Scottish Government Library Information Literacy newsfeeds

One in four teenage girls are depressed, by their own accounts

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 06:01:00 +0100

...among children in the UK."With a quarter of 14-year-old girls ... young adolescents in the UK today.”Dr Marc Bush, chief policy...

A quarter of all 14-year-old girls are depressed, research shows

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:37:44 +0100

...London) Institute of Education and the University of Liverpool found ... among children in the UK.”With a quarter of 14-year-old girls...

Webinar: Dr Eugene Garfield’s legacy to science and metrics

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 22:24:31 +0100

The webinar is part of London Info International on 5-6 October. For full details and to register for this event please see the London Info International website.

How To Spot Depression In Children: Signs And Symptoms Parents Should...

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 22:01:19 +0100

...the UCL Institute of Education and the University of Liverpool ... cause,” she told HuffPost UK . “Depression can be down to a whole...

Extended Bursary Application Deadline for a place at the PMLG & CDEG Conference 2017: Public Libraries for Social, Digital and Economic Inclusion - Chances for Life

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 19:15:00 +0100

Applications are open for a place at this conference which is being held on Friday 13th October and Saturday 14th October at Yarnfield Park Training and Conference Centre, Yarnfield, Stone, ST15 0NL.

Please email your reasons for applying to karen.berry@talktalk.net in no more than 500 words by 25th of September . To include why you want to apply for the place, we will be looking for applicants who fulfil our social justice ethics. We welcome applications from all group members but encourage new professionals to apply. The place is for a Full delegate which includes the conference for both days, Accommodation on Friday night and the Awards Dinner. There is no travel included to the conference.

Speakers at the conference: Nick Poole CILIP CEO; British Library BIPC’s Nigel Spencer; Liz White, BL Head of Strategy Development and John Vincent of ‘The Network’.

For more information please visit PMLG and CDEG 2017 conference page.

Adding the human touch to digital learning content

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 17:49:11 +0100

Learning is a very human experience. To learn successfully, it requires us as human beings to exchange information, give and receive feedback, share perspectives, engage together in practical activities, support each other through the bad times and get together to celebrate our successes. People need people.

According to Dr John Medina, 'Our ability to learn has deep roots in relationships. Our learning performance may be deeply affected by the emotional environment in which the learning takes place.’ The foundation for a good relationship is a teacher or trainer – or writer of learning content – who is credible with learners. This person needs to be friendly and show respect for learners while at the same time setting high standards and exhibiting confidence in the ability of learners to achieve great things. In short: 'Relationships matter when attempting to teach human beings.’

In an ideal world, we would probably provide personalised support for every learner, but this gets more and more unrealistic as online learning groups get larger. We need to find ways to retain that essential human quality to the learning experience even when we have a great many learners.

One way we can all do that is through the content that we provide to learners – the videos, the podcasts, the self-study materials and the job aids. It is easy to see these as impersonal ‘corporate’ resources but they don’t have to be like that. Content is just another way of connecting ‘teachers’ with ‘learners’.

The best content provides no barrier to this connection. Just like when you read a great book – you’re not interacting with paper, you’re participating in a storytelling experience. That’s why videos are so popular in online courses – they provide that all too important ‘teacher presence’. But interactive content and reference materials can achieve similar results.

Professor Richard Mayer’s 'personalisation principle’ holds that you will achieve better results with multimedia learning content when you adopt a friendly, conversational tone, a phenomenon which he attributes to the fact that this more closely resembles a person-to-person interaction. Text that uses a formal, impersonal, third-person style tends to make the author seem invisible, whereas the use of first-person narrative makes each student feel as through the teacher is communicating directly with them.

Learning designer Cathy Moore has long railed against what she calls ‘corporate drone’, a formalised style used often in workplace learning materials, which comes over as impersonal, lacking in authenticity and un-engaging. Like Richard Mayer, she argues that when you write learning content in a conversational style, there is a greater chance that the learner will react to the content as they would to a real teacher; in effect, the teacher communicates to them personally through the medium of the computer, much as they would face-to-face or through the pages of a book.

Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves argue that our interactions with computers are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life. We respond emotionally to the human characteristics exhibited by on-screen text and voiceover. Even though we know very well at an intellectual level that we are only interacting with software and not directly with a real person, emotionally it matters to us whether the software communicates with us in a polite and friendly manner. Similarly, Mayer found that people learn better from a human voiceover, rather than one synthesised by a computer, further emphasising our desire for a more human relationship with our virtual teacher.

With the increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI), we might be led to believe that the human touch is becoming less of a necessity but the only difference with AI is that we don’t have as great a need for real, human teachers to give their time to individual students. The tone adopted by an AI environment still needs to be friendly and encouraging and, of course, every phrase employed by an AI interface has been input at some point by a real person. He or she would be well advised to remember that learners want to be treated with humanity.

Reducing Inequalities And The Failure Of Identity Politics

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 17:43:00 +0100

...United Kingdom). In the UK we see huge inequalities of many types...

Information literacy for Masters dissertation students: Pam live blogs from #ECIL2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:28:29 +0100

Next Kristine Stewart spoke about a project at Kings College to develop IL for masters dissertation students. These students are form a diverse range of international backgrounds, and may lack IL, it is difficult to know what level of IL students have. Continuous reflective activities are seen as one way to develop IL. Students are encouraged to relate their dissertation topic to the prior areas of study in the department. An initial dissertation proposal allows supervisors to be assigned and gives them an idea of the students level of topic knowledge, and their information seeking ability. Further support is then offered for search strategies, and sources and writing strategies are also discussed. Masters students, as researchers have a role as information creators when doing their dissertation. Dissertation advisors engage in reflective teaching practice in advice sessions, and this empowers students to engage in research.

threshold concepts in IL professional education: Pam liveblogs from #ECIL2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:27:21 +0100

Virginia Tucker from San Jose State University presented first after the coffee break on her research into threshold concepts in IL professional education. Information literacy professionals undertake a variety of roles such as teaching, mentoring, facilitating the information experience of others. Virginia cited the Information experience book, and introduced the idea of "threshold concepts" for learning. She stated that it's pretty hard for a concept to qualify as "threshold", it must be transformative counterintuitive, troublesome, integrative, irreversible and bounded. Threshold concepts can be used in curriculum design, but one must consider the sequencing of the content, the learning processes, and how learners and educators recognise that a threshold concept has been internalised (I.e. through assessment). Curriculums need to shift from being skillls based to being concepts based. The department that Virginia teaches in is wholly online, where the role of the instructor is to "participate and provoke in creative and playful ways". Students work frequently in groups, and students from different time zones can struggle with scheduling. Online discussions are reflective, and evalauative. Discussions are problem solving, and involve peer testing of databases that students have created. It was really interesting to hear how Virginia manages and facilitates group work for distance learning students.

CILIP East Student Bursary 2017-18

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:03:00 +0100

CILIP East are offering a bursary of up to £200 towards the cost of studying an LIS degree course in 2017/18.

The bursary can be used towards the cost of course fees, travel, books and/or dependent care as long as these expenses fall within the scope of CILIP’s Expenses Policy and comply with the terms and conditions of the CILIP East Small Grants Fund. You must be a current member of the CILIP East Member Network to apply.

Applications are open now. To apply, please complete and submit this form by 5pm on Friday 13 October 2017.

The recipient will be required to reflect on and share their learning from the first term/semester of their course by writing an article for our newsletter, Sunrise, or the CILIP East blog.

Health literacy education of women in an urban slum: Sheila blogs from #ecil2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 15:01:31 +0100

Allison Frances Wren presented a paper (coauthored with Priyanka Idicula, Amy Davies, Rob Davies) on The Impact of Health Literacy Education on Womens’ Perceptions and Understanding of Maternal Health in a Kochi Urban Slum at European Conference on Information Literacy. The speaker was presenting results of the initial phase of a project (funded by Hardie Wren), and the first pahse was finding out about the women and their lives. Data was collected about various beliefs, behaviours and things such as income. For example, as regards menstruation, many of them said that mothers would not talk to their daughters about this, and in many ways it was seen as unclean. 80% said that they had heard of contraception, but did not use it (this could be connected with a former forced contraception programme).The slide shown above means that there were good signs/practice in terms of diet, avoiding smoking and alcohol, education and breastfeeding (but not so much with the things listed on the right).
The next phases involves health clinics and monthly classes: this is underway. Barriers to participation include "slum wars" (not attending events in other districts). It was emphasised how understanding the context was vital.
,

Information safety and citizen science: Sheila liveblogs from #ecil2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:43:39 +0100

Another presentation at the European Conference on Information Literacy is Integrating Citizen Science Elements into the Information Safety Lessons from Kristýna Kalmárová. She started by identifying the need for information safety education, and then talked about different ways to define and categorise citizen science. A lesson plan was drawn up so learner-citizens could understand basic concepts of information safety and apply them in their own lives, and their final goal was to gain some basic methodological literacy competences. The plan is four 4 hours, in a space that has computers and it is designed for small groups of citizens, to be implemented in public libraries.
The 1st lesson includes a pretest and introduction to research theory. The second has analysis of questionnaires (that have been completed by other library users, about information safety) and recording results. The third lesson is analysis and interpretation of results. Finally, there is a post test and discussion about their own choices and behaviour.
So, for example, the goal of lesson 3 is to understand the processes behind drawing conclusions from data, and assess their own ideas from a researcher perspective. By this means, the speaker hopes to engage higher cognitive processes - understanding and critiquing, not just rote learning and remembering. This class is about to be prototyped.
This reminds me of an exercise I used to do in an undergraduate research methods class, where students proposed questions about students' information behaviour, filled in a questionnaire compiled from the questions (before the class) and then analysed the questionnaire in groups the following week. This also could lead to discussion about their own information behaviour. I think it is a nice idea to use this in a wider citizenship context.
Photo by Sheila Webber, Saint-Malo, Sept 2017

First session after lunch at #ECIL2017: Pam liveblogs

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:33:43 +0100

Charlie Inskip from the department of information studies at UCL was the first speaker after lunch and presented his research project "on the move", funded by the CILIP information literacy group. The agenda in U.K. HE is increasingly concerned with employability and digital literacy. Information literacy is well understood in the HE context, but is less well understood in the workplace. The context of this research is the financial sector, as this is the number one destination for UCL graduates. They conducted 18 interviews at an insurance firm in the city of London, and 2 focus groups. Five interviews and one focus group were also conducted with students. Marc Forster's themes of expanding awareness were used to analyse the data. The results showed that students and insurance workers had different language to talk about information literacy. More specific technical terminology was used by insurance workers. Statements were created that were mapped against each of Marc Forsters 7 themes, and an online resource was created.

Joyce Kinyanjui from the University of Zululand spoke about financial literacy of female entrepreneurs in Kenya. 81 million USD were lost on pyramid schemes in Kenya, primarily by women, raising concerns about the level of financial literacy in the population. Female economic empowerment is linked to functional, financial and information literacy. 25% of working age women are illiterate. The study used a mixed methods approach, with a sample of women's entrepreneur groups. The results showed that information seeking behaviour before taking out a loan was not good, they didn't shop around for loans. Only 20% felt in control of their financial status, and only 30% had a written record of their expenses. There was a link between checking statements and level of comfort with their debt, and regularly checking these is an important indicator of financial literacy. Being in control of the family finances empowers women economically.

Angela Repanovici from Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania spoke about an international project to modernise academic library services in Moldova. They identified different needs for IL at different levels of study, but also in terms of life after university in the workplace. Masters graduates were invited to take part in an information literacy survey about their IL skills and the support available for entrepreneurship. 119 responses were received from graduates who were either working for an organisation or who had set up their own business. The results showed that respondents were heavy users of professional information for their field, and the majority of respondents thought that the library had contributed to the development of critical analysis of information. About half respondents though that their university had made information about financial sources for entrepreneurs available. Most respondents thought that the development of professional competence was up to the individual. The results can be a starting point for the development of joint employer-university courses to buil IL.

In the final presentation in this session, Gunilla Widen and Muhaimin Karin from Abo AkademiUniversity in Finland presented on the role of information culture in workplace information literacy. There is growing awareness that IL in the workplace is not just a set of skills, it is highly contextual and dependent on the information culture of the organisation. A literature review was conducted to examine information literacy and information culture in the workplace. 23 journal papers were extracted, and 18 were reviewed as containing a focus of IL and information culture. The review found that Information culture is heavily influenced by leadership style, institutional regulation and information politics. Factors such as mission, employee behaviour also affect it. Information culture affects the adoption of new ICT systems, it is not just about the capabilities of the technology itself. Information usage in the workplace is often about social interaction, and it is important to have a transparent, open and positive environment towards information and knowledge.

Senior Citizens Science Literacy and Health Self-Efficacy : Sheila liveblogs from #ecil2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:22:54 +0100

I'm in a session on science literacy at the European Conference on Information Literacy, and Ágústa Pálsdóttir is talking on Senior Citizens Science Literacy and Health Self-Efficacy.
She noted that with the growth in the proportion of older people, it was important for them to be engaged in health promotion interventions. Understanding scientific communications about health is an intrinsic part of this.
The speaker proposed the concept of Media and Health Information Literacy (to include health literacy) and science literacy. The aim of the study she was talking about was to examine the self-efficacy of people aged 60 plus (divided into 60-67 and 68 plus). The study asked how seniors perceive their health self-efficacy, how this self-efficacy rating related to age, gender and education. Out of a larger random sample, 176 were 60 and older. The Perceived health self-confidence scale was used (possibly the one described in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10150421). The results showed that the seniors had good confidence in the health self-efficacy. There was some difference by education (people with lower educational levels having less confidence) particularly in the younger group. This has implications for health education.

Briggs Washington Bursary Award for Internet Librarian International 2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:46:00 +0100

Congratulations to Robert Mizzi, winner of the Commercial, Legal and Scientific Information Group (CLSIG) bursary place for the Internet Librarian International 2017.

Robert is an alumni of the Department of Information Studies at Aberystwyth University, and is currently employed as Manager Knowledge Services at GANADO Advocates in Malta where he is in charge of library services, the archives and promoting knowledge management. He has been a visiting lecturer with the Department of Library, Information and Archives Studies at the University of Malta for the past 12 years where he lectures on principles of classification and subject indexing, and also information literacy. More recently he has also started lecturing on knowledge management and the role of libraries. For many years, Robert was actively involved in the running of the Malta Libraries and Information Association (MaLIA), and was also the first appointed chairperson of the Malta Libraries Council in 2011.

* * *
The conference is still available to book, and potential attendees can take advantage group rates for multiple delegates from the same organisation. This year's ILI conference includes keynote talks on communicating value and transformation for success on day one, and the role libraries can play in countering the ‘think-less find-more’ mentality on day two. There are also many parallel streams including talks focusing on new professionals, user interfaces, content design, marketing and scholarly communication. More information can be found at http://www.internet-librarian.com/2017/default.aspx

Using a brain booth to promote metacognition: Sheila liveblogs from #ecil2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:26:24 +0100

At the end of the session in which Pam and we're presenting at the I were presenting at the European Conference on Information Literacy , Katia Karadjova (coauthor Marissa Mourer) presented on Dare to share the silence: tools and practices of contemplative pedagogy in a library brain booth. She was reporting on a project at Humboldt State University. The idea of the library brain booth was to introduce mindfulness, and promote metacognition. Students are encouraged to think about the impact of taking a brain break on their academic performance and life: emotional self-regulation and singular thoughtful focus are the other aspects of mindfulness that were mentioned.
The first tool was guided meditation (in a booth with a cd), a second used a biofeedback machine (with the idea of aiming to become calm, as registered on the machine), then there was sound-relaxation, colour relaxation (that is, doing colouring) and light-relaxation (to counter lack of sunlight) . There was also virtual reality immersion, with 2 headsets for iPhones and android. Another tool was a sheet on which people could express gratitude to someone in their lives. Fitdesks were available. Finally, there was also a collection of books etc. related to this topic.
The investigation was esssentially into whether there was interest in such tools and activities. Two different rooms/setups were used, to see which was more effective. A lib guide was produced, which gained over 1000 views. 240 different people came to the brain booth, some several times, in 10 weeks. Following this initial semester, the brain booth was treated as a pop up initiative, for example around exam time. People were able to fill in comment cards, and all these were positive. There were also observations by the authors of the presentation, which identified that some tools were more effective than others e.g. people seemed to get distracted when doing colouring. Therefore they are identifying the best combinations of technology and tools.

The speakers “showed an existing gap between engagement with digital tools centred on contemplative pedagogy and in person faculty participation”. They felt there was scope for using these techniques more in library/ academic work. In answer to a question, the speaker said that they are talking to faculty about embedding the brain booth into subject classes.

Pre-lunch session @ #ECIL2017 Pam liveblogs

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:59:56 +0100

Pavla Kovarova spoke about information behaviour and e-safety of primary school children in the Czech Republic. Previous research has shown that children download illegal and inappropriate content. They struggle to evaluate quality of material. There are issues to do with the sharing of personal information with many children having public profile information and getting involved in sexting activities. They engage in more risky online behaviours than the EU average. There is not much time given in the primary school curriculum to discuss issues of e-safety and information literacy. Pavla developed a series of lessons for primary school children based learning n constructivist theories, so student-centred,problem based and involvingactive and cooperative learning. The classes are 90 minutes long but don't actually involve use of computers, the focus is more on safety. The research methods were observation (59 classes, 1398 children), children's evaluations, 360 degree feedback, focus groups with teachers and pre- and post- tests for children. 5 schools and 2 libraries took part in the study.

children in lower grades were happier with the sessions. Less traditional and more active teaching styles got better feedback from both children and teachers. There was a wide range of expertise and experience of using the internet in the children.

Anna Mierzecka spoke about school librarians attitudes to teaching information literacy. This reseRch project was undertaken in collaboration between Warsaw university and researchers in Lithuania. The literature says that school librarians take on a number of roles in their institutions, but there is lack of awareness of the school librarian as an IL educator. Several studies highlighted how emotions and lack of self esteem affect librarians' teaching. A web survey was developed aimed at librarians from the 250 best secondary schools in Lithuania and Poland (500 school in total). Response rate was 45%, 143 responses from Lithunania and 87 from Poland. The majority of respondents were experienced librarians. There were big differences in how librarians from the 2 countries taught IL. The big six model was used to ask librarians what aspects of IL they taught. The study examined librarians emotional motivation for their teaching role, and generally respondents were really positive about their roles, and were also positive about their development in the future. People considered their role important, and that they made a difference in the world.

Clickbait and impact: how academia has been hacked

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:00:19 +0100

It has become increasingly clear that prevailing academic incentive structures have a potentially damaging and distorting effect on the nature of academic debates. Portia Roelofs and Max Gallien use the example of a controversial recent journal publication to illustrate how deliberately provocative articles have the capacity to hack academia, to privilege clicks and attention over rigour in research. This is […]

First set of parallel sessions Tuesday @ #ECIL2017: Pam liveblogs

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 10:08:43 +0100

Monica Krakowska gave a presentation about the use of information grounds theory used to understand the information literacy of new undergraduate information management students. Information grounds theory makes it possible to understand information activities and to investigate their emotional response to information use and sharing. 95 first year undergraduate information management students at Jagiellonan University took part in the research in 2016-2017. Student writing created during face to face sessions were used as the data for the research, and were examined for evidence of information grounds. The data revealed that students identified places as information grounds where people make ad hoc information exchanges. The writing was quite impersonal, probably because it was created quickly for a class assignment. It was noticed that students create information grounds at the university. A problem with the res arch was that students often wrote about the examples they were given in the lecture, rather than thinking of their own examples.

Next, Vajeran Buselic spoke about graduate employability using and information literacy quest at Croatian Universities. In Croatia graduate unemployment is very high. Employers recognise the value of IL and critical thinking but lack awareness of the terminology. A web of science search for "information literacy" and "employability" found only 15 results. There seems to be a disconnect between information literacy researchers and authors, and employability researchers and authors. Citespace was used to visually map citations for information literacy and employability.

Meet the CILIP IL Group Committee: Abi Ward

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:42:17 +0100

What is your role on the committee? I am currently the Member Relationship Officer on the Information Literacy Group Committee. When did you join and why? I joined in August 2017 to build on my interest in information literacy and information skills teaching across the LIS sector. Having recently returned to libraries after four years of being a mum and […]

Primary School Pupils Getting Less Than Two Hours Science A Week...

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:12:48 +0100

Many UK primary schools are teaching science for ... of two hours science education a week.The figures are based on two...

30 Day Learning Challenges now available as Taskbooks to download

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:12:24 +0100

It is up to everyone to take responsibility for their own self-improvement and self-development in the modern workplace. It is said that it takes 30 days to establish a new habit, so the 30 Day Learning Challenges are intended to help you kick-start modern learning habits that will last a lifetime. Each …

Stephane Goldstein: information literacy and the future of work : Pam blogs from #ECIL2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 08:59:59 +0100

Stephane is the director of Informall which is concerned with promoting Information literacy in the workplace and in other contexts. Past science fiction authors have imagined a dystopian and hyper industrial future world of work, but this hasn't and probably wont come to pass. Stephane introduced some long term workplace trends, for example a trend for less hierarchical organisational structures, that work is becoming less routine and there is an increase in project work, meaning more collaborative and team work. Stephane introduced some emerging characteristics of work, including less security, more entrepreneurial, fragmented in terms of task and space, more working from home and automated or at risk of automation.

A more optimistic vision of the future is that the workforce will be "ageless", "mindful", "intuitive" and "collaborative". Another vision of the future is that it is a "lattice" rather than a "ladder" model of career progression, meaning that workplaces are more inclusive and collaborative. Going hand in hand with this vision is the idea that the workplace is characterised by widespread knowledge and information sharing. However these rather rosy view of the modern workplace ignore the fact that there are workers such as cleaners, catering staff, security personnel etc who are on the margins of the organisation - what can information literacy do for them? There is a risk of digital and information exclusions for this type of worker. Stephane reflected on the rise of the gig economy, and how this is positive in flexibility, but negative in terms of job security and exploitation. There is a rise in the availability of the "human cloud", platforms and services that allow individuals to bid for work internationally. This could encourage entrepreneurship, but also it could encourage the emergence of a new "precariat", a class of people with no job security, job stability or career progression. Stephane asks "what can information literacy do for this kind of worker?"

Information literacy could apply to the defence of employment rights for gig economy workers, e.g. recent legal challenges posed by workers at Deliveroo. more and more data is being gathered about work behaviour, and new technologies enable employers to monitor their employees, and this raises concerns about intrusiveness, control, autonomy and data protection. This actually reminded me of a keynote presentation at the lilac conference in 2015 by Julia Jones on trade unions and information literacy It is important to look at information literacy in the light of ethics relating to the uses of big data.

Information literacy has a place in retraining the evolving workforce, and in thinking about how IL related to lifelong learning, and in helping individuals navigate more complex career pathways. IL can help people adapt to the rapidly changing workplace.

Information Literacy and the Future of Work: Sheila liveblogs from #ecil2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 08:53:37 +0100

Stéphane Goldstein started the second day of the European Conference on Information Literacy with his invited talk on Information Literacy and the Future of Work. He said that he would concentrate in looking at the future of work and the implications for information literacy. He started by talking about speculative fiction, such as 1984, which tended to project dystopian views of the future. Goldstein contrastred this with the "current future of work" with Uber, Taskrabbit and so forth.
He identified some long time trends such as flatter organisational structures, less "routine" types of work, and increase in project work (apparently increased "40 fold over 20 years"). Goldstein drew on a framework of digital literacy (from Helen Beetham) to pose some future characteristics of work e.g. less secure, more fragmented, automated, "dislocated from traditional workplaces". This was complemented by a quotation from a UK skills report which emphasised workforce resilience, teamworking, self-management etc. It also fitted in with what Goldstein characterised as a "rosy" view" of the workforce as ageless (meaning, you can work as long as you like without discrimination), mindful, collaborative and intuitive. There was also the idea of the workplace as a "lattice" rather than a "ladder", which implies information sharing, awareness of information, information resilience to find your zigzag way in progressing your career.
However, this did seem to leave the people with service roles, like cleaners, security employees, catering staff, who might not be able to progress through the lattice. Goldstein asked whether they would also be part of an organisation's information culture, and who attended to their information needs and information literacy.He felt that looking at exclusion in workplace settings was a task for information literacy research.
There was also the issue of "flexibility" in working (part-time, temporary, ad-hoc jobs), which may be presented as offering choice, but can also provide pressures, loss of benefits and exclusion. Goldstein noted the "rise of the human cloud" with online platforms that enable people wanting services to be matched with those providing them. This could be seen as global entrepreneurial freedom, or a way of mass exploitation those with less power. From this: what are the information needs of these people, and how can the idea of collaborative information use and sharing be squared with this more precarious and isolated way of working.
Goldstein noted the actions brought be workers and trade unions against operators of these kinds of services (e.g. Deliveroo, Uber). How might information literacy contribute to industrial relations and workers rights in this context? On the same theme, since a growing number of people work from home, or as part of this casualised economy, the "workplace" is no longer necessarily the old stable workplace.
This workplace was also becoming increasingly one where employees are monitored (e.g. through quantified self, for example) and not just output, but also behaviour and attitude are monitored and measured. This raised a whole raft of ethical concerns, which could or should become the focus of information literacy.
Touching on the rise of automation, for example, there could was now automatic extraction of material from a larger text which provided acceptable summaries aimed at different audiences (I remembered that Sheila McNeil blogged about one of these apps here). One then had to ask what activities and tasks were left for human beings (this could be creativity, personal interaction, networking...)
Goldstein finally asked how infolit could address both the threats and the opportunities of the future of work. He stressed that it was important to look at both, and not just the opportunities. There was a research agenda for information literacy, and also implications for information literacy practice.
Some interesting points were raised afterwards, including: the issue of modern slavery (people fruit picking, cleaning etc.) and information literacy.

Re: Amazing spaces: using library design to enhance organisational goals and user satisfaction ALISS conference - papers now available

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 08:34:29 +0100

If you are amazed by the amount of new students registering this week. Get some inspiration from the papers from the recent oALISS one day conference.
We have now added the details from the Wellcome reading room to inspire and uplift you!
Regards
Heather Dawson
h.dawson@lse.ac.uk<mailto:h.dawson@lse.ac.uk>

Amazing spaces: using library design to enhance organisational goals and user satisfaction
ALISS conference 22nd August 2017
https://alissnet.com/amazing-spaces-using-library-design-to-enhance-organisational-goals-and-user-satisfaction/
we are adding the papers to our website. [...]

New Zealand's general election: all you need to know

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 05:28:08 +0100

...prime ministers - the UK’s Tony Blair and New Zealand’s Helen Clark ... years of free tertiary education, as well as boosting student...

UKeIG Professional Development update: Book now to avoid disappointment

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 22:37:52 +0100

UKeIG is offering two new courses as part of its CPD autumn programme:
Digital literacy in the workplace - Nov 15 and Open Access, Open Monographs, Open Data, Open Peer Review: Overview of a Disruptive Technology - Nov 21

Digital literacy in the workplace - Nov 15
Open Access, Open Monographs, Open Data, Open Peer Review: Overview of a Disruptive Technology with David Ball - Nov 21

For a full listing of CPD opportunities, visit our Professional Development page.

Related knowledge and skills

Children's Literacy is Important, but what about Adult Reading Literacy? Vlasta Zabukovec, Polona Vilar: Pam blogs from #ECIL2017

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 17:34:25 +0100

This research project aimed to understand the relationship between reading literacy and information literacy. An online survey was distributed via snowball sampling. There was a high correlation between past and present experiences of reading. Respondents were most likely to read alone rather than with a parent. Many people visited the library often or regularly and 96% agreed that family literacy is important. One fifth of parents bought enormous amounts of books. Librarians and teachers promoted reading in primary school. Most respondents thought that reading literacy is the ability to read, to receive information, express as thoughts and ability write. Structured activities were recommended for children to develop reading literacy. 3 central factors were indicated as influencing reading literacy: personal motivation, social support and technical aspects e.g. Use of a computer and internet searching. People were asked what texts they preferred to read, and surprisingly they preferred internet texts over printed texts. The conclusions of the project include that family reading should be supported, and that technical support is needed.

Required Skills for Teachers: Information Literacy at the Top Tatiana Sanches: Pam blogs from #ECIL2017

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 17:09:04 +0100

With changes in teaching practice and new learning technologies, there are changing competencies required by teachers, and hence there have to be changes in teacher education. Students have to be prepared to be lifelong learners, have to be able to work collaboratively have to be able to learn Ina technology rich landscape. Information literacy is essential to this process. Several countries already include IL in pre-service education for teachers. This study took place at the university of Lisbon in Portugal. The ALA and UNESCO provided guiding documents for teacher training in information literacy. Training sessions carried out in 2016-17 were evaluated. There was a high degree of satisfaction with the workshops, which were highly personalised.

Social Media and Information Literacy: Investigating the Perceptions of Undergraduate Students: Pam blogs from # ECIL2017

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 16:51:33 +0100

This session reported on a small study that took place in the sultanate of Oman at Sultan Qaboos university, where approximately 16,000 students are enrolled. The study aimed to investigate the extent to which UG students have the ability to deal with information flows through social media. The researchers were interested in the extent to which students used social media for academic purposes. 2000 students were surveyed with a print questionnaire and 1142 valid responses were collected.

The majority of respondents described their IT skills as "intermediate" and smart phones were the most popular devices. About half had attended a library information literacy session

Students reported that they did seek to evaluate information sourced from social media before they used it. They felt they could distinguish between fact and rumour. Student had reported a strong understanding of information ethics, and understood the need to cite sources. There was some understanding of copyright and other legal issues. There was a good understanding of the risks in sharing personal images on social media. Further qualitative research is planned.