SEEK search skills game

Andrew Walsh has made his card game SEEK available under a Creative Commons license for free download. You have the instructions, notes for tutors and the cards (front and back) ready to print out. The winner is the first person to get to ten points: you gain points by responding to a question from the cards correctly. The cards tell you to do things like identify the most important words in a search question and think of synonyms for searching (see examples on the right, click on the picture to see it larger). The download is in a zipped file from: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/15377/

WILU 2nd call for papers

Another call for papers for the Canadian Information Literacy conference: WILU. The Conference will be held at The University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, May 8-10, 2013. The theme for WILU 2013 is Synchronicity: The Time is Now. Possible topics include: Merging tradition with innovation; Balancing educational theory with pedagogical practice; Providing instruction for interdisciplinary programs; Theorizing instructional technology; Distributed instruction; Information ethics; Open access resources for instruction; Literacies: information and beyond. The deadline for proposal submissions is December 3rd, 2012. More info at http://lib.unb.ca/WILU/program/call-for-proposals/

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference 2013

There is a call for abstracts for the 7th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference (EBLIP7). This takes place at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada July 15-18, 2013. Conference themes are: Beyond the horizon (visioning the future, investigation, discovery); Ploughing new terrain (cultivating and enhancing productivity through innovation, experimentation, transforming practice); Harvesting the rewards (assessing outcomes, impact, value) and Summer fallow (lessons learnt, reflection, insight). There is a call for research papers, reviews of evidence, reports of innovative practice, hot topic discussion papers, and poster presentations. Submission deadline is 30 November, 2012. Further information at http://eblip7.library.usask.ca/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cat in botanical gardens, November 2012

Spanish information literacy model for schools

An article (in Spanish) outlines a three stage model for information literacy in formal education. The abstract reads: "A three-phased model is proposed for addressing information competence in the context of compulsory education. The 3 basic phases are information searching, management and communication. A study of the current standard curriculum identified the objectives and content corresponding to the three phases, with the aim of assisting centres in establishing programs for each educational stage. The goal is to help improve the design of research projects that are carried out in the classroom as well as to develop information literacy using the school library. The text points to areas in which the school library can play an important role in supporting the curriculum for skills development."
Anna Blasco Olivares and Glòria Durban Roca (2012) "La competencia informacional en la enseñanza obligatoria a partir de la articulación de un modelo específico." Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 100-135 doi: 10.3989/redc.2012.mono.979 http://redc.revistas.csic.es/index.php/redc/article/view/746/827 and the 2nd author blogs about it Spanish here
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn stairs, November 2012

Visitor from Okanagan College

Jennifer Sigalet, (pictured, right) Campus Public Services Librarian at Okanagan College, British Columbia, Canada, visited the iSchoool as part of an information literacy study tour last week. Jennifer has been involved in some interesting initiatives, and she and her colleagues at Okanagan College received the 2011 Community and Technical College Libraries Innovation Achievement Award for the development and implementation of the CILRI (Course Integrated Library Research Instruction) programme. This is the Libguide: http://libguides.okanagan.bc.ca/CILRI
Jennifer also was a contributor to the presentation A Sampling of Post-Secondary Integrated Information Literacy Programs in British Colombia at the WILU 2012 conference.

Jennifer joined with Dr Shahd Salha (graduate of the iSchool) and Bill Johnston (Honorary Research Fellow, Strathclyde University) in presenting a one-hour seminar on information literacy at the iSchool on 9th December, chaired by Sheila Webber.

Information Science and Information Literacy conference in Romania

The 4th International Conference on Information Science and Information Literacy will be held in Sibiu, Romania, April 17-19, 2013. There are broad themes: Information literacy; Education (e.g. Teaching information literacy; Reviewing the fundamentals of education and curriculum redesign); Digital libraries; and Information science and technologies (e.g. Information retrieval; Data mining strategies for digital libraries). There is still a call for papers open. More info at http://bcu.ulbsibiu.ro/conference/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Squirrel, Sheffield, Nov 2012

London Libraries Learning Research Reading Group

There is a blog for this group ("an informal and impromtu reading group for London librarians interested in research, learning and information literacy") just set up.The group had their first meeting on 8th November and plan a further meeting in December. http://lllrrg.wordpress.com/