Monday, January 30, 2012

Video: College Research: What I Wish I Had Known

Evelyn Barker, Instruction and Information Literacy Librarian, at the University of Texas at Arlington, interviewed students to ask them for their advice to people aiming to study at university as regards what "would have better prepared them for college research." She published the resultant video on Youtube in December, entitled College Research: What I Wish I Had Known. The students come up with a lot of sensible advice about managing time, using resources etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzYIXWMhahk

Information Literacy in the wild: free book

This book, Information Literacy in the wild, is an outcome of a module at the School of Information at the University of Michigan, USA: Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning which is taken by Masters students in librarianship and in Education. The students have to observe a mentor's teaching practice on placement, do some of their own teaching and develop a teaching intervention or tool in a placement for the class. There are 27 short chapters in which students reflect on their teaching experiences. The chapters are grouped by the educational context: school classroom, school library, college, university, public libraries and a couple of other other contexts.
In an introduction, the designer and coordnator of the module, Kristin Fontichiaro, talks about the rationale behind the class and introduces the book. There is a one-page module outline at the end of the book and you can find the full class outline here
I haven't read through all of the chapters yet: the most appealing to me are the ones in which reflection dominates over description e.g. Caroline Mossing's "How to tame a bird unit". However, altogether it is a really nice idea and well executed by the students and their teacher.

Fontichiaro, K. (ed) (2011) Information Literacy in the Wild. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Library. You can download it free for eReader: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/115254 and as a pdf: http://www.fontichiaro.com/uploads/2011/wild.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Early primrose, January 2012

Friday, January 27, 2012

The Missing Link: making the connection between information literacy and an excellent student experience

On 19 March 2012, Birmingham City University Library and Learning Resources has a conference on its City South Campus, Birmingham, UK: The Missing Link: making the connection between information literacy and an excellent student experience.
"This conference is for you if you are interested in Information Literacy and if you would like to take advantage of some professional networking opportunities. The presentations and workshops/seminars will be focussing around the three themes of the conference: Inspirations, Innovations and Collaboration. The speakers are practitioners in the field of Information Literacy or actively involved in student learning. They will be presenting their experiences on the various projects and collaborative efforts they have been involved in and will also be sharing with you some of their inspiring and innovative ideas."
More info at http://library.bcu.ac.uk/conferencemissing.htm or email libraryConferences@bcu.ac.uk
Photo by Sheila webber: apple, leaf, November 2011

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Another journal special issue! Infolit policy

Library Trends, volume 60 issue 2, Fall 2011, focuses on "Towards policy formulation" on information literacy, a special issue edited by John Crawford. This looks a very interesting issue! This is a priced journal.
- Introduction: Information Literacy Beyond the Academy: Towards Policy Formulation; by John Crawford
- Information Literacy Advocacy-Woody's Ten Commandments; by Forrest Woody Horton, Jr.
- Trapped Between a Rock and a Hard Place: What Counts as Information Literacy in the Workplace and How Is It Conceptualized? by Annemaree Lloyd
- How Information Literacy becomes Policy: An Analysis Using the Multiple Streams framework; by Sharon Weiner
- Empowerment or Instrumental Progressivism? Analyzing Information Literacy Policies; by Andrew Whitworth
- The Concept of Information Literacy in Policy-Making Texts: An Imperialistic Project? by Ola Pilerot and Jenny Lindberg
- Is There a Right To Information Literacy? A Practice in Search of a Policy; by Catherine Haras and Stephanie Sterling Brasley
- Reconnecting Information Literacy Policy with the Core Values of Librarianship; by
Heidi LM Jacobs and Selinda Berg
- A Framework for Analysing and Comparing Information Literacy Policies in European Countries; by Carla Basili
- National Information Literacy Framework (Scotland): Pioneering Work to Influence Policy-Making or Tinkering at the Edges? by Christine Irving
- Think Global, Act Local: Expanding the Agenda for Media Literacy Education in the United States; by Vanessa Domine
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter trees, Sheffield, January 2012.