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Wednesday
Mar252009

Edinburgh Prison Library Service 

For anyone interested in the work Kate King is doing at Edinburgh Prison Libraries Edinburgh City Libraries has a blog called Tales of One City  where progress regarding the prison library service is recorded.

Thanks to Cathy Kearney for this bit of information.


Tuesday
Mar242009

Skills for Scotland: information literacy, libraries and learning

This was the title of a Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Scotland) (CILIPS) conference, held at Glasgow Metropolitan College, on Thursday 19th March and was chaired by Christine and me.  It was inspired by the Skills for Scotland policy document, published in October 2007 and reviewed the role of information literacy in skills development and economic growth.


After an introduction by CILIPS President, Margaret Forrest, Rhona Arthur, Assistant Director of CILIPS/SLIC spoke about a range of initiatives currently ongoing in Scotland (libraries as learning centres, readership development, workforce development and next generation qualifications) plus how information professionals support skills development and the tools we have.  The Scottish Information Literacy project and framework was mentioned by Rhona. She also referred to the credit crunch and that there was an increase in Public Libraries for IT and skills courses and that 45% use libraries for learning, supporting their studies or homework.


She was followed by Peter Godwin, Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Bedfordshire, who overviewed the main issues in IL teaching and talked about various web 2.0 tools and how they can be used to support IL teaching. Joanna Ptolomey, chair of the Scottish Health Information Network, introduced a health literacies theme by speaking about health inequalities, a particularly important theme in Scotland. Good quality patient information, to be effective must avoid ‘healthspeak’ and use clear, simple language.


The last morning speakers were Jenny Foreman and Lesley Thompson, from the Scottish Government Information Service who are among our most active partners. They spoke about the joint work they did with us on the use of information by Scottish Government civil servants and the actions they have taken which include introducing advanced internet searching training and the development of an information literacy strategy for the Scottish Government.


After lunch, Margaret McKay, a JISC e-advisor talked about assistive technologies which can benefit those with disabilities. This presentation has a strong practical focus with ideas which can be implemented across all library sectors.  Andy Jackson, Teaching and Learning Librarian at Dundee University, returned to teaching themes by demonstrating the Cephallonian method of information literacy instruction with the help of the audience and showed the advantages of moving away from the traditional resource based methods of teaching.


After the afternoon break the focus was on public libraries and prison libraries. This included a joint presentation by Liz McPartlin, Community Access Librarian, Stirling Council and Richard Smith, Reader in Residence about a reader in residence scheme at Cornton Vale women’s prison to develop reading amongst the women and their families, promote use of the library and creative reading and create links between the women and community libraries. The reading groups are also used to help prisoners to explore their problems.


Paul McCloskey, Library development Officer SW Neighbourhood with City of Edinburgh Council reported on various outreach activities in Edinburgh including learning programmes, a book bus and the Libraries4U scheme. Kate King (Edinburgh Prison Library Officer and Sighthill Library Bookstart Worker) finished off the joint presentation with an impassioned and enlightening presentation on the impressive new prison library at Saughton in Edinburgh and the amazing work she does there to develop the 1st ever Family Event inside the prison and support prisoners for release. She certainly demonstrated that she was “reaching out to the hardest to reach and are helping them discover something that everyone in this room already knows Libraries Can Change Lives – and reading and books can help!”


It was a most useful day with a cross sectoral audience drawn from most library sectors.  The two presentations on IL training were of particular benefit to those outside the HE sector and the training theme was further explored by Jenny and Lesley while there were two useful presentations on health literacy/assistive technology issues. Other speakers covered the role of the public library in education and training, and its continuing role as an agent of community education and development.  Issues like prison provision, deprivation and exclusion were also covered.


Congratulations to Catherine Kearney, Assistant Director of CILIPS/SLIC and her colleagues for efficiently planning and managing the day.

Monday
Mar232009

Pontificating?  

Forgot this from our report on the trip to Sheffield. Seminar with post graduate students. Thanks to Sheila Webber for the photo - see also Sheila's blog about our visit.

Pontificating Pontificating
Tuesday
Mar172009

Alliance of Sector Skills Councils Employer Conference 

On Monday 16th March I attended the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils Employer Conference held at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh. All sector skills were represented and I joined the Lifelong Learning table. This sector covers community learning, FE/HE, Libraries, archives and information services and work based learning. The morning was taken up with the views of politicians and government agencies. Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning gave a short presentation in which she spoke about the 16+ Learning Choice proposals and then reviewed government actions since the launch of the Skills for Scotland document in October 2007.


This was followed by short presentations by senior staff from the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland and Jobcentre Plus. Points emerging included the need to invest in skills development in times of recession while Mark Batho, of the Scottish Funding Council, raised a lot of interest by calling for the revival of sandwich courses which as well as being beneficial to students create good university links with employers. It might also be an opportunity for students to practise IL skills learned from IL training programmes.


This was followed by a cross party panel of members of the Scottish Parliament although unfortunately there was no one to represent the Scottish National Party.  Most of the time went to answering questions from the floor. There was much discussion about whether skills training should be sector specific or generic although no general view emerged. There was also a feeling that there is an overemphasis on youth training at the expense of older people. I attempted to raise IL within the context of employability skills training but the politicians did not seem very interested.


Rather more productive was the afternoon session at which each skill group had a general discussion. Identifying learning demand and the difficulty employers themselves have in identifying training needs was a key theme echoing the findings of David Gibbons- Wood at Robert Gordon University. Robust, accurate data is needed to plan training.  Currently too much market information is anecdotal. As there seemed to be an interest in information issues I reported on our work with Inverclyde Libraries in incorporating IL training into their employability training programmes.  Overall a useful day and it was helpful to learn something about the problems of particular skill sectors. Having established contact with the Lifelong learning sector I think we are now firmly in their loop. Although the politicians did not seem very interested in IL the Lifelong learning sector clearly is.  Our advocacy policy in general is to target the people who speak to the people who make the decisions and starting off at a technical rather than a political level seems the best way forward.


 

Tuesday
Mar172009

The 'Google generation', the young people who have become so hooked on the web and computer games that they are unable to think, study and concentrate! 

Thanks to Ian McCracken and Philip Graham from Govan High School for alerting me to a Radio 4 interview about the Internet, the Google generation and the rewiring of brains - available until Thurday 19th March 2008 via BBC iPlayer Transcript also available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/7935725.stm  

 The interview is described on the BBC iPlayer as follows:


"Kenan explores the reality behind the stereotype of the 'Google generation', the young people who have become so hooked on the web and computer games that they are unable to think, study and concentrate.



This characterisation is motivated by genuine concerns that heavy use of the internet and computer games are actually rewiring the brains of young people. They are learning and thinking differently to their forebears in a massive technological and social experiment. Kenan investigates these concerns and asks Stephen Fry, among others, whether the rise of the digital generation should be a cause for celebration or concern.

Broadcast on: BBC Radio 4, 8:30pm Thursday 12th March 2009
Duration: 28 minutes
Available until: 9:02pm Thursday 19th March 2009"
 


In addition to Stephen Fry, there are other familiar names like Tara Brazabon interviewed.  


 


As Philip Graham says:"This i-player programme is fascinating. I would recommend that you make some time to listen to it.  It poses a very serious questions about the internet and its resources creating either a very smart generation, a very dumb generation or a generation with a whole new way of using their brains to which we cannot relate.


For my part, I found it quite challenging as I found value in all the arguments. "


 


 

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