Scottish Information Literacy Project

The 100th blog which is in itself quite a milestone as we have made 100 posts in a little over a year, and my last as Director of the Scottish Information Literacy Project. Following the latest reorganisation here, I will be taking early retirement under the University’s Voluntary Early Release scheme and will be leaving the University tomorrow 18th December. However Christine has a contract until the end of March as there is work for Learning and Teaching Scotland still to complete.

I have every intention of continuing to be active in information literacy. I have been asked to guest edit a special issue of Library Trends, and I will be contributing to a couple of planned books. I am also thinking about writing a book about information literacy in non formal educational situations with Christine. I have recently been elected to CILIP Council and will be keen to promote the ‘gospel of information’.

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all the project partners, collaborators and supporters for the valuable contributions which they have made without which the Project could not have been so successful.

 I am very pleased to say that Lesley Thomson and Jenny Foreman are taking the Community of Practice forward as an online vehicle to keep everyone connected.

As a CILIP councillor I will be fairly visible but I am sure Christine can act as a contact point where necessary.

It has been a real pleasure working with Christine over the past five years during which she has built up an impressive reservoir of expertise especially in the education sector which I hope she will be able to continue to deploy after the Project ends.

 Best wishes to all our readers for a Happy and Restful Christmas and a prosperous and information literate New Year. 

John

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day in a Junior (Primary) 1 class as part of the work I’m doing for Learning and Teaching Scotland CfE Literacy Team – Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level). The day was amazing with lots of information literacy activities based around some of the CfE learning outcomes and experiences. For example:

Finding and using information: Early Level

I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices to learn new things. LIT 0.04a 

The children aged 5 years old listened to a chapter (chapter 4 I think) from a book about an owl finding out about night and darkness.

The book - The owl who was affraid of the dark

They had to listened for a specific piece of information which they then had to remember. Questions were asked to ensure that they had heard and remembered it. Later on in the day they were each given a worksheet and had to draw a picture to represent what the chapter was all about. The teacher then went round each of them and asked them to complete a sentence with information they had heard. Some repeated the information exactly others put it into their own words. Whatever the child said the teacher transcribed it onto their worksheet.

Other examples of activities included:

• selecting books in groups to find information about a particular night animal that the group had chosen i.e. a fox, badger, bat.

With the help of the teacher reading the text the children decided on the 4 most important facts about the animal. Later each group told the rest of the class what they had found.

• art of the week where they had to look at a picture of a piece of art Rodin’s Thinker and say what they thought it was about. It was amazing to see then looking at it, thinking about it and then giving their thoughts.

I could go on but will end there. My thanks to Mrs Lisa Bonar and her class at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh for allowing me into their world. Discussions regrading the sort of things that would be useful to teachers regarding their own information literacy was also covered. It has certainly helped my thinking for the work ahead of me and I look forward to using this knowledge along with other experiences of Primary 2 and 3 to come in the new year.

This is my last blog of the year so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

The Winter issue 2009 of the Journal of Information Literacy  has been published.

Of particular interest is the Editorial by Susie Andretta   The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle. (1-5) 

The collection of papers presented in this issue positions information literacy in diverse contexts, implying that this phenomenon has finally permeated our social, educational and professional consciousness. This is in line with Catts and Lau’s claim that information literacy “needs to be considered not only in relation to education, but also in the broader context of work, civil society, and health and well being” (Catts and Lau 2008, p. 9). The diverse interpretations of information literacy presented in this issue are illustrated by a visual metaphor which has inspired the title of this editorial ’The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle’. Each facet of information literacy corresponds to one of the colours of the Rubik cube1.

This multifaceted aspect of IL is something that John and I have spoken about over the years as a result of our experiences and knowledge plus project / research work.

Of the articles within the issue three are written by known associates including:

project partners Jenny & Lesley

• Jenny Foreman, Lesley Thomson Government Information Literacy in the “century of information”  (64-72)

Audrey Marshall (John and I were external advisers on the net.weight project at Brighton)

• Audrey Marshall, Flis Henwood, Leslie Carlin, Elizabeth S. Guy, Tanja Sinozic, Helen Smith   Information to fight the flab: findings from the Net.Weight Study (39-52)

Christopher Walker. John and I heard Christopher speak about his PhD research into IL and parents of young children in the early stages at the LILAC Conference in Liverpool 2008. We have had several discussions with him offering suggestions and information from our research and experience.

• Christopher Guy Walker  Seeking Information: A study of the use and understanding of information by parents of young children (53-63)

All 3 articles support our experience that information literacy is not just within formal education but throughout life. They are published from presentations at LILAC 2009 (see also our blog postings on the conference – Some thoughts on LILAC 09, LILAC 2009 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) Cardiff).

Of interest to IL and the workplace is K. Stuart Ferguson Information literacy and its relationship to knowledge management: A theoretical study(6-24). It explores IL and KM, and learning organisations as I did in my 2007 MSc Lifelong Learning and Development research ‘The role of information literacy in addressing a specific strand of lifelong learning: the work agenda’  . It also lead the project to further research in the work place and discussion with Annemaree Lloyd.

Other articles which I haven’t read yet but may be of interest are:

Andrew Whitworth  – Teaching information literacy within a relational frame: the Media and Information Literacy course at Manchester (25-38)

Nora Hegarty,  Alan Carbery,  Tina Hurley – Learning by Doing: Reactivating the Learning Support Programme at WIT Libraries (73-90)

Conference corner:

Peter Godwin, Information Literacy gets mobile in Vancouver  (91-95)

Book reviews:

Nick Frost  Book review of Andrew Whitworth. 2009. Information Obesity. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. (96-97)

Heard from Jo Parker at the Open University recently about a project they have been working on called iKnow (Information and Knowledge at Work)  for the last couple of years, which has involved building information literacy/management materials for employers to use.

The front page of the training materials state that:

An estimated 6.4 hours per employee are spent looking for information in the workplace each week in the UK. 37% of the searches prove unsuccessful*.

In financial terms, an estimated £3.7 billion is spent on time wasted looking for information that cannot be found.

It’s a staggering amount, so what can be done about it?

The following activities are examples of training materials which will help you save time in finding, using, and organising information at work.

*DeSaulles, M (2007) “Information literacy amongst UK SME: an information policy gap”; Aslib Proceedings, vol 59, no1 pp68-79

The current and final phase of the project is about engaging with employers to get them to test the materials in the workplace, to see how useful they are. They have got a few employers locally interested, but wondered whether there might be any interest amongst the project partners? 

Jo also told me that IKnow finishes in May when the materials will be added to ‘her’ portfolio of stuff and they are already open to anyone to use and look at. Also they are ”having a launch event on February 3^rd and if any Scottish employers loved them and wanted to tell everybody how fantastic they are…well, you never know!”

This is great news as John and I have been keen to identify and or work on some materials for the workplace so if employers or anyone involved in workplace learning are interested please have a look at the material and contact Jo at J.E.Parker@open.ac.uk

Help is being asked to build up a full UK picture of school libraries by completing a questionnaire.

The work instigated by the School Libraries Group of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and supported by the School Library Association and CILIP Scotland, with funds provided by the Wendy Drewett Bequest.

The survey is being managed by Information Management Associates. If you have any questions about this survey please contact David Streatfield at Streatfield@blueyonder.co.uk  The surveys can be found at:

• Primary School Libraries
• Secondary, Special, Middle, Independent school Libraries 

A couple of weeks ago (November 30^th- 1st December) I attended an invitation only conference in Wales on the theme of ‘An Information Literacy Strategy for Wales?’  which was held at the attractively situated if geographically inconvenient University of Wales conference centre at Gregynog House.

All LIS sectors and Welsh education were represented and I was particularly impressed by the willingness of all sectors to work together and learn from each other.

The initial presentations were devoted to reviewing the various sectors and the familiar theme emerged of pockets of excellent good practice which were not being supported by an overarching strategy. I spoke about the work of the Scottish Information Literacy Project and the lessons which Wales can learn from it. After dinner there were sectoral discussion groups and I joined the public librarians and was impressed by their grasp of the role which public libraries can play in informal learning and the good work they are already doing.

The following morning Gareth Evans from Caerphilly Public Library spoke about the work he has been doing with the Open College network which could well be replicated elsewhere.

The conference concluded with a list of action points which included:

• The production of an overview/vision statement (urgent)
• The development of a strategy and Framework
• Making cross sectoral/partnership contacts including outside the LIS sector
• Developing a National Forum for Information Literacy in Wales
• Appointing an Information Literacy Development Officer for Wales
• Accrediting library staff information literacy training skills
• Include IL concepts in teacher training
• School librarian posts should be a statutory responsibility
• Pursue media literacy issues through Ofcom

However if these objectives are to be achieved funding will be a key requirement

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. There were a total of 74 responses of which 72 were from the secondary sector – a response rate of 20%.

The survey suggests that the school librarians are tending to concentrate primarily on the Learning Experiences and Outcomes and not the Principle Papers which are said to be “essential reading for staff” and “a range of practitioners” including themselves as the following quote demonstrates.

It is expected that the literacy experiences and outcomes and this accompanying paper [principles and practice], will be read by a range of practitioners, including those who work in school library resource centres, who make an enormous contribution to the literacy skills of children and young people. 

33 respondents (75%) indicated that they had identified ways in which information literacy can be used to achieve or assist achievement of the experiences and outcomes.

26 respondents (53%) replied that they are or have been involved in any piloting activities, created any new activities or updated existing activities based upon the experiences and outcomes.

28 responses were generated to the question of  ‘How can school librarians optimise their efforts to support information literacy and the Curriculum for excellence Experiences and Outcomes locally and nationally?’  The main points which were frequently repeated were: 

• becoming involved in school activities through school committees such as literacy teams,
• getting the support of the head teacher,
• demonstrating an understanding of the aims of CfE,
• supporting cross curricular activities, 
• developing links with primary schools,
• being involved in all discussions and training and in-service opportunities,
• liaising closely with subject departments,
• working with other school library colleagues,
• working with teachers to standardise terminology, 
• promoting a whole school approach
• involving Learning and Teaching Scotland.  

The full results and findings are to be written up for publication including an article for Aslib Proceedings - The Scottish Information Literacy Project and school libraries, John Crawford and Christine Irving to be published in 2010.

Other publications being looked at are those aimed at the profession in Scotland, School Library Association and education publications.

I recently participated in a Round Table discussion on

the growing importance of information literacy to the profession generally and CILIP’s policy and advocacy activities in particular.

The session was very ablly chaired by Biddy Fisher, Vice-President of CILIP and Chair of the Policy Forum.

This was

primarily a scoping exercise to identify the place of information literacy within professional practice and the body of professional knowledge, its potential to be a defining characteristic of the work of the profession and its contribution to society, the implications for the policy development and advocacy activities of CILIP and also to determine recommendations for a future strategy for the profession.

Taking part were representatives from different sectors and CILIP’s Information Literacy Group (they organise LILAC - the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference). The project work is well known thus the invitation to attend and I (unfortunately John was not able to make it) shared our experiences of the work in Scotland – what has worked for us and the importance of advocacy, using your professional and personal contacts (they are after all invaluable sources of information), cross sector working plus working in collaboration with partners. 

The session was recorded and I’m looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the discussion and will share any news with you.

Thanks to Carol Stewart for highlighting an article in TESS -  Zero tolerance on illiteracy  which is about about a new report  - A Vision for Scotland

The new report lays out recommendations on how to become ‘world’s first fully-literate nation’

Scotland can become the world’s first fully-literate nation by declaring zero tolerance on illiteracy according to a “visionary” plan published today.

I’ve still to read the report but if anyone else has read it let me know what you think.

Last month the CILIP’s LIRG (Library and Information Research Group)meeting was held at Loughborough University where  members of the Department of Information Science presented their research.  Of particular interest to project partners in Higher Education /  Academic Librarians is research carried out by Helen Young on Evaluating the impact of Academic Librarians on their user community (that is some of their academic community).

The LIRG committee hope to visit other LIS departments and I’ll let you know of anything of interest that arises.