Curriculum, community, context, sustainability: A reflection

On 29 July I gave a keynote at the IFLA WLIC 2022 Satellite Conference: SET Training School: Towards a Curriculum for Social and Digital Inclusion and Lifelong Learning entitled Curriculum, community, context, sustainability: A reflection. The slides for this presentation are embedded below

Curriculum, community, context, sustainability: A reflection from Sheila Webber

Libraries and Literacies in the Metaverse #WLIC2022

At WLIC 2022 last week in Dublin I presented a poster co-authored with Dr Valerie Hill (USA) and Rossanna Barrios-Llorens (Puerto Rico) entitled Libraries and Literacies in the Metaverse. It is embedded below and there are references and links here. On the right you see Dr Joe Sanchez in front of the poster. Our abstract was
"In uncertain times, virtual libraries connect patrons to vital information that they may not be able to access in the physical world. They can also be sanctuaries from pandemic and war. Librarians (including the co-authors) have worked in virtual worlds for 15 years (e.g. Webber & Nahl, 2011) and the Community Virtual Library in the 3D virtual world Second Life exemplifies global connectivity, with volunteers collaborating internationally to enact diversity for information access. A current exhibit, "Social Determinants for Access to Information: Virtual World Library Exhibition" includes 3D rooms filled with resources on racial diversity, gender diversity, issues of changing literacies, digital legacy, confirmation bias, digital citizenship, and the digital divide. Visitors interact with content and share a sense of place and presence through embodiment in the metaverse, providing advantages beyond web platforms such as Zoom. Our poster shares examples of using 3D virtual worlds for librarianship through international collaboration across learning communities. The 3D virtual library is a real space where librarians can offer services such as reference work, exhibits, workshops, conferences and discussions, and embed themselves into virtual spaces without the boundaries of physical space (e.g. Hill, 2016; Hill, 2021)." 

Libraries and Literacies in the Metaverse from Sheila Webber

IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto #WLIC2022

The new version of the IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto was launched at the WLIC last week and can be found here https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/2006/1/IFLA-UNESCO%20Public%20Library%20Manifesto%202022.pdf I note that one of its misions is (my emphasis)
"initiating, supporting and participating inliteracy activities and programmesto buildreading and writing skills, and facilitating the development of media and information literacy and digital literacy skills for all people at all ages, in the spirit of equipping an informed, democratic society"
Photo by Sheila Webber: conference centre, Dublin, Ireland, July 2022

The Art of Being a Leader #WLIC2022

Today the IFLA SET conference started with a talk from IFLA President Barbara Lison on The Art of Being a Leader. She started by stating her belief in the value for learning and professional development. She then presented a professional motto for a library leader "the library is you", and stated that leadership needed personality and skills. Lison reminded us that people form opinions very quickly when they first see you. This led to her saying that we need to think about what impression we make on others, and then an interesting conversation amongst participants about whether or not people cared about what impression they made and issues such as stereotyping. Lison also presented some statistics that, in terms of being perceived of being capable, that it was based: 30% on your work, 30% on presentation of self; 30% of being seen to do a good job, and 10% on what you are saying and doing. Lison went on to talk about personality (which she saw as consisting of assets, values and image), and how you need to be aware of it and reflect whether you want to change it. This led to the idea of personal branding, which you can strengthen through listing (your assets etc.), auditing, choosing an accountability partner, creating a tagline for your brand, designing an action plan, and ask yourself questions. Lison advocated: having a clear focus and goals; developing critical self-awareness; being consistent in your branding; being clear; being ready to fail and show weakness; creating a positive impact (since one creates an impact whether or not you want to); following a successful example; being likeable not liked; having more questions than answers; build relationships. Lison also listed skills for successful leadership such as social competence, belief in oneself, consistency, empathy.After the talk there was a lively discussion on topics such as finding your voice, and presenting your case

Omani libraries & SDGs; Staff digital divide; Impact of having a PhD; Wikimedia in the classroom #WLIC2022

The IFLA SET Conference today ended with some short presentations, and I'll give a few notes from each of them. 

(1) Omani Libraries and Their Role in Supporting the Achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals from Saif Aljabri (presenter) and Waleed AlBadi, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Theycarried out a survey in public and academic libraries in Oman, with about 44 responses, to find out how librarians are dealing with the SDGs. 27% were aware of the goals, 57% said they needed more information, and the others were not aware of he SDGs. 39% believed that libraries are a major contributors to SDGs, 21% had carried out activities connected with the SDGs in their libraries. The obstacles they identified included administrative and financial obstacles, that librarians were not ready to work with SDGs, and that there were legislative obstacles. Ideas for activities from participants included workshops for students, awareness sessions and brochures, educational workshops. The authors had designed an online training course for librarians which included ways of developing the SDGs. 

(2) Bridging the Staff Digital Divide in the Library Workplace with EDIA [Equity Diversity Inclusion and Accessibility] by Joan Weeks, Library of Congress, United States. She highlighted that when staff came back after the lockdown phase of the pandemic, it became evident that there was a digital divide amongst staff in the library themselves. Problems included: slow bandwidth or crashes; lack of support; legacy software; access to devices; steroetyped expectations. Examples of equity in staff development included one on one instruction on how to use Libguides, weekly discussions, and planning exchange of experience. Diversity issues included - instructors needing to review the learning context to ensure that people could see themselves reflected in the material or learning. Inclusion strategies included encouraging people to identify skill gaps and supporting staff in filling them, and allowing people who are inexperienced in using platforms like Zoom to pracice using it in an informal context. The speaker also mentioned universal design and the importance of this for accessibility. 

(3) Impact of LIS Professionals with Doctorates on Library Services from Eva Hornung, CDETB Curriculum Development Unit, Ireland. She reported on some research she did for a Masters in Higher Education. She started with a review of international literature, and found a mixed picture (e.g. in the USA it makes a difference as you can get tenure, but there was no research from some other countries). She used phenomenography as a research approach (to identify variations in experience). She had 10 interviews with librarians, 10 with employers plus focus group with people who worked with librarians with PhDs. The categories that were discovered were: (1) Changing perception of the library (having someone with a PhD changes how people view the library, and it enables researchers to connect better with the librarian); (2) being an expert; (3) growing as a person. The dimensions of variation (which are important in all the categories but whose meaning change in each category) were: motivation; skills; benefits (who benefits); personal attributes. 

(4) New Learning New Skill for Strategized LIS Training: Wikimedia in the Classroom from Ngozi Perpetua Osuchukwu (presenter), Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria, and Ebele Nkiru Anyaoku, Library, University of Abuja FCT, Nigeria. The speaker identified that LIS workers needed media, information and digital literacies, and these are also things that are developed by working with Wikipedia. For example it can be used by - editing articles, adding pictures, adding sources. Osuchukwu identified how many libraries are adopting Wikipedia. The speakers worked with a group of of 22 librarians. 70% of them were not aware beforehand of the role of library and information professionals with wikipedia but then their awareness was raised and afterwards they started getting involved, for example, in the Africa Wikipedia library day. The speaker also identified that there were grants and lots of opportunities to use it in library work.

LIS Research Methodology: Decolonial Perspectives Informing Knowledge of African Communities #WLIC2022

The next talk I will blog from the IFLA SET Training School is LIS Research Methodology: Decolonial Perspectives Informing Knowledge of African Communities, presented by Professor Jaya Raju (University of Cape Town, South Africa). She aligned her perspective on decolonisation with that of Bagele Chilisa, and Raju also mentioned the work of Linda Tuniwai Smith and numerous other authors: this was a rich and scholarly presentation that I'm not able to do justice to. She emphasised that the existing LIS research literature mostly comes from the Global North and reflects Western research methodologies, and so there is a need to engage LIS with research methods informed by decolonial perspectives, so that there can be a more nuanced understanding of communities. Raju gave examples of "Combative decolonial" approaches to research methods e.g. conducting research so that the "worldviews of those who have suffered a long history of oppression and marginalisation are given space to communicate from their frames of reference" - with research data being "engaged with in its own terms". Raju asserted that transformation in research "can only happen when the researched and the researchers are involved from the outset", which means truly participatory research methods. One example Raju gave was that the Lancet rejects articles with data collected in Africa, but with no mention of African collaborators. 

Raju stated that this does not mean discarding Western research methods, but to have the different worldviews, epistemologies etc. coexisting, and privileging the indigenous ways of knowing of the community being researched. Moving specifically to library and information research - there is the starting point that "information" is not neutral. This makes it particularly important for LIS research to be "critically reflexive and decolonial in its approach". Raju presented a diagram that drew on indigenous and western research methodologies, and also a table that compared various Western research paradigams e.g. positivist, constructivist, with a decolonial perspective as regards what ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology meant in each paradigm.

Digital by Default, Inclusive by Design? #WLIC2022

Today I'm speaking at the IFLA WLIC 2022 Satellite Conference: SET Training School: Towards a Curriculum for Social and Digital Inclusion and Lifelong Learning. I will post my presentation when I've uploaded it to Slideshare, and will also do some liveblogging. 

The first speaker today was Marta Bustillo (University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland) on Digital by Default, Inclusive by Design? Musings on 21st Century Librarianship She started by talking about Maria Moliner, who Bustillo named as her librarian hero. Amongst other things, Moliner was the first woman to teach at the University of Murcia, Spain, in 1924, and she worked in a team setting up a network of rural libraries across Spain. Despite being purged from her post when Franco came to power, she still carried on and her most remembered achievement was compiling a dictionary of Spanish usage, which is still held in high regard. Bustillo emphasised that the connection to her talk was Moliner's belief in the power of libraries, inclusion, vision and tenacity. 

Moving on to the theme of "digital by default", the speaker cited statistics that there is an estimated 7.9 billion population in the world, of which 5 billion have internet access. This raises the question of who is being left behind by making as much as possible digital, and also thinking about whether this race to the digital is giving libraries less control over materials etc. (as more and more is in the control of a handful of companies, in the cloud). Bustillo noted that "Digital is neither accessible not inclusive" and not sustainable if our energy supply is threatened. 

She then gave the example of UCD Library Digital Literacy initiative, and there is information here http://libguides.ucd.ie/diglit Digital Literacy was chosen as the focus of the initiative as it is mentioned in documents such as UCD's strategic plan. They have created a framework based on the European Union's one, have designed a digital skills portfolio that students should build up, and aim to embed digital skills in programmes of study. She identified that this work required many skills: course design, teaching, collaboration, technical knowledge, advocacy, and the ability to use research methods and carry out evaluation.

This obviously leads to the question of what is needed in library and information courses. She raised the question of whether the courses should aim for depth or breadth, and just skills and knowledge, or more than that. She has been working with a network aiming to educate librarians about open education, European Network of Open Education Librarians. On the issue of inclusivity - since communities are diverse, there is the question of how that can be reflected in the spectrum of libraries and their activities (e.g. format decisions, library design, staff management, hiring, collection development). Bustillo emphasised that librarianship is a profession about people, and that librarians must work successfully and empathetically with their communities. Therefore she wanted to turn round the title of her talk - that it should be Inclusive by Default and Digital by Design.

Climate Action in Libraries: Creating a More Sustainable Future by Engaging and Inspiring Youth #WLIC2022

The last formal session I attended at WLIC in Dublin was Climate Action in Libraries: Creating a More Sustainable Future by Engaging and Inspiring Youth, organised by the IFLA Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Section, Libraries for Children and Young Adults Section. There were six short talks 

 1. The Libraries Inspiring Young People toward Sustainable Futures: A Danish Example from Søren Dahl Mortensen, Odense Central Library, Denmark. The focus of their project was sustainability and also new ways of lending. They decided to make recycling kits for lending out, asking young people about what should be in the kit. The first is a DIY kit has tools and guides useful for when you move away frm home e.g. drill, tool box, instructions so people can do practical things like put up pictures and shelves. The 2nd is a Party Kit with popcorn/candyfloss machine, lights etc. There is also an Outdoor kit, a food/gastronomy kit and a Scrap Sculpture kit. There were discussions abut whether these were things for libraries to do, but the answer is, yes they are! 

2. Coatian Libraries Engaging Youth in Sustainable Practices from Alica Kolaric, University of Zadar, Croatia . The speaker identified that there were lots of library initiatives and she highlighted some of them. (1) "we sow and plant" sowing and monitoring growth of plants (2) Celebration of World Bee Day (3) Children learning about local meadow plants (planting some more bee-friendly plants) and bees (4) Creating a picture book with stories from local folk tales and ecological messages (5) Making a wooden composter (6) Ecologically themed puppet show (7) Stribor Forest project, an instructive trail - the library collaborating with a local hiking group (8) Book shelves aith ecologically themed books (9) Lavender days - children harvesting this local crop and making lavender bags etc. in the library (10) Eco themed storytelling (11) Green library project in Zagreb with exhibitions, walks etc. 

 3. Training for Teachers and Librarians About Sustainability Through Picture Books and Comics. An Example from the Bibliothéque Nationale de France (BnF) from Emilie Bettega, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, France. She provided a full text paper here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1998 She highlighted that the new Bibliothéque Nationale building contains in the middle an urban forest with cute animals! There is a reading room for sustainable development and also a section of the website devoted to sustainable development. They collaborate with the EAC on training teachers about how to use picture books and comics in sustainability education. Also they collaborated with Cite des sciences et industrie, and a key part of this was enabling teachers to help pupils create their own comics, learning how to use an app that supports creation of comics. This led in turn to the idea of having training for librarians. 

 4. Youth and Environmental Emotions Project – Public Libraries Supporting Youth to Treat and Express Their Emotions and Views Concerning Environmental Issues from Veera Visuri, Helsinki City Library, Finland. There also is a paper for this https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1957. This started from the fact that young people are experiencing climate anxiety and thinking about the role of public libraries in countering this anxiety. The project involved libraries in 4 cities: main target groups were people aged 13-20 an also librarians (who can continue the work). They carried out a survey to get the young people's own ideas. There were lots different ideas (see the picture above) in libraries, some also in schools and youth centres. They also used social media e.g. TikEok, Instagram, Youtube etc. on themes such as tips, environmental feelings. They had campaigns which solicited questions and then experts answered them in videos. Providing the information, events etc. where the young people were situated was important (physical and virtual places). They are publishing a practical guide to events and activities, to support people organising these. 

5. Tales, Videos, Games and Environmental Education to Engage Children and Young Adults: Looking for Funny Approaches to get Involved With SDGs from RECIDA (Spain) from Rosario Toril Moreno, National Centre of Environmental Education, National Parks Autonomous Agency, Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Spain (coauthored with her collagues). There is a full text paper here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1962. RECIDA is a network of green libraries with working groups for different projects. Their website is http://www.recida.net and they participate in a lot of social media platforms. They loan collections, suitcases with different materials in them, have mobile libraries and run things like environmental storytelling. They have incorporated SDGs into readings that teachers can use, and create videos e.g. on how to take care of animals and the forest. They have created games e.g. SDG escape room. They encourage young people to carry out investigations and activities e.g. creating gardens, monitoring air quality. 

 6. Green Initiatives Towards a Sustainable Future: Insights From Libraries in Kenya from Arnold Mwanzu, Aga Khan University, Kenya. His paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1956. As not much was known what was being done in Kenyan libraries to address these green issues, they did some research. They used interviews, observation and document review and looked at libraries in a variety of sectors. May librarians were not familiar with the concept of green libraries, but in fact they were carrying out green library practices. Examples are rain harvesting, using natural lighting, tree planting inside the library (all had planting either or inside the library, and sometimes students were involved), discouraging printing and generally using less paper, using solar energy. Young people are involved in greening events (e.g. collaborating with a school on tree planting). They propose more involvement of young people, having performance evaluation for the green aspect of libraries and maintaining the green library standards.

IFLA Guidelines for professional library and information science (LIS) education programmes #WLIC2022

This afternoon at the World Library and Information Congress I attended a session on IFLA Guidelines for professional library and information science (LIS) education programmes. This has been an initiative developed over a number of years, and the finally approved version of the guidelines are here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1987 The aim is for the guidelines to be used to influence national accreditation bodies and policy agency, and for them to be used with individual programmes. We discussed the guidelines on tables (on mine there were people from various types of library, from Armenia, USA, Germany, Ireland, Wales; plus me from an information school in England). There were three topics for discussion, and these are some key ideas that emerged.

(1) Promoting the guidelines
- Employing the guidelines as a professional development tool e.g. for workshops
- Promoting guidelines to encourage mobility berween jobs (notably between countries)
- Discussing the guidelines at local conferences, including socialising them with students
- Using social media to stimulate knowledge and understanding about the guidelines
- That the strategy would depend on the extent to which a national professional structure was developed (e.g. for those in countries with accrediting associations there needed to be discussion with them to make sure the IFLA guidelines were incorporated in their accrediting structures; for those that didn't it might involve approaching individual universities to run smaller courses based on some elements of the guidelines) 

(2) Using the guidelines as a tool for the development of quality in LIS education
- Starting by reviewing existing programmes and see whether they are compatible - addressing the gaps - Use as an international examination
- Using it as a basis for reciprocity, so people could move between countries
- Getting examples so people can see what the guidelines look like in practice
- Need help in thinking about how to use the guidelines in specific areas e.g. if training childen's librarians for specific tasks 

(3) Challenges in implementation of the guidelines
- It would be helpful if there workshops on mapping accreditation standards to the IFLA guidelines (i.e. how to do that)
- Finding ways of helping librarians create development programmes mapped to the guidelines, also advice on getting support from funding agencies to support the programmes
- There are procedures for getting academic programmes approved - so incorporating the guidelines might involve a lot of bureaucratic effort
- Having an impact in different countries - How do you cope with fast-changing skills 

The idea is that this should be a living document and is of genuine use to library and information professionals. Therefore there is an intention to have a group of people stewarding it. People who have already provided leadership are Jaya Raju (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Clara M. Chu (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States) and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States): these three led the session. Other people are mentioned in the guidelines (linked above). See also https://bslise.org/

Part 2 of - News literacy session #WLIC2022

This is part 2 of my notes from the WLIC session on News Literacy: Fighting Mis/Disinformation at Your Library this morning (part 1 is here).
The next speaker was Ebele Nkiru Anyaoku, University of Abuja, Nigeria and the paper was coauthored by Ngozi P. Osuchukwu, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. The paper was Librarians use of information literacy strategic tools for teaching students in Nigerian universities to combat fake news and information. The speaker outlined the problem of information disorders and its impact on wellbeing: fake news spreads fear and panic and can be literally fatal if people believe health myths and false health information. Young people are certainly at risk since they access online information through social media through the day, and may not be able to identify fake news. People need a critical mindset, search skills and knowledge about quality information sources and finally the ability to evaluate information. There is an officially approved information literacy course which is used by people in Nigerian universities called GST 121 Use of Library and Study Skills. Therefore they carried out a research study to investigate whether the material being used to teach it were meeting the course's aims. They carried out document analysis and analysed websites. The review showed there was no module on fake news. They did discover media and informatiteracy modules and analysed the content. The percentage (about 11%) of material on evaluation was not sufficient, with more material on search etc. Also the library websites more broadly did not have material countering, and warning against, fake news. They recommend that e.g. fact checking, evaluating, spotting fake news should be included in modules, with revision of the GST121 course, and also the library websites should be upgraded. The paper for this talk is at https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1961 

The next talk was Fighting Against Fake News: a Study of Central University Libraries in India presented by Mahender Pratap Singh, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, India. As with other speakers, he emphasised the role of librarians in combatting misinformation. The speaker presented research (a questionnaire survey carried out during the pandemic) into the role of librarians and their strategies in combatting fake news. The participants were from Central Universitiy libraries, and more than half the libraries responded. The respondents identified fake news as harmful. They did identify roles for librarians in identifying fake news and fact checking, and said there were offering information literacy training. A major problem was lack of support from their institution. Suggestions made by the presenter ranged from those aimed at librarians up to those aimed at government. They included institutions taking disciplinary action against those spreading fake news, and also government policies to raise awareness and control fake news. The paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1965 

Finally we had a presentation on Vietnam academic libraries and fake news on social networks: revealing the truth and solving the problem by Lan Nguyen Thi Kim, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Vietnam. She presented some general statistics about the population and their use of internet and socal media. They had carried out a survey about how university librarians were dealing with fake news. There were 505 valid responses to the survey that they conducted. They found that those with former training and better education were better at discerning the truth and more careful when shring information. The paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1963

News Literacy: Fighting Mis/Disinformation at Your Library #WLIC2022

I'm at the World Library and Information Conference in Dublin and will be blogging some of the sessions. The first is: News Literacy: Fighting Mis/Disinformation at Your Library. This was a session organised by Social Science Libraries Section and News Media Section, of the International Federation of Library and Information Associations (IFLA). The moderators were Abby More, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, United States and Ann Okerson, Center for Research Libraries, United States. The session was attended by over 200 people, and when asked whether fake news was a serious issue in our country, I think everyone put up their hand. I'll blog the session in two parts. The following a just notes, and I have linked to the full text papers that give more information.

The first talk was on Training the trainers: A public library - higher education collaboration for Media Literacy education in Ireland, presented by Crystal Fulton, University College Dublin, Ireland and Claire McGuinness, University College Dublin, Ireland. They described a collaboration between academics at the School of Information and Communication Studies (ICS) at University College Dublin (UCD), and Meath County Council Libraries in Ireland, providing media literacy training for public librarians. They managed to get funding from Meta, in the form of a donation, so they could avoid pressures on what they produced. The researchers examined existing initiatives and also surveyed library staff about their needs and preferences for media literacy training, using a participatory action research approach. They then created online training focusing on the topics: Identifying and sharing good media literacy information; our data footprints; Google is not the internet; cyberbullying / hate speech; conspiracy theories. There were recommendations including having training about how to train library users. Their paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1952 

The second talk was Fighting Fake News and Disinformation: a scholar experience in Latin America presented by Jonathan Hernández Pérez, Library and Information Research Institute, UNAM, Mexico. He explained that there is an initiative called  Seminar in information & society, started in 2002, which from 2016 worked on the issue of disinformation. In 2017 they launched ethical use of information week, then in 2018 they organised workshops for librarians, and webinars about information on COVID19 in 2020. They have published open access books addressing the same issues e.g. Repositorio IIBI UNAM: La posverdad y las noticias falsas : el uso ético de la información. From these Mexican initiatives they have extended to other South American countries. They noted that there seems to be a disconnect between scholarly work and people’s ideas and experience, which librarians need to address. They in particular called for research into internet sub cultures. The paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1969 

The next speaker, Jelena Rajić, Public Library "Radislav Nikčević", Serbia, had been delayed because her flight was cancelled, but had made a virtual presentation on the spot (I think at the airport?) which she had emailed in (since librarians are so resourceful!). Her talk was Genuine librarians as a shield between fake information and library patrons. She started by identifying the role and capabilities of public librarians. To the existing role of providing support to people using the internet, the librarians realised that they needed to help people be aware of what information was fake. They carried out a survey of users and as a result of that decided they needed to organise critical information literacy training. Librarians used exercise, quizzes and so forth, but then the pandemic occurred and this led to new needs. The librarians helped by identifying sites providing false information about COVID19, and other guidance towards reliable COVID19 information. Her paper is here https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1960

Photo by Sheila Webber

Call for posters for the IFLA World Library and Information Congress #WLIC2022

There is a call for proposals for posters for the IFLA World Library and Information Congress to be held 26-29 July 2022 in Dublin, Ireland. You have to be prepared to be physically present at the conference. The theme is Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect, especially in uncertain times. "How has your library made an impact in your community or society? Which services, programmes and/or applications of technology have been implemented in your library to support one or more of these themes?" https://2022.ifla.org/conference-programme/call-for-posters