US teens and privacy: study

Two research reports this month from the Pew Internet American Life project, on teens and digital privacy.
Lenhart, A. et al. (2013) Where Teens Seek Online Privacy Advice.
"Many teens ages 12-17 report that they usually figure out how to manage content sharing and privacy settings on their own. Focus group interviews with teens suggest that for their day-to-day privacy management, teens are guided through their choices in the app or platform when they sign up, or find answers through their own searching and use of their preferred platform. At the same time, though, a nationally representative survey of teen internet users shows that, at some point, 70% of them have sought advice from someone else about how to manage their privacy online. When they do seek outside help, teens most often turn to friends, parents or other close family members." http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Where-Teens-Seek-Privacy-Advice.aspx

Madden, M. et al. (2013) Teens and Mobile Apps Privacy
"As teens gain access to mobile devices, they have embraced app downloading. But many teen apps users have taken steps to uninstall or avoid apps over concern about their privacy. Location information is considered especially sensitive to teen girls, as a majority of them have disabled location tracking features on cell phones and in apps because they are worried about others’ access to that information. Here are some of the key findings in a new survey of U.S. teens ages 12-17:
58% of all teens have downloaded apps to their cell phone or tablet computer.
51% of teen apps users have avoided certain apps due to privacy concerns.
26% of teen apps users have uninstalled an app because they learned it was collecting personal information that they didn’t wish to share.
46% of teen apps users have turned off location tracking features on their cell phone or in an app because they were worried about the privacy of their information."
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-and-Mobile-Apps-Privacy.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cat in Sheffield Botanic gardens seeks its privacy

Expert Internet Searching: 4th edition

The newest edition of Phil Bradley's search guide is available:
Bradley, P. (2013) Expert Internet Searching. 4th edition. London: Facet. Price: £49.95 (£39.96 to CILIP members). ISBN: 978-1-85604-605-3
"This new edition, rewritten from scratch, gives readers the information and guidance they need to choose the right search tools and strategies for each information need. From searching social media effectively to tracking down an expert or a news story, and from searching by image to searching multimedia, Bradley introduces the best search engines and tools and explains how to get the most out of them."
More info at http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=6053 which includes a link to a sample chapter: An introduction to the internet
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sentosa island, Singapore, IFLA conference cultural event, August 2013

Report from the IFLA conference: given in Second Life: 29 August

What: Report on information literacy presentations etc. from the World Library and Information Conference (IFLA conference) http://conference.ifla.org/ifla79, from Sheila Webber , Sheffield University Information School (i.e., me, Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life)
When: Thursday August 29th, 12.30 SL time (which is the same as US Pacific time, 8.30pm UK time, 3.30pm US Eastern Time, see http://tinyurl.com/mf4als4 for times elsewhere)
Where: On Infolit iSchool, in the virtual 3D world, Second Life, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/130/242/22
*NB* You need the Second Life browser (different from a normal web browser) installed on your computer, and need a Second Life avatar, to participate. Contact me if you have any questions about this.
What: The IFLA (World Library and Information) Conference is the premier international library conference, held every August. This year it was in Singapore. Sheila Yoshikawa (Sheila Webber, Sheffield University iSchool outside SL) will give a report on the IFLA conference http://conference.ifla.org/ifla79 and on the information
literacy satellite pre-conference http://ifla2013satellite.nlb.sg/infolitref/ (at which she was a keynote speaker).
All welcome! The event will have a voice introduction and discussion in text chat, and last for one hour
A Sheffield iSchool Centre for Information Literacy Research event
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterfly garden, Singapore airport

Webinar: Getting Published in Journals: Sept 4th

There is a free one-hour webinar on September 4th (at 11.30 US Eastern time) Getting Published in Reputable International Journals and Other Publications. It is organised by the international special interest group of ASIST: Association for Information Science and Technology.
"In this webinar, three distinguished speakers, who are all current and/or past editors and/or members of editorial boards of a number of major international journals as well as other major publications, will address the broad questions and topics to provide webinar participants with an understanding of the process for evaluation and review of manuscripts" e.g. "What problems and pitfalls should authors avoid in getting their manuscripts ready for submission to scholarly journals and publications? That is, what makes a manuscript likely to be rejected by editors in the first or subsequent rounds of review and evaluation?" More information at http://www.asis.org/Conferences/webinars/Webinar-SIGIII-9-4-2013.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackberries, Maryon Park, August 2013

SURE campaign of National Library Board, Singapore

The pictures here show some of the items that the National Library Board, Singapore have created around their S.U.R.E. campaign. SURE stands for Source, Understand, Research, Evaluate. You can see that it includes bags, ruler, water bottle, pens, notebook (with the SURE mantra on each page) and there is also a silver SURE umbrella.

I already mentioned the professionally produced SURE video that has a Holmes-esque story about an antiques conman, aimed at the general public, and the information literacy site here.

However, even more impressive than these are some of the initiatives that have been mounted to promote information literacy. 
For example, at the IFLA satellite conference there were displays from 3 sets of schoolboys, who were the finalists in the SURE Club Library Advocacy Book Display Competition. One display was explaining information literacy using the SURE formula, and in the other 2 displays the boys displayed their information literacy through the way they had researched information about the books they chose, and the issues around the books (one of these exhibits is shown here). The exhibits were also judged on their creativity and power to communicate.

I think I also understood that schoolchildren in Singapore had to do a certain amount of volunteer work, and volunteering at the library was quite popular, so that was another way of engaging young people with information literacy and libraries. On the first day of the conference a very enthusiastic and hardworking group of young women helped with the day’s organisation and then produced an enjoyable video about their experience which was shown at the conference dinner in the evening.

Parent Information Literacy Programme #wlic2013

This is an initiative of the National Library Board, Singapore (which is the agency in charge of the national and public libraries), that was described in a poster (pictured) at the IFLA Satellite conference the week before last. Librarians from the three largest ethnic constituencies of Singapore worked with organisations in their respective communities (e.g. Chinese Development Assistance Council) to offer information literacy “Ace your project work” workshops for parents/ parent and child. As you can gather, it was emphasised how information literacy could directly help a child achieve in school. Although English is the official language in Singapore, the classes were offered by bilingual trainers in the appropriate language (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) to help parents whose English language skills were not so good. For this project they used the Big 6 information literacy model and 5 finger evaluation technique (Accuracy, Authority, Coverage, Currency and Objectivity).

The 2nd picture includes one of the trainers (Yashodha Devi Nadarajan, apologies to her, not a very good snapshot!) There is an advert for the workshop on this page (scroll down, you wil see there is also training for teachers) http://libguides.nl.sg/content.php?pid=280349&sid=2337859

Communications in Information Literacy - new issue

Communications in Information Literacy volume 7 no. 1 (2013) is published: it is open access. The articles are:
Teaching Matters: An Integrative Lesson on Searching, Tracking Citations, and Evaluating a Scholarly Article by Patrick P. Ragains
Keeping Pace with Information Literacy Instruction for the Real World: When Will MLS Programs Wake Up and Smell the LILACs? by Kimberly Davies-Hoffman, Barbara Alvarez, Michelle Costello, Debby Emerson (I should add that this is not LILAC the infolit conference, it is Library Instruction Leadership Academy)
Special Collections, Primary Resources, and Information Literacy Pedagogy by Melissa A. Hubbard, Megan C. Lotts
Teaching Web Evaluation: A Cognitive Development Approach by Candice Benjes-Small, Alyssa Archer, Katelyn Tucker, Lisa Vassady, Jennifer Resor Whicker
Cultural Shifts: Putting Critical Information Literacy into Practice by Alison Hicks
Promising Practices in Instruction of Discovery Tools by Stefanie Buck, Christina Steffy
http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php?journal=cil&page=issue&op=view&path[]=13&path[]=showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Children's Library, Singapore National Library Building

Infolit journal club #ilread 28 August: A Healthcare Lens for the SCONUL Seven Pillars Model

The next information literacy blog post discussion is on 28 August 2013 at 8-9pm UK time (see http://tinyurl.com/m57886g for times elsewhere in the world). The paper for discussion is by Michelle Dalton: "Developing an evidence-based practice healthcare lens for the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model". Journal of information literacy, 7 (1), 30-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.11645/7.1.1813 at the next Information Literacy Journal Club session. The discussion will be held in blog comments in the following post, and Michelle herself will be leading discussion:
http://infolitjournalclub.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/journal-club-meeting-28-august-8-9pm.html

You can can go to that blog post to get more background information from Michelle.
Photo by Sheila Webber: iconic view of Singapore, August 2013

MIL; intergenerational dialogue #wlic2013

Presentation of the Moscow declaration on media and information literacy and the Tunis Declaration on Libraries, Reading and Intergenerational Dialogue from Maria Carme Torres i Calva (outgoing chair of the IFLA IL Section) and Leikny Haga Indergaard (Literacy and Reading Section) was the final item in this morning's session at the IFLA conference. Maria described the partnership between IFLA and UNESCO e.g. in the IFLA/UNESCO Digital Library Manifesto 2011. She talked about the work of the IFLA Information Literacy Section and its work together with UNESCO, in particular IFLA Media and Information Literacy Recommendations. Since I have blogged about these initiatives a lot, I will not repeat myself but suggest that you search this blog using UNESCO IFLA (no quotes!) to find relevant blog posts. Click Sort by date to see the most recent first.
Leikny Haga Indergaard talked of the aim of the the IFLA Literacy and Reading section and its initiatives. In particular they mentioned their symposium in 2011 in Tunis, on Inclusive society: libraries bridging generations. The Tunis Declaration on Libraries, Reading and Intergenerational Dialogue is at http://www.ifla.org/publications/the-tunisia-declaration-on-libraries-reading-and-intergenerational-dialogue-english
Photo by Sheila Webber: one of the tables at the Information Literacy Section lunch, Maria is sitting at the back towards the right.

Exploring the role of public libraries in supporting intergenerational literacies through ICTs #wlic2013

Exploring the role of public libraries in supporting intergenerational literacies through ICTs is the next paper I'm liveblogging. It was presented by Hui-Yun Sung (National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan, China) and John Siraj-Blatchford. The full paper is at http://library.ifla.org/152
This was in the second session which was co-organised by the Information Literacy section, with the Reading and Literacy group at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore on Intergenerational literacies.
This presentation was introducing a research project currently in the pilot stage. A number of roles for public libraries in supporting intergenerational literacies were identified including "supporting a community of practice through online channels" and the introduction cited various important theories concerned with early years development which underpinned the research study being presented.
They are doing a qualitative, exploratory pilot study at the National Library of Public Information in Taiwan. They want to change the symbolic understanding of technology from a toy to something different including an information tool. Research questions include what motivations parents have in interacting with their children, and identifying interactions around ICT used for storytelling/creation. They are collecting data using social networks (Facebook) and also semi-structed interviews and participant observations. The speakers are identifying storytelling software/apps which can be adapted from individual use to collaborative use. So far this includes MeBooks (available for iPhone, iPad, Android) which includes editing e.g. adapting text and recording new sounds (storyline and pictures are fixed). This is something which typically young children wouldn't be able to do without adult help.

Another piece of software, from the Open University, enables you to create a story with your own pictures, using a storyboard. The final example is The Land of Me, which takes the child through an imagination game: in the demo given by the speaker Buggy Boo the bear chooses to pretend to be a vehicle and chooses the type, size and colour of a vehicle. The inteface includes text prompts and suggestions for the adult with the child - so this is another example with intergenerational playing in mind. Theyare seeking further collaborators for this research internationally.

Model to develop texttotechno intergenerational literacies #wlic2013

Information literacy and cultural heritage for lifelong learning: applying the model to develop texttotechno intergenerational literacies was presented by Kim Baker (Library and Information Studies Centre, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa). This was in the second session which was co-organised by the Information Literacy section, with the Reading and Literacy group at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore on Intergenerational literacies.
Her full paper is at http://library.ifla.org/149 and she has also written a book

She felt that libraries (unlike museums) have not taken a fundamental introspection into the nature and assumptions about cultural heritage. She felt that it would be possible to take the best of library and museum practice to create a model for lifelong learning. In terms of content concerned with cultural heritage, there were many related issues which make it important to ask many questions about the context of content (who created it? why? etc.) and this is not just about accuracy/authority, it is to see the cultural, social, political context.
In terms of intergenerational literacy, processes are:
- "Discover" where faciltators' tasks might include highlighting differences between text and print, and the learner to use the discovery tools.
- "Learn"
- "Evaluate" which includes training in critical thinking, and facilitating role-play in analysing information, and teh learners' tasks includes practicing cultural sensitivity and noting moral, legal and ethical issues.
- "Create"
- "Share" including attention to constructive feedback!
- "Modify"
The speaker identified that such training for lifelong could result in outcome "I see you": people understanding each others' contexts. As regards measurement of these processes, personal meaning mapping was recommended (reflecting on various aspects of its meaning to yourself).

Bridge the Text and tech literacy gap between generations - case study of reading programs from public libraries in Guangdong Province of China #wlic2013

The second session which was co-organised by the Information Literacy section, this time with the Reading and Literacy group at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore was on Intergenerational literacies: Texto-techno.
Bridge the Text and tech literacy gap between generations - case study of reading programs from public libraries in Guangdong Province of China was from Huang QunChing (coauthored with Liu Honghui) (Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China) The full paper is at http://library.ifla.org/151/
She identified a gap between young generations using screens and older comfortable with print in China. She talked about self-service libraries at places like stations ("elders like to stand by and learn: they name these machines Book ATMs") and the speaker also identified self issue terminals as places of text-techno communication (the young chiild touches the screen, the adult reads the text and says where to touch - this is in the slide I show above). She mentioned computer classes for elders (one satisfied participant wrote a poem!) News, search, WeChat, stocks, ephotos, games and microblogging were among things elders enjoyed doing.
Thery also do activities for teens' text literacy. An example is a composition competition in each summer vacation, another is a calligraphy onsite game started in 2012 which also can stimulate people who came to watch. "I tell the stories in books" started in 2007 and is a performance competition which stimulates reading. The Guangzhou Memories Cartoons database started in 2009 and is a popular way for teens to learn about their traditional culture.

ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom #wlic2013

Barbara Jones, Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association gave a presentation in the FAIFE session at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore. She talked through the current case of Edward Snowden, and the impacts of that, including people in the USA who were not at all "left wing now raising their concerns about the extent to which their phone calls etc. were being monitored. Her talk had a lot of interesting background and detail that I'm afraid went by me too fast to capture fully. The ALA decided to go after the US law, rather than the particular Edward Snowden case. They are concerned about the gradual way in which citizens are losing their rights. They passed an ALA resolution in July and are aiming to reform or repeal part of the Patriot Act. The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom website is here http://www.ala.org/offices/oif and their blog is here http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/ and it is worth following what they are doing They also organise Choose Privacy Week http://www.chooseprivacyweek.org. Like previous speakers she called on IFLA and librarians internationally to take up this issue of privacy and surveillance more robustly.
Image copyright ALA

"Libraries as a safe haven" #wlic2013

In the FAIFE session at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore I will report next on the talk 10 trends of internet censoship revisited from PÄIVIKKI KARHULA (Researcher, Chief Information Specialist at Parliament of Finland). The original 10 Trends paper was produced last year and is here http://www.ifla.org/publications/sleepwalking-toward-a-control-society-ten-must-know-trends
The speaker ideantified that censorship no longer just means filtering: it also means tracking, monitoring, data storage and collection, data mining (in other words finding out what you do in great detail and giving that information who know who), sanctioning, blocking and slowing down connections. She identified international pressure and support, and (e.g.) although the European Union countries prohibit export of surveillance technology to totalitarian countries is forbidden, EU countries have not supported Edward Snowden.
The criminalisation of everyday life - with routine monitoring of people's activities and people becoming targets if their activity deviates from "normal" - has become more and more of a concern.
In terms of libraries (which should be a "safe haven"), mass data collection is an increasing issue, especially as the data collected (e.g. on e-books) may be out of the libraries' control. She mentioned the work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/press/releases/huge-global-coalition-stands-against-unchecked-surveillance.
The speaker identified this power transfer to those who own and manage big data as a major concern. What are the consequences? There is non-transperency and apparently unlimited scope. She felt that there should be proper governance for these activities. However, for the moment, we know there will be new forms of surveillance.
Libraries need to redefine their ideas of freedom of information - to include safe access to communicate, search and use information on the internet. What can be done? Libraries need to be involved in development of technology, have impact on the marketplace and legislation, and pay attention to their own policies and practice. Karhula also urged librarians to support campaigns and to join with activities such as those of FAIFE. She also mentioned other organisations e.g. https://www.privacyrights.org/

Karhula reccommended: Davies, S. (2013) "Analysis: Eight global repercussions from the PRISM disclosures ". http://www.privacysurgeon.org/blog/incision/analysis-eight-global-repercussions-from-the-snowden-affair/

FAIFE "The rights of our users" #wlic2013

At the IFLA conference in Singapore I am attending part of the session organised by FAIFE, Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression. "The overall objective of IFLA/FAIFE is to raise awareness of the essential correlation between the library concept and the values of intellectual freedom. To reach this goal IFLA/FAIFE collects and disseminates documentation and aims to stimulate a dialog both within and outside the library world." (from the website) The session was introduced by Kai Ekholm (Chair of FAIFE). He identified some of the prominent current freedom of information issues, and the work of FAIFE. This includes publishing "Spotlights". The spotlights for this year are: Freedom of expression and access to information in Syria today (Inaam Charaf), Interview to Saad Eskander, Director of Iraq National Library and Archives (INLA) (Suvi Kingsley) and Are digital laws making or breaking digital libraries? (Benjamin White): the Spotlight page is here http://www.ifla.org/faife/spotlight. The quote in the subject line of this post is how Ekholm described the role of libraries - supporting the rights of our users. He also challenged librarians to demonstrate their convictions: he wondered what it would take for libraries to shut for a day to show support for freedom of information or opposition to measures that threaten freedom of speech.

Health literacy; in India, in urban North American #wlic2013

Today at the IFLA conference I caught most of Maitrayee Ghosh's paper on Health literacy for all- an investigation into consortia and partnership amongst libraries to promote health care information in India. In it she gave a perspective on health literacy in India where there is a divide between the elite, who have good-quality care and are reasonably health literate, and the much larger number who do not have access to good quality care and furthermore experience significant barriers to their health literacy. The speaker said that 100% of communications from doctors were in English, a language which many of the patients didn't understand (in response to a question the speaker said the solution isn't as straightforward as one might think, since althoughHindi is the official language, there are about 2000 languages in India). 85% of women bring along a more literate family member. Under these circumstances, things like reading instructions for medicines are problematic.
The speaker described some initiatives to help with health literacy e.g. Mumbai's Health Education Library for People (HELP) (although again, that is in English) The speaker outlined some models (e.g. a "Health Literacy and women" diagram) and identified a lack of ccordination and collaboration: she proposed some collaborations that could be formed by librarians. The full paper is at http://library.ifla.org/161/7/123-ghosh-en.pdf

I didn't hear it, but this paper from the same session also looks particularly interesting:
Dalrymple, Prudence W., Rogers, Michelle, Turner, Kathleen and Green, Mary (2013) "Partnering to encourage health information seeking by patients in an urban clinic". Paper presented at: IFLA World Library and Information Congress, 17 - 23 August 2013, Singapore. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/83 "This paper will report on work informed by the theoretical framework put forth by Don Nutbeam, a public health researcher who views health information seeking as a fundamental component in achieving health literacy and ultimately, improved health outcomes. In this pilot project, a multidisciplinary team that included librarians worked together to develop and test the feasibility of a mobile phone application aimed at increasing health information seeking by expectant mothers. It will also distinguish between “ a partnership” and “a collaboration” and will suggest that effective work in health literacy may require roles for librarians that differ from those traditionally assumed in delivering health information services."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Singapore, dusk, August 2013

My keynote: Question and enquire: taking a critical pathway to understand our users #wlic2013

I gave a keynote at the IFLA Satellite conference on information literacy last week, and here is my powerpoint presentation. I identify that things to aim for are:
- Support and challenge students to become lifelong reflective learners with deep critical information behaviour (IB)
- Support citizens/ workers as if they were, or aspired to be, lifelong reflective learners with deep critical IB
- Reflect on, and develop, our own IB and IL and be willing to challenge assumptions (including our own)
Then I go on to expand on the ideas of how you can take, and support, a more critical approach, including getting to know what your users are doing, and being willing to question your own assumptions about what is appropriate or inappropriate information behaviour. By the way I refer to Perry's framework of intellectual development and the research on approaches to learning, and there are 2 slides with more detail on these AFTER my references slide at the end.

Question and enquire: taking a critical pathway to understand our users from Sheila Webber

IFLA Information Literacy Section Committee 2nd meeting #wlic2013

Today we had the 2nd of our Information Literacy Section Committee meetings, at the IFLA conference in Singapore. In case you are ever at an IFLA conference, all the sections' committee meetings are open to observers (and certainly in our committee, observers are welcome to comment and contribute).
The new chair, Sharon Mader, started (after introductions) by clarifying that to get to the old Infolitglobal directory of infolit resources (links/ information on reports, training courses, websites etc.) you go to the site http://www.wsis-community.org/ and (1) register for the website (free) and login and (2) join the "Information Literacy" community (go to the community page and then click on the left). The link to the Directory then appears half way down the page. Hopefully we will be able to change this so you don't have to go through all that in order to see the directory (it may be because at the moment the directory has been transferred but not checked).
I already blogged several presentations from the session on "civic literacies" and it looks like there will be a book on the topic (in the IFLA series) coming out of that session and out of the conference on the same topic that took place in Riga (the papers for the conference are here: http://www.lnb.lv/iflariga2012/.
The structure of IFLA groups is mainly into Sections (focused on a particular activity area e.g. Information Literacy, School Libraries or a particular region) and these sections are gathered together into Divisions (see here http://www.ifla.org/activities-and-groups). Maria-Carme Torras i Calvo has moved to a Divisional position and she reported on this.
After this we started to sort out who will be convening the events for next year's IFLA: there will be a satellite preconference in Limerick, and then in the main programme (the main conference in 2014 is in Lyon) there will be a session with the Education and Training Section, and another session with Health and Biosciences Section on health literacy. We also talked a little about the plans for the following year.
Finally we talked about future projects e.g. following on from the IFLA Trends report that I blogged about earlier. The website for the section is at http://www.ifla.org/information-literacy and here is the blog http://ifla-il-section.blogspot.sg/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, August 2013

Civic literacy projects in libraries: acting in the present, thinking in the future #wlic2013

Civic literacy projects in libraries: acting in the present, thinking in the future from Vera Maria Da Silva (Public Library of Seixal, Seixal, Portugal) and Francisco Vaz (Escola de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal) is the final presentation in the Civic Literacy session at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore. It is being presented in Spanish, and my Spanish is very patchy, so I will just attempt to the points that I grasp. Their full paper is at http://library.ifla.org/264/1/099-silva-en.pdf.
Part of the talk described a project "Derechos por derechos?", a project to promote and understand human rights and freedoms, and the ambition is to promote reading and develop citizenship and information behaviour. Objectives include to introduce concepts of huiman rights are intrioduced, to foster reflection and debate and develop an idea of citizenship. This is not seen as an abstract idea, but one of real life. They prepared various material for the initiatives including promotional and teaching material. Pedagogic material included books, conceptual maps, but also paintings (ones which portayed situations or emotions relevant to civic literacy e.g. I think one was Picasso's Guernica, for discussion) and music. There were preparation sessions for the teachers and the speaker described various activities and the form of the curriculum. One statistic I grasped near the end of the presentation was that 80% of the evaluations of the project said it was good, and 20% very good! Also the need for a pedagogic approach based on critical engagement (not passive consumption) was emphasised. There was a lot of interesting detail in this presentation and so it is worth looking at the paper, which is in English.

An Academic Library as a National Reference Library in Uganda #wlic2013

An Academic Library as a National Reference Library: contributions of Makerere University Library in promoting civic literacy, by Andrew Mwesigwa (Makerere University, Kampala (Maklib), Uganda), is the next paper at the IFLA World library and Information Conference in Singapore
As well as a university library, it is also a national reference library and deposit library, and so it has a wide range of populations to serve. So for example they give information literacy training to members of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces.
In this paper (which you can read in full at http://library.ifla.org/262/1/099-mwesigwa-en.pdf) they analysed Maklib's position in terms of civic literacy. They did a SWOT analysis and then did a qualititative investigation at a primary school, collecting data from pupils and teachers.
Strengths include:
- access to unique collections, in their Africana section. Through this it has contributed to nation building, including helping government departments to gain access to documents to make decisions.
- they have developed a working relationship with authors and publishers
- a "convivial" external user policy - so the public come come in to use archives or read newspapers
- an information literacy campaign reaches users from all walks of life, and the librarians have influenced generations of users
The key weakness is having to operate with minimal resources. Among the opportunities are opportunities for collaboration to enhance civic literacy campaigns, and the existing community of users. Threats include environmental factors (which threaten preservation of material).
As regards the opinions of the primary school, there was a concentration on the impact of a book donation programme: students felt that:
- book donation was worthwhile
- reading of English improved, and students got inspired to go to university rather than just visit
Their teachers felt that the books donated were a patriotic act "which exemplified librarians in civic society" and supported the promotion of books and reading. The speaker finished by stating Maklib's continuing commitment to civic literacy
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tree structures in the Gardens at the bay, Singapore, August 2013