LILAC 2009: information literacy: staff development and transition from school to HE

Although Linda Jones and Greta Figgens (University of Portsmouth) 'Destination information!: taking staff on an information literacy journey' was about library staff development some of the resulting activities did include transition for new students to HE.

Destination Information is the name of a successful staff development day held to introduce staff to information literacy (IL) and make them aware of some of the activity around IL - their own role in promoting IL and their own IL skills. The topic used was planning a holiday and the pre-selected teams had to present their plan as a poster and handout, the idea being to replicate the students’ experience. Interestingly the staff did behave like students in the strategies they employed and not those of their profession. The day was very successful  with an increase in the uptake of staff development particularly among the library para-professional staff, some of whom have gone on to be use blogs for their NVQs. They also talked about some initiatives including:

·  a University wide interactive website Prepup (includes: course information; virtual tours; student and tutor videos; useful academic development materials) to engage students pre-entry to the university

· taking part in Freshers Fair using a Pirate theme which attracted students to their stand

· using a specifically designed Fortune Teller (see short video below) to demonstrate how randomly students find information; also did one for staff / lecturers for a teaching and learning event – novel. 

 

 

The wonderful thing is that the staff development event had been inspired by a session at last years LILAC – ‘Information Literacy at the Issue / Service desk’ (Hannah Hauxwell, University of the West of England). This demonstrates what conferences like LILAC are all about sharing good ideas and inspiring people.

Short video of University of Portsmouth's Library Fortune Teller

LILAC 2009 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) Cardiff

I'm amazed how quickly LILAC comes around each year. This year was the 5th and it took place at Cardiff University. As usual there were familar faces like John and I's but this year I noticed that there were quite a few first timers who were enthused about the conference - the keynotes, the parallel sessions, the networking evening at Caerphilly Castle and the conference dinner at the National Museum Cardiff. If that all sounds exhausting then believe me it was. John and I were there to do a presentation at the parallel session (just after the first keynote on the Monday afternoon) - Taking Information Literacy beyound the library. The session went well with 35 people attending and several questions asked at the end with a couple of people seeking us out to discuss specific issues that they wanted advice about including links with schools / transition.

Unfortunately on at the same time was Christopher Walker talking about his PHd research Seeking information: A study of the use and understanding of information by parents and young children. This a really interesting project and an area that hasn't really been looked at. Speaking to Christopher later at the social networking event he updated us on his research which has been completed and he is currently working on his findings. It is just a pity that he got so few people attending his session.

One parallel session that was fully booked was Moira Bent and Elizabeth Stockdale Integrating information literacy as a habit of learning - assessing the impact of a golden thread of IL in the curriculum. Moira is a Faculty Liasion Librarian and Elizabeth is a Lecturer - Environmental Studies at Newcastle University. The golden thread of explicit information literacy skills was introduced, taught, practiced and assessed within Elizabeth's environmental studies programme.  Learning logs (what the students did, what they learnt, what they will do next time) and search strategies were submitted as part of credit baring assessments. Informal reviews of the approaches were also made through conversations with staff and students. Elizabeth shared with us some of the things she had learnt as a lecturer:

• students need encouragement to reflect on skills development


• direct and credit-bearing assesment - if they want to know if they have done stuff I need to assess


• library session - if lecturer goes with students it shows it is valued also they might learnt a thing a two

Moira then shared some of the things she had learnt:

• students benefit from reflecting about their information literacy abilities


• information literacy isn't just for librarians


• we also need to think about teaching habits not just learning habits.

It was really good to see a joint presentation between a librarian and a lecturer and hear their views about information literacy teaching and students. It would be good to see more of this at LILAC.

The presentations should be available from the LILAC 2009 website at some stage.

I will do some more postings about the conference later.