Journal of Information Literacy - Winter 2009 issue

The Winter issue 2009 of the Journal of Information Literacy  has been published.

Of particular interest is the Editorial by Susie Andretta   The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle. (1-5) 

The collection of papers presented in this issue positions information literacy in diverse contexts, implying that this phenomenon has finally permeated our social, educational and professional consciousness. This is in line with Catts and Lau’s claim that information literacy "needs to be considered not only in relation to education, but also in the broader context of work, civil society, and health and well being" (Catts and Lau 2008, p. 9). The diverse interpretations of information literacy presented in this issue are illustrated by a visual metaphor which has inspired the title of this editorial 'The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle’. Each facet of information literacy corresponds to one of the colours of the Rubik cube1.

This multifaceted aspect of IL is something that John and I have spoken about over the years as a result of our experiences and knowledge plus project / research work.

Of the articles within the issue three are written by known associates including:

project partners Jenny & Lesley

• Jenny Foreman, Lesley Thomson Government Information Literacy in the "century of information"  (64-72)

Audrey Marshall (John and I were external advisers on the net.weight project at Brighton)

• Audrey Marshall, Flis Henwood, Leslie Carlin, Elizabeth S. Guy, Tanja Sinozic, Helen Smith   Information to fight the flab: findings from the Net.Weight Study (39-52)

Christopher Walker. John and I heard Christopher speak about his PhD research into IL and parents of young children in the early stages at the LILAC Conference in Liverpool 2008. We have had several discussions with him offering suggestions and information from our research and experience.

• Christopher Guy Walker  Seeking Information: A study of the use and understanding of information by parents of young children (53-63)

All 3 articles support our experience that information literacy is not just within formal education but throughout life. They are published from presentations at LILAC 2009 (see also our blog postings on the conference - Some thoughts on LILAC 09, LILAC 2009 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) Cardiff).

Of interest to IL and the workplace is K. Stuart Ferguson Information literacy and its relationship to knowledge management: A theoretical study(6-24). It explores IL and KM, and learning organisations as I did in my 2007 MSc Lifelong Learning and Development research 'The role of information literacy in addressing a specific strand of lifelong learning: the work agenda'  . It also lead the project to further research in the work place and discussion with Annemaree Lloyd.

Other articles which I haven't read yet but may be of interest are:

Andrew Whitworth  - Teaching information literacy within a relational frame: the Media and Information Literacy course at Manchester (25-38)

Nora Hegarty,  Alan Carbery,  Tina Hurley - Learning by Doing: Reactivating the Learning Support Programme at WIT Libraries (73-90)

Conference corner:

Peter Godwin, Information Literacy gets mobile in Vancouver  (91-95)

Book reviews:

Nick Frost  Book review of Andrew Whitworth. 2009. Information Obesity. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. (96-97)

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.