LILAC 2014 presentations - Thursday 24th April

In addition to presenting at LILAC I attended other parallel sessions on the Thursday. I also tweeted at the sessions and or retweeted others. The Twitter feed was #lilac2014 -it is worth a look. 

As usual I picked sessions that were not mainstream for LILAC - these were:

From local to global: sharing good practice in information literacy - the session discussed recent initiatives to facilitate the sharing of information literacy teaching materials as open educational resources both in the UK between librarians from all sectors and internationally. Not surprisingly there is a 'small group of people sharing' and a larger number viewing. This reflects email discussion lists and our own community of practice and the handful of people who blog. What's happening with the professional voicer online? 

I was interested to hear that the CILIP IL subgroup that aims to support and encourage the development and sharing of information literacy teaching materials as open educational resources is looking at creating a website for their Community of Practice. The group discussion about why people are or are not sharing was similar to a discussion I had held at an EU workshop earlier in the year. Similar reasons given. 

Dialogism, Mikhail Bakhtin and information literacy

Drew (Andrew) Whitworth's presentation was a theoretical look at IL where he looked at 'new theories of IL and discussed implications for practice'. Whilst some of the articles he spoke about were new to me - many of his implications for practice were not as I and John Crawford have been saying this for years based on our research and experience e.g.

• IL is for all it can be taught anywhere workplace
• Don't just look for IL as the library defines it.

He has a new book coming out 'Radical Information Literacy' it is a Chandos Publication.

Embedded information literacy in the 21st century curriculum

Good to see a school librarian Darren Flynn, Dixons Allerton Academy presenting at LILAC. I was interested to hear that the library has the 'largest teaching space in the school'. Other aspects were familiar issues such as 'pupils need to be more independent learners', linking IL to the curriculum, 'project based learning where pupils have to come up with their own driving question'.  

LILAC 2014 Presentation - Developing and running a National Information Literacy Community of Practice on a shoestring

Christine Irving, LILAC 2014

I attended LILAC  2014 last week.

My presentation 'Developing and running a National Information Literacy Community of Practice on a shoestring' 

The presentation looked at the achievements (including sharing practice, presentation to a Scottish Parliament Committee, and supporting a National Library/primary school project) and lessons learned from the Scottish Information Literacy project; what a community of practice is; what the online information literacy community of practice: Information Skills for a 21st century Scotland looks like and reflects on what has been achieved to date by this community of practice with no budget or funding but through the generosity of people and organisations’ time and commitment to the community; the benefits of a community of practice; what has worked and what hasn’t; lessons learned and the challenges it faces. 

The abstract is available on the LILAC 2014 programme website and I plan to write an article for the Journal of Information Literacy. 

Thanks to those that attended and contributed to the discussion. 

IL Umbrella 2013 presentations

I didn't manage to attend Umbrella but looking at the IL presentations on the website it is great to see some from different aspects as listed below including one from Bill Johnston's who is a member of the Scottish Community of Practice:

• Helping citizens develop their own information literacy curriculum for lifelong learning Sheila Webber, Senior Lecturer, Information School, University of Sheffield & Bill Johnston, Honorary Research Fellow, Strathclyde University, Scotland  
• Information counselling: helping communities visualise and optimise their informational environments Andrew Whitworth, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
• Championing Information Literacy to the Royal Navy  Peter Barr, College Librarian, Britannia Royal Naval College
• Using Twitter to create an interactive information literacy lecture  Suzanne Tatham, Teaching & Learning Support Librarian, University of Sussex  
• Are librarians delivering good practice in information literacy for postgraduates in UK Higher Education? Charlie Inskip, Project Officer, Research Information Network / SCONUL  
• Legal Information Literacy Statement Emily Allbon, Law Librarian, City University London
• A critical approach to information literacy  Lauren Smith, PhD Research Student, The University of Strathclyde  
• Information prescriptions: personalised information through libraries and information services Ruth Carlyle, Acting Head of Information, Financial & Work Support / Information & Support Policy Lead, Macmillan Cancer Support

Other presentations can be accessed from the Umbrella 2013 presentations website