enough.

There was a strong positive correlation (between the language in the ILF and the outcomes named in training they are offering)with (1) Use/understand/learn and (2) search/find/discover. There was a stronger negative correlation with (1) create/develop/process (2) criticality (3) reflect/assess. Comparingwith the Hicks & Lloyd categories - neither outcomes nor the ILF focus on compliance, authority or reflection, and a larger percentage of learning outcomes relate to mapping dimensions.

Observations included: there is a strong focus on search; there is language used in Leraning Outcomes (for actual teaching) that isn't in the ILF; there are 2 different vocabularies - controlled vocabulary (in the ILF or Hicks & Lloyd) and the local social/culturally created language. Coming out of this there is an issue of whether the language used to describe training matches well with students' or academics' language. There are follow up questions and actions - such as usability work on the LSSC language and examination of potential omissions.

Hicks, A., & Lloyd, A. (2022). Reaching into the basket of doom: Learning outcomes, discourse and information literacy. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211067216 

Project Information Literacy retrospective @ProjectInfoLit

I will start my blog posts for 2023 with a retrospective: the report that was posted at the close of the College studies phase of the valuable Project Information Literacy, in October 2022 [apologies, I first put that it was the close of PIL, which isn't the case!]. You can download it in pdf, but the online version https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/retrospective/ is useful in providing easy access to individual PIL reports and other material. It is in the four parts:
1. A brief introduction to the project
2. A handy list of the PIL research reports - each has a band of "sample notes" (with an at-a-glance view of their methods of data collection), the link to the report, and then a short paragraph summarising the results.
3. An interactive data visualisation of citations to the PIL reports, so you can track citations by year, and see from which disciplinary journals the citations are coming, and which countries the research was carried out in, with a discussion of the research's impact. There is a User Guide for Project Information Literacy’s Retrospective Citation Analysis Dataset and you can download the dataset in CSV format.
4. "How we did it" talking about methods and in particular stressing the collaborative approach.
Section 4 includes a table "lessons learned" [for IL research in a higher education context], namely: Start with students; Think long term; Widen the lens (i.e. beyond the immediate academic need); Develop students’ agency (through IL education/research); Foster a collaborative culture.
 

The page with links to all the material is:
Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, Steven Geofrey, and Margy MacMillan, The Project Information Literacy Retrospective: Insights from more than a decade of information literacy research, 2008-2022 (12 October 2022), Project Information Research Institute, https://projectinfolit.org/publications/retrospective

Media and Information Literacy news

A couple of UNESCO-related news items. Firstly, various news outlets have reported on Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, saying why he thinks that Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is important. This is as plans go ahead for Nigeria hosting the in-person Global MIL Week conference in October 2022.
Oyedeji, N. (2022, 7 August). UNESCO confab to boost war against fake news, misinformation – Lai Mohammed. https://factcheckhub.com/unesco-confab-to-boost-war-against-fake-news-misinformation-lai-mohammed/ 

Secondly, there is a short report on a training session organised by UN Lebanon via UNESCO, for 15 young people, to help youth combat hate speech and misinformation under the Youth Countering Hate Speech and Misinformation project
Lebanese youth learn to stand up to hate speech. (2022, 12 August). https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1124502
I also came across a series of short Youtube videos from UNESCO Beirut Office Verified - Youth Countering Hate Speech and Disinformation - the first one is here (n.b. I haven't viewed them) https://youtu.be/KGfbCwszh1Y

Photo by Sheila Webber: my hydrangea, August 2022

Using Queen Victoria's journals for information literacy

I thought I should have at leaast one royalty-related post to mark the fact that this weekend marks the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Therefore I present:

Mattison, L. & Tait-Ripperdan, R. (2022). Digital Archives and the Literature Classroom: Advancing Information Literacy through Queen Victoria's Journals. Pedagogy, 22 (2): 295–307. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-9576485 or https://read.dukeupress.edu/pedagogy/article/22/2/295/298486
"This article describes the implementation of and assessment findings for a digital archival assignment in the 3000‐level Victorian Literature and Culture course at Florida Gulf Coast University. The assignment utilized ProQuest's database, Queen Victoria's Journals, which comprises the extant journals of Queen Victoria, and demonstrated the value of primary historical research and digital archives in enhancing student content knowledge, information literacy, and critical thinking."

Recent articles: Information behaviour of - lawyers, young children, immigrants; students' personal information management; business students' information literacy

Selected articles from the last 2 issues of the priced publication Journal of Librarianship and Information Science:
- Ali, I., & Warraich, N. F. (2022). Personal information management through ubiquitous devices: Students’ mobile self-efficacy and PIM practices. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000621992821 "The findings revealed that undergraduate students search, browse, and scan information through mobile phones. They used keywords, searched from recently opened file, and from send item to find/re-find information. They save their personal information in folders, use mobile applications, and take screen shot of information to keep it for future use. Current study reported “Sharing as keeping ‘as a new phenomenon in mobile based personal information keeping (ubiquitous environment)."
- Naveed, M. A., & Mahmood, M. (2022). Correlatives of business students’ perceived information literacy self-efficacy in the digital information environment. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(2), 294–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211014277 (a study of business students in Lahore, Pakistan) "The results revealed that the business students had high self-efficacy for basic information literacy skills and low self-efficacy for advanced-level information literacy skills. Age, study program, study stage, proficiency for computer, and English language appeared to be the correlatives of students’ information literacy self-efficacy. "
- Solomon, Y., & Bronstein, J. (2022). The information-gathering practice of liberal professionals in a workplace setting: More than just seeking information. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(1), 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000621992810 "The content analysis revealed four distinctive forms in which lawyers in Israel gather information within the contemporary legal practice: (a) self-executed information-seeking, (b) mediated acquisition of information, (c) information discovery and (d) combined information-gathering – which in all compile 10 different habitual strategies of gathering information in their professional work."
- Shuva, N. Z. (2022). “I actually got my first job through my ex-colleague”: Employment-related information seeking behavior of Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(1), 34–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000621992806
- Barriage, S. (2022). Young children’s information-seeking practices in center-based childcare. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(1), 144–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000620962164 (a study in the USA) "The findings indicate that the children did not perceive the concept of information in a manner consistent with adult understandings of the term, and that they engaged in information-seeking related to finding out new things on their own, through interactions with others, and through classroom resources, activities, and routines."

Photo by Sheila Webber: white climbing rose, May 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."

 

Recent articles: librarians' beliefs; IL for inclusion; Synthesis; Remote reference; anti-racism LibGuides

Apologies for not spotting earlier the latest issue of open access journal Communications in Information Literacy (CIL) (volume 15 no. 2) which includes:
- Exploring Teaching Librarians' Beliefs about Undergraduate Student Learning by Ashlynn Kogut
- An Investigation of Anti-Black Racism LibGuides at ARL Member Institutions by Gemmicka Piper, Mahasin Ameen, and M. Sara Lowe
- Information Literacy for Global Inclusion: Designing an Annotated Bibliography for Global Search and Selection by Pamela A. Espinosa de los Monteros and Elizabeth L. Black
- BEAM Me Up: Teaching Rhetorical Methods for Source Use and Synthesis by Ashley Roach-Freiman
- Remote Reference Consultations Are Here to Stay by Emily Reed
Go to https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/vol15/iss2/
Photo by Sheila Webber: daffodils in the snow, March 2022

Ross J. Todd 1951 - 30 March 2022

I was very sad to hear of the death of Professor Ross J. Todd, who made a great contribution to information literacy. I met him at many conferences: I think the first was the 2004 LIDA conference and the photo on the right was taken in Dubrovnik on a tour during that conference (when he and I were a good deal younger...) The 2nd photo, below, is of him and Theresa Anderson taking photos in the Town House, Aberdeen, at the 2011 i3 conference. 

His work on information literacy schools was particularly notable and influential, and there is much evidence of this in the website of the Rutgers Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL): https://cissl.rutgers.edu/ (I would pick out the research with the New Jersey Association of School Librarians- see here). There is an obituary for Riss Todd on the Rutgers University website, here: https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/news/memoriam-ross-j-todd-associate-professor-library-and-information-science 

Here are some links to his work. Firstly, he gave a lot of invited talks and courses: a couple of his talks that I liveblogged:
- his keynote on Uncovering Information Literacy: mythology, myopia and movement at the i3 conference at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen in 2011, here 
- his invited talk at the 2014 European Conference on Information Literacy, on Collaborative Inquiry In Digital Information Environments: Expanding Perspectives on Information, here. 

Secondly, links to some of his open access articles:
- Gordon, C. A., & Todd, R. J. (2009). Weaving Evidence, Reflection, and Action into the Fabric of School Librarianship. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 4(2), 4–7. https://doi.org/10.18438/B88S4P
- Kuhlthau, C.C., HeinstrÖm, J. & Todd, R.J. (2008). The 'information search process' revisited: is the model still useful? Information Research, 13(4) paper 355. http://InformationR.net/ir/13-4/paper355.html
- Li, X. & Todd, R.J. (2016). Information practices during 3D modelling in a public library makerspace: generating ideas, seeking help and iterative trial and error. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Zadar, Croatia, 20-23 September, 2016: Part 1, Information Research, 21(4), paper isics1601. http://InformationR.net/ir/21-4/isic/isics1601.html
- Todd, R. J. (2008). The Evidence-Based Manifesto for School Librarians. School Library Journal, 54(4), pp.38-43. https://www.slj.com/story/the-evidence-based-manifesto-for-school-librarians
- Todd, R.J. (2006). From information to knowledge: charting and measuring changes in students' knowledge of a curriculum topic. Information Research, 11(4) paper 264. http://InformationR.net/ir/11-4/paper264.html
- Todd, R. (2017). Information Literacy: Agendas for a Sustainable Future. Journal of Information Literacy, 11(1), 120-136. https://doi.org/10.11645/11.1.2233
- Todd, R. J. (2009). School Librarianship and Evidence Based Practice: Progress, Perspectives, and Challenges. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 4(2), 78–96. https://doi.org/10.18438/B8BS62
- Todd, R. J. (2014) School library advocacy, evidence and actions in the USA: Principles for planning and implementing advocacy initiatives. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 213 - School Libraries. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/852

New articles: privacy literacy; online teaching; primary source literacy; relational teaching; trauma-informed practice

I thought I should mention other articles (in addition to the one mentioned yesterday) in the latest issue (volume 22 no. 1) of priced publication portal: libraries and the academy. It includes:
- “Making It Happen”: Building Relational Teaching into the Online World of COVID-19 by Carol A. Leibiger, Alan W. Aldrich
- Privacy Literacy: From Doomscrolling to Digital Wellness by Alexandria Chisholm, Sarah Hartman-Caverly
- Primary Source Literacy in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond by Heidi Craig, Kevin M. O’Sullivan
- Keep Teaching: Leveraging Disruption as a Catalyst for Change by Rachel W. Gammons, Suzanne Wilson, Lindsay Inge Carpenter, Benjamin Shaw ("In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the University of Maryland (UMD) Libraries quickly switched to online teaching and learning. This disruption created a chance for innovation, allowing the UMD Libraries to scale back nonessential functions and focus on improving mission-critical work.")
- Reexamining Geospatial Instruction through the “Digital Place” by Méch Frazier, Kelsey Rydland ("This article discusses how the authors changed their approach to geospatial and data analysis instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.")
- Imperfect and Flexible: Using Trauma-Informed Practice to Guide Instruction by Katherine Nelsen, Kate Peterson, Lacie McMillin, Kimberly Clarke - Bridging the Digital Divide: Wi-Fi Hot Spots as a Means of Digital Equity by Meghan Salsbury, Mary Anne Hansen
- Fish, Not Fishing Lessons: A Pragmatic Reprioritization of Reference Services by Sarah E. Fancher, Sarah H. Mabee ("Reference services in academic libraries often focus on user education and giving students the skills to perform their own searches. This article describes a new Research Concierge Service established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) in southwest Missouri. The service entails library staff curating a small number of sources in response to a student’s research request. In many cases, the librarians’ guidance has led to sustained interactions with students, refining their questions and helping them to focus their research interests. The Research Concierge Service has become so popular that the high level of individual contact it requires may eventually exceed the capacity of OTC’s limited staff. OTC librarians believe, however, that such personal interactions are more valuable than any of their current opportunities for group tutorials or library instruction.")
Go to https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/47125

Photo by Sheila Webber: windows in my room, Chapelgarth, March 2022

Information Literacy Group New Professionals

The UK's Information Literacy Group has a New Professionals subcommittee. They summarise plans in this blog post: https://infolit.org.uk/ilg-new-professionals-exciting-plans-for-2022/ They plan to
- Collect examples of IL projets for a digital showcase (I blogged that previously)
- Have randomised coffee meetups
- Have a podcast "We aim to produce a podcast later this year, with interviews taking place throughout the summer months. Our goal is to release each episode on a weekly (or fortnightly) basis then from the first week of September on" and they are looking for interviewees.
They define a New Professional as "A current student or recent graduate of a Library course, or anyone new to a library job (<~5yrs experience)" although stress that it's a flexible definition. 

Photo by Sheila Webber: primroses, February 2022

Recent articles: Health literacy as vaccine; fact checking in Sweden; Information behaviour in COVID19; Health information behaviour; IL in Ghana; Citizen science

- Okan, O. et al. (2022). Health literacy as a social vaccine in the COVID-19 pandemic Health Promotion International, daab197, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daab197 
- Ahmadinia, H., Eriksson-Backa, K. and Nikou, S. (2022), Health-seeking behaviours of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Europe: a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 18-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2020-0168
 - Dreisiebner, S., März, S. and Mandl, T. (2022), Information behavior during the Covid-19 crisis in German-speaking countries, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 160-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2020-0217
- Juneström, A. (2022), Discourses of fact-checking in Swedish news media, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 125-140. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2021-0061
- Ozor, A. & Toner, J. (2022) Information Literacy Behavior and Practice: An Assessment of Undergraduate Students at Ada College of Education, Ghana. Journal of Library Administration, 62(1), 132-151. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2021.2006992 (open access) " The results from this survey present an overview of the College’s current approach to information literacy instruction, resource accessibility, as well as students’ information literacy comprehension and application. A series of recommendations are presented for the College to consider in improving its approach to supporting information literacy skills development."
- Ekström, B. (2022), A niche of their own: variations of information practices in biodiversity citizen science, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 248-265. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2021-0146
- Multas, A.-M. and Hirvonen, N. (2022), “Let's keep this video as real as possible”: young video bloggers constructing cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 42-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2021-0027
- Graminius, C. (2022), Fast-food information, information quality and information gap: a temporal exploration of the notion of information in science communication on climate change, Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 89-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2021-0072 "In their discussion of the concept of information, Capurro and Hjörland (2005) tentatively ask what else we might need to know about information. Perhaps there is room for more research on the concept of information and temporal issues since this study shows how notions of information come into being in the contextual intersections of time, actions and materials." 
Photo by Sheila Webber: sign of spring, February 2022

A happy new year - and celebrating connections @ischoolpam @valibrarian

I hope 2022 brings you health and joy, and lots of information literacy! At the start of the new year I want to celebrate some people I've worked with closely on information literacy in 2021.

- Firstly, Bill Johnston. Earlier in the year we co-presented a talk on Older People in the Post-Truth Era: Countering Ageism by Developing Age Friendly Media and Information Literate Cities (#AFMIL) for the ECIL 2021 conference, which is recorded here https://youtu.be/w6Tsj-bLUDE
His latest project is a book that was just published, All of Our Futures, on Scottish Policy for older people (including the importance of information iteracy in their lives). For some reason the page is inaccessible at the moment (I will do a proper blog post when it returns), but this is the blog post introducing it, from his co-author, Craig Dalzell of Common Weal. https://commonweal.scot/ageing-scotland/

- Secondly, my iSchool colleague, Dr Pamela McKinney. One of the external things we did together this year was a virtual workshop on Theory of Change to evaluate information literacy initiatives for the ECIL 2021 conference, and this is the introductory video at this link
One of Pam's recent publications is: Shire, W. & McKinney, P. (2021). Web 2.0 tools and information literacy instruction in UK university libraries. Journal of Information literacy, 15(2). https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/JIL/article/view/PRA-V15-I2-5 (open access)

- Finally, in the 3D world, Second Life, I have worked with and presented with Dr Valerie Hill. At the AvaCon Open Simulator conference in December 2021 (this is a conference for educators in virtual worlds (VWs) Val and I presented (within a VW) on Digital Citizenship for Cyborgs and Avatars. This is the recording (our presentation starts at 2 hours 34 minutes) https://youtu.be/8tpYATAAfjs?t=9243. Also, this is a recent article by Val:
Hill, V., & Mackey, T. (2021). Embracing metaliteracy: Metamodern libraries and virtual learning communities. College & Research Libraries News, 82(5), 219. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.82.5.219
Picture taken by me in the 3D virtual world, Second Life.

Transition and information literacy

As we leave behind 2021 and move to 2022, here are some articles on transition:
- Bent, M. (2008). Perceptions of Information Literacy in the Transition to Higher Education. National Teaching Fellowship Project Report. Newcastle University. https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/55850 open access (research carried out in the UK as part of a National Teaching Fellowship. The aim was "to investigate the conflicts and congruencies between staff and student perceptions of information literacy in the transition to higher education, particularly in Chemistry and English" and data was gathered through interviews, focus groups, survey and also workshops developing findings with professionals. It includes some discussion of Threshold Concepts and information literacy - well before ACRL addressed this connection).
- Hicks, A. (2020). Negotiating change: Transition as a central concept for information literacy. Journal of Information Science. (early online publication - open access) https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0165551520949159
- Salisbury, F. & Karasmanis, S. (2011) Are they Ready? Exploring Student Information Literacy Skills in the Transition from Secondary to Tertiary Education. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 42(1), 43-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048623.2011.10722203 (reports on a results of questionnaire/test of 1029 first year health science students: one of the most useful recommendations identifies the value of inderstanding more about the existing skill/knowledge of the students, so you can develop a programme that builds on this).
- Varlejs, J. & Stec, E. (2014). Factors Affecting Students' Information Literacy as They Transition from High School to College. School Library Research, 17. Open access at https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1022549 (interesting study in which they assessed information literacy through a few different means in a first year university course, then identified the schools the students had previously attended, and interviewed librarians in schools where students had either scored very well or poorly. They identify a number of factors that appear to influence the information literacy of new university students, but in particular identify an aspect that wasn't talked about (i.e. the administration and culture of the schools) as being an important hidden factor)
Photo by Sheila Webber: the wreath at number 31, December 2021

Libguide: Evaluating websites and blogs

 Highlighting another Libguide, this time from the University of Akron School of Law library (USA) on Evaluating websites and blogs, with tabs of information and advice relating to: authority, accuracy, scope, currency, official/authentic sources, fake news. There is an update date of November 15 2021 (though I haven't checked myself that all the links are working etc!) Go to https://law.uakron.libguides.com/c.php?g=495106&p=3388091

Photo by Sheila Webber: snow animal, November 2021

Open access book: Metaletramento (Metaliteracy)

There is a Portuguese translation of Tom Mackey and Trudi Jacobson's 2014 book Metaliteracy . It is available as an open online resource 

Mackey, T. & Jacobson, T. (2021). Metaletramento. http://www.valentim.bsb.br/metaletramento/. 

I wrote a 2 page preface to the book so I was excited to see my words in Portuguese! It includes the interactive features such as annotating. The translation & publication was supported by The Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), Research Unit of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) in partnership with UNESCO and ALA/Neal-Schuman Publishing. Mackey & Jacobsen reported this in their Metaliteracy blog.

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