Friday, April 30, 2010

La culture de l'information en reformation

Olivier Le Deuff's thesis (2009) is available online (in French), dealing with the concept "La culture de l'information" including its relationship with information literacy and transliteracy.
Le Deuff, O. (2009) La culture de l'information en reformation. Université Rennes 2. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00421928/en/
Photo by Sheila Webber: my cherry blossom, April 2010.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Information Skills: Finding and Using the Right Resources

A new book coauthored by a subject librarian and a Senior Lecturer in Sport Politics and Policy.
Grix, J. and Watkins, G. (2010) Information Skills: Finding and Using the Right Resources . Palgrave. ISBN 9780230222502
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=316772
Photo by Sheila Webber: bangles, April 2010.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

SCONUL Focus newsletter

The most recent (2009) free issue of SCONUL focus includes
Information skills for art and design: the InfosmART project at the Glasgow School of Art Library by Duncan Chappell;
The Information Source Evaluation Matrix: a quick, easy and transferable content evaluation tool by Kaye Towlson, Mike Leigh, Lucy Mathers;
R@P: developing and promoting the Referencing@Portsmouth service by James Matthews, Roisin Gwyer, Linda Jones, Anne Worden;
They all have them - why not use them? Introducing mobile learning at the University of Huddersfield Library by Andrew Walsh ;
Evaluation of staff learning and development at Anglia Ruskin University Library by Jenny Cefai
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/page/focus-47
Photo by Sheila Webber: so much cherry blossom, Sheffield, April 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Young children's information Literacy

Christine Irving came to talk to my Information Literacy Research students last Thursday (she is pictured here with this Masters-level class: she is in the middle of the front row). She has been working with the Scottish Information Literacy Project, which sadly has now come to a close at Glasgow Caledonian University after five years.
One of the projects which she talked about was one she has just been finishing up, sponsored by Learning and Teaching Scotland, called Real and Relevant: Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner (Early and First Level). The Project’s aims are "to create a quality CPD Information Literacy resource pack whose target audience will be Early Years (primary 1-2)." This means young children just entering school, who therefore at the start mostly cannot read. It was fascinating to hear about how the teachers worked with the children to get them to question and to think about information and meaning.
Christine has a blog entry in which she links to descriptions of some of the activities she observed. One notable thing is that you could say the children are engaging in more rounded sort of way than older people, just because they are not just focused on text (e.g. they will be conveying their understanding by making pictures, or through physical action). http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy/
2010/03/25/information-and-critical-literacy-visits-curriculum-for-excellence-early-and-first-level
/

Monday, April 26, 2010

IL RLO wiki & JORUM

2 resources for "reusable" material on Information Literacy.:
The Information Literacy Reusable Learning Objects wiki is at http://ilrloshare.wetpaint.com/ - it was developed last year, but I don't think I blogged it. It includes links to freely accessible information literacy tutorials etc., is edited by Nancy Graham and arose from a session at the 2009 LILAC conference.
I have mentioned JORUM before, but it lists a good number of resources when you search under "information literacy" ("Jorum provides access to free learning and teaching resources, created and contributed by teaching staff from UK Further and Higher Education Institutions. Jorum offers two collections - JorumOpen and JorumUK, containing a wide variety of resources, including open educational resources that are freely available to all.") http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry blossom, my garden, April 2010

Friday, April 23, 2010

Everything You Wanted to Know About Teaching Information Literacy….

On June 7 2010 at Rider University, Lawrenceville, USA, there is an information literacy workshop Everything You Wanted to Know About Teaching Information Literacy….It is organised by the NJLA College and University Section / ACRL-NJ User Education Committee. For more info go to: http://valenews.wordpress.com/2010/
04/20/everything-you-wanted-to-know-
about-teaching-information-literacy/
Photo by Sheila Webber, April 2010

LILAC winners

A Wexford County Library Team won the Irish Information Literacy Award, announced at the recent at LILAC (information literacy) Conference held in Limerick. The Library Association of Ireland and CONUL (Consortium of National & University Libraries) sponsored this award. The winning entry was the Library Skills Course provided by the Development and Teaching Team at Wexford County Library Service.
The winner of the Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year award 2010, sponsored by the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group, was Anthony Beal from West Cheshire College. The judges were impressed with all the entrants and in particular gave special mention to Nancy Graham from Birmingham University and Andrew Walsh from the University of Huddersfield.
Photo by Sheila Webber: birch branches, April 2010

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Beyond Borders: Open Educational Resources

On Tuesday I was liveblogging at the Beyond Borders conference held at Oxford University, where the topic was OER (Open Educational Resources). As it wasn't centrally about information literacy, I've blogged it elsewhere, however it obviously has connections with information use, issues of plagiarism and intellectual property, and (centrally) pedagogy. The conference website is at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2010/, the Twitter feed was at http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23beyond2010.
There are three primarily descriptive blog posts from me on the IBL blog at http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=325, http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=326, and http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=327. I finished up with a blog post reflecting on OERs in relation to Inquiry Based Learning at http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=328
Photo by Sheila Webber: quadrangle in the Said Business School, Oxford University, the conference venue.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Librarians as Teachers: Free place for student

Librarians as Teachers: The New Professionals? is on 26th May organised by CDG West Midlands and UC&R West Midlands section at Warwick University, Coventry, UK. There is a free place is open to current library and information students (full or part-time) who are CILIP West Midlands branch members and also members of either the CDG or UC&R Group. In return for the event place, the successful applicant is required to submit a reflective account of their event experience within one month of attendance, for intended inclusion in Group and regional publications. To apply for this free place, please provide a statement not exceeding 100 words on why you wish to attend and how the event will benefit your career and professional development, together with details of:
1) Your current degree course and academic institution; 2) CILIP number; 3) Relevant West Midlands Group membership (CDG &/or UC&R); and 4) Contact information
Applications should be sent to Jess Humphreys (j.m.humphreys@warwick.ac.uk) by midday on Friday 23rd April 2010. For full event and booking information, please visit the event website at http://bit.ly/cWIFbX
Photo by Sheila Webber: new leaves, Sheffield, April 2010

Monday, April 19, 2010

JISC conference presentations on information/digital literacy

There is a good amount of content (presentations and some other material) on the website of the JISC conference that just took place. In particular one session included a reworking of the SCONUL 7 Pillars of information literacy at Oxford Brookes:
Mapping graduate attributes for a digital age, by Greg Benfield (Senior Lecturer/Educational Developer, Learning Technologies) Oxford Brookes University (presentation and handout);
another IL presentation was:
Developing a digital and learning literacy induction at Abingdon and Witney College, by Ellen Lessner (ILT Development Coordinator) Abingdon and Witney College (presentation)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2010/
04/jisc10/programme/supportinglearners.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: New chestnut leaf, April 2010

Friday, April 16, 2010

Wikipedia articles & workplace IL

Here is a new article about Wikipedia; and a now-free issue of Libri that has a number of good information literacy and information behaviour articles.
Libri has the most recent issues priced, and older ones free. One that is now free is vol 58 no. 3, which includes "Delivering Business Value through Information Literacy in the Workplace" by Bonnie Cheuk and "Information Literacy and Knowledge Management: Preparations for an Arranged Marriage" by Ruben Toledano O'Farrill. Go to http://www.librijournal.org/2008-3toc.html
The new article, which reports on a study where experts were asked to evaluate some of Wikipedia's "featured articles" is:
Lindsey, D. (2010) "Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia’s feature articles
by David Lindsey." First Monday, 15(4 - 5). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2721/2482
Photo by Sheila Webber: spring cherry, April 2010

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Digital Information Seeker: Report of findings from selected studies

A new report usefully brings together findings from 12 recent studies on information behaviour and library use in the tertiary education sector. The studies are summarised, common findings identified, and implications for libraries proposed.
Connaway, L. and Dickey, T. (2010) The Digital Information Seeker: Report of findings from selected OCLC, RIN and JISC user behaviour projects. JISC.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
publications/reports/
2010/digitalinformationseekers.aspx

Photo by Sheila Webber: Camellias, April 2010, photoshopped by me for use in Second Life

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Peer review: a guide for researchers

This is a new free guide by the Research Information Network. Peer review: a guide for researchers summarises the peer review process for articles and research proposals, and has sections addressing the costs and possible alternatives. I introduce the concept of peer review to my students as part of discussing evaluation and selection of sources, and I might refer them to this new document now. A lot of the material discussing peer review is complex (being aimed at academics) and therefore not suitable for this purpose, so up until now I have actually found the Wikipedia entry on peer review one of the most appropriate for students.
http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/peer-review-guide-researchers [URL updated 26 Sept 2010]
Photo by Sheila Webber: Pigeons in the park, April 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

Reports on UNESCO's Training the Trainers

International Information and Library Review, Vol. 41, issue 4 (December 2009) is devoted to reports about the UNESCO "Training the trainers" events. It is edited by Forest "Woody" Horton. I will highlight one short article which is a question and answer with a Ghanaian librarian (who studied here at Sheffield) about information literacy needs in Africa.
Stern, C. and Buer, V. (2009) "Viscount Buer's responses to Professor Caroline Stern's questions." The International Information & Library Review, 41 (4),297-299
It is a subscription journal, but you should find details about the issue from this home page: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/
journaldescription.cws_home/
622845/description
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom (plum, I think), Blackheath, April 2010

Friday, April 09, 2010

Report from the LILAC conference: links etc.

Yesterday in the virtual world, Second Life, Marshall Dozier and Vicki Cormie talked about some of their favourite sessions at the LILAC (UK information literacy) conference that took place 29-31 March 2010 in Limerick, Ireland.

The transcript of the text chat from the session is at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/chatlog-8-april-2010.pdf This includes text from Marshall and Vicki, and discussion from the rest of us. The full batch of pictures is at http://tinyurl.com/ydwrcu4 Robin Ashford (Robin Mochi) also produced a posterous post about the session at http://tinyurl.com/y8wqabv
I produced a list of some links of conference reports etc. as a handout. Here are the links I put in it (note that there are also some links in the transcript, given by Vicki and Marshall):

- The main LILAC website is at http://www.lilacconference.com/dw/
- The Twitter stream is http://twitter.com/lilac_2010

Blog reports about the conference
- Christine Irving (Scottish Information Literacy Project) – post includes links to their presentations. http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy/2010/04/06/lilac-2010-2/
- Information Literacy: The Assistant Librarians’ Information Literacy Group (Huddersfield University). Several informative posts: http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/il/?cat=28
- Jane Secker on Social Software, libraries & e-learning blog: http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/socialsoftware/2010/03/lilac-hits-limerick-and-librarians-know-how-to-dance/
- Lesley Thomson, Mind Bloggling, http://mea-mea-culpa.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-last-lilac.html
- Sarah Faye Cohen: The Sheck Spot, http://thesheckspot.blogspot.com/search/label/LILAC2010
- Joeyanne Libraryanne “Resources Librarian at the University of Wolverhampton” http://www.joeyanne.co.uk/index.php/2010/04/07/lilac-conference-day-3/
http://www.joeyanne.co.uk/index.php/2010/04/06/lilac-conference-day-2/
http://www.joeyanne.co.uk/index.php/2010/03/30/lilac-conference-day-1/

Additional Links (presentations etc.)
- University of California, Irvine, tutorial on writing a research paper http://www.lib.uci.edu/how/
tutorials/LibraryWorkshop/begin.html

- University of Washington Information School. Lay Information Behaviour website: http://ibec.ischool.washington.edu/limb/
- Telstar (Technology Enhanced Learning supporting Students to achieve Academic Rigour) project http://www.open.ac.uk/telstar/
- New Jersey Library Association, Information Literacy Progression Standards Task Force. http://njla.pbworks.com/Presentations%3A-Information-Literacy-Progression-Standards-Task-Force
- Cardiff University, Information Literacy Resource Bank https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/
- Nancy Graham, University of Birmingham: presentation Open up and share: finding and re-using information literacy learning material http://www.slideshare.net/NancyGraham/lilac2010

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

"Report from LILAC" SL event on 8th April

At 12 noon Second Life time (8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/yghsjlh for times in other parts of the world) on Thursday 8th April, in the virtual world Second Life, there will be a one hour report/discussion on the LILAC conference. This year the LILAC conference (the UK's information literacy conference) took place 29-31 March 2010
(http://www.lilacconference.com/dw/). Marshall Dozier (Edinburgh University) and Vicki Cormie (St Andrews University), who both presented at LILAC this year, will give you a report from some favourite items from the conference. There will be a couple of short presentations in voice, with the discussion and some report in text chat. You will need a Second Life avatar and the SL browser installed on your computer, to participate). The location is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/125/240/22/

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Future of Informs

Informs is an "adaptive tool for the creation of interactive online tutorials" which has been around and used for some time (http://www.informs.intute.ac.uk/about.html). It emerged from a project, but was more recently taken into the care of Intute. However, now funding to Intute itself is cut from this August, as part of JISC's cutbacks. Intute just announced that JISC "will provide transition funding from August 2010 to enable Informs to move towards a sustainable business model ... In effect this means we have funding: to maintain Informs at its existing service level in 2010-11; to refresh the software in line with user requirements; to develop and implement a membership business model to sustain it after that date."

Therefore they are soliciting opinions from users of Informs about what does or doesn't work, whether people have experienced problems with Informs and (if so) what work-arounds they have developed. They are encouraging feedback to the discussion list informs-users@jiscmail.ac.uk (you can sign up for it and examine archives at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/) and directly to Diana Massam at Diana.Massam@MANCHESTER.AC.UK

Photo by Sheila Webber: Spring at last, March 2010

Monday, April 05, 2010

European news perspectives

Presseurop was a joint winner of the 2010 Awards for European Information Sources. It presents selected news from 250 sources, and translates them all into a number of European languages. I thought it could be useful for media literacy education, since obviously the news items from different countries all have a different cultural and political slant. The English language version is at http://www.presseurop.eu/en
The other winner was EuroAcademy (http://euroacademyonline.eu/ ), also a useful website, about the European Parliament.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Spring in Greenwich Park, April 2010

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Transformation from Digital Library to Digital Learning

The 9th NordINFOLIT Information Literacy Summer School is 7-11 June 2010, in Finland, held in English. The title is Transformation from Digital Library to Digital Learning "The theme of the course will be learning processes and tools in the digital world" "The summer school will consist of practical hands-on work with a variety of web-based tools for teaching and learning. At the same time the teaching relates to relevant learning theories." Registration by 12 April, and the full programme is on the website:
http://www.helsinki.fi/infolukutaito
/ILajankohtaista/2010summerprogram.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: A large drinking bowl, Thessaloniki, March 2010