CILIPS Discovery Day: Putting Research into Practice

I've been working with CILIP in Scotland on a new event which focuses on various research projects and look at how the results and findings  can be applied by delegates in their day jobs.  Covering a range of topics it will inform advocacy,  good practice and improve the links between academic practice and the day to day challenges professionals face.

It showcases research carried out by the Information Science departments in 4  of Scotland’s universities (Glasgow, Napier, Strathclyde and Robert Gordon). It also looks at CILIP's new PKSB (Professional Knowledge and Skills Base) and LIRG's (Library and Information Group) activities. 

For those intereted in information literacy there are a couple of information literacy research activities that may interest the community of practice. These are:

• The applicability of The SCONUL 7 Pillars Information Literacy to business environments
• Democratic engagement and young people - critical information literacy

For more information see http://www.cilips.org.uk/cilips-discovery-day/

Booking is now open but places are limited so move fast!

I'm chairing the day so hope to see you there.

Achtung Informatization! The Information Society and its Challenges

Achtung Informatization! The Information Society and its Challenges

Professor Alistair Duff
Faculty of Engineering, Computing & Creative Industries

We find ourselves in an Information Age. A dynamic, disruptive force of informatization is changing the way we live and propelling us headlong into an information society. That much is obvious, but we don’t necessarily grasp its principles properly and aren’t always making the right decisions about it.

In this lecture, Alistair Duff will look back at the origins of the Information Age, and then forward at some of the main challenges that are emerging. The information society presents us with numerous policy challenges, and Alistair's focus will be on three: information poverty, individual privacy, and the future of the Fourth Estate.

The lecture will report recent fieldwork among homeless, information-deprived men in Edinburgh, the hidden casualties of informational capitalism. It will then address another huge information issue: the threat to privacy. President Obama calls us the Facebook Generation, but social networks and other, more sinister, trends are leading to a breakdown in privacy norms. Is there now a genuine danger of technocracy, even totalitarianism? Read more...

The lecture will be followed by a networking drinks reception.

Thursday 27 March 2014
6pm - 7pm
The Lindsay Stewart Lecture Theatre
Craiglockhart Campus

RSVP
The lecture is free but please register your attendance to lectures@napier.ac.uk.

CILIPS East Branch: Information Literacy Part One

John speaking at CILIPS East Branch IL eventThanks to CILIPS East Branch for the invitation to speak on Thursday afternoon at the National Library of Scotland. The session was well attended and the presentations went well. John kicked off the session with his presentation An information literacy policy for Scotland?

I followed with a presentation about the Community of Practice (CoP) - it was meant to be an online demo but unfortunately the Internet comection was not available. Fortunately I had prepared a presentation with some screen shots as a back up. The screen shots didn't come out very clear when they were blown up on the screen (note to self to remember this for future presentations). 

Sean McNamara, CILIPS Policy & Digital Officer, CILIPS then talked about CILIP, CILIPS and the Information Literate Professional concluding with a panel discussion. The panel discussion generated some discussion about teachers and their information literacy skills/competences  and getting IL as part of teacher training. This has always been a hard nut to crack - but there are people out there trying to work on this including Audrey Sutton (North Ayrshire Council).   

Thanks to everyone that attended it was good to see some familiar faces and to meet some new ones including the CoP 100th member Fiona Soutar. Fiona is currently a Community Librarian at Perth and Kinross Council who is moving to a new role as Information Librarian. Fiona was with her colleague Lesley Paul. Fiona and Lesley will job share this new role. Look out for blog posts from Fiona about the work they are doing.

Thanks to Julie Sutherland for the photos and everyone who following the meeting:

• joined the Community of Practice we now have 107 members
  
• are now following me on Twitter
  
• are spreading the word.
  

It is much appreciated.

Christine

The Right Information - Information Skills for a 21st Century Scotland welcomes its 100th member

The Community of Practice now has 100 members signed up through the website www.therightinformation.org/

It is great to see members joining the community and even more so when they:

• Share practice, expertise and thoughts. 

• Contribute to the communities’ knowledge of information literacy activities, case studies, news, conferences and events, new research, discussions etc. 

Thanks to all our members for your support and contributions.

The Use of Graphic Novels in Information Literacy Instruction

I've been following the discussions about Teaching Information literacy through comics on the LinkedIn Group Library and Information Research Methods

It's been an interesting discussion and Ryan Scicluna Library Assistant at the University of Malta who posted a message saying

Hi, does anyone know of any good reference articles about information literacy and graphic novels? I am working on an assignment about using comics to teach information literacy for my DLIS. Thanks

He has now published an article 'The Use of Graphic Novels in Information Literacy Instruction' It is a really interesting article and adds to discourse on information literacy and that information comes in more formats than text / the written word it also comes in pictures, graphics and images.

The article has several sections including:

• Definition of a graphic novel
• Why is it important to be information literate?
• How do graphic novels help?
• Projects and examples of how comics can teach Information literacy skills
• The local scene and how it can be improved

Food for thought!

I was interested to hear that 'The University of Dundee, Scotland, offers a unique MLitt in Comics Studies and students can pursue their studies further after completion of the Master with a PhD in comics studies'.