Havana declaration on IL, and the Iberoamerican wiki

The Declaration of Havana has been published in English. This declaration (already published in Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese) proposes 15 actions for information literacy. Themes include recognising contextual differences and needs, collaboration, inclusion and a life-wide perspective. http://www.ifla.org/node/6964

It is also the 3rd anniversary of the project ALFIN [Information Literacy]/ Ibero-America, with the wiki-repository containing more than 1400 entries from 22 Iberoamerican countries at http://alfiniberoamerica.wikispaces.com/
Thanks to Alejandro Uribe Tirado for keeping me updated with this information.
Photo by Sheila Webber: fallen leaves, October 2012

Information practices of refugees

The online pre-publication issue of the Journal of documentation has an article:
Lloyd, A., Kennan, M., Thompson,K. and Qayyum, A. (2012). Connecting with new information landscapes: Information literacy practices of refugees, Journal of Documentation, 69(1).
Information literacy practice is defined as "a coconstruction brought about by those who are co-located and participating in the everyday life of a community". Interviews and focus groups were used with refugees and service providers in an Australian town. The researchers found that there were phases of settlement (during which time the refugees had to develop new information practices), that refugees need help to cope with the new information landscape, that compliance (e.g. knowing about relevant laws) and everyday focus are the information foci to start with, and that visual and social information are important (including using storytelling).
The journal home page is here http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17062806
There is a related article: Lloyd, A., Qayyum, A. and Thompson,K. and (2011) Settling in: the relationship between information and social inclusion. Australian academic and research libraries, 42 (3),191-211.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn park, October 2012

UK major report: Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

There are some new reports from Ofcom (the UK "watchdog" for the communications sector). The main report, published today, is a substantial 200 page document, and the other 2 reports which I'll mention supplement that one.
Ofcom (2012) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report Research Document. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/main.pdf
The report is "designed to give an accessible overview of media literacy among [British] children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers, as well as an indicative view of media use by children aged 3-4." Key research was 1,717 in-home interviews.
The report is packed with statistics about what kinds of device children access, and where they do so. 91% of children have internet access at home (for the first time, this is not an increase compared with the last report) - some children still do not access the internet anywhere. Unsurprisingly, mobile devices feature heavily, with gender differences in how the devices are used. Also, just picking up on a personal interest, in 8-11 year olds the only "creative or civic" activity that has gone up every year is creating an avatar in an online world (this year 48% had).
For some of the conclusions, I will be lazy and copy from the Executive summary.
" Children are using a wide range of media devices, and internet access is not confined to the desktop PC, laptop or netbook. Those aged 12-15 in particular are spending more time online, are more likely to go online using their mobile phone and are more likely to say that their mobile phone is the device they would miss the most.

"For the first time this report contains indicative data on the media habits of 3-4 year olds. This indicates that many in this age group are using a range of different media devices, including over a third who are going online using a desktop PC, laptop or netbook and 6% who are going online via a tablet computer.
"These trends have implications for how we consider children’s media literacy, as the requirement for media literacy skills begins at a young age, and the types of devices children need to be proficient on, and the opportunities for them to encounter media content, increase.
"Children, particularly 12-15s, are prolific social networkers with large numbers of friends – an average of 92 friends for 8-11s and 286 for 12-15s. This has implications for how children protect and share personal information, given that personal data available to “friends” on social networking sites is likely to be shared with large numbers of people."

2. Ofcom (2012) Websites visited by children: Nielsen analysis. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_3.pdf

The data is "derived from Nielsen's UK panel of households, comprising 45,239 individuals". This is short, but interesting in listing top 25/50 sites for 3 age groups. As with the other reports, data was gathered in 2012.
- 5-7 years old: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, BBC, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, YouTube, BBC CBeebies, Yahoo!, eBay, Ask Search Network
- 8-11 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, YouTube, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, Facebook, BBC, YouTube Homepage, Google Image search, Wikipedia, Windows Live Messenger
- 12-15 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing ,YouTube,Google Image Search, YouTube Homepage, Yahoo!, Wikipedia

3. Jigsaw Research (2012) Parents’ views on parental controls: Findings of qualitative research. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_1.pdf

The research used a purposive sample of parents (in the UK), with qualitative methods including focus groups and journaling (it gives details of the questions etc., useful for other researchers). Parents were more concerned about issues like cyberbullying and "grooming" and the impact of internet use on other parts of the child's life (e.g. exercise, writing), rather than issues to do with access to inappropriate content (partly because they didn't perceive it as a particular problem). Some quotes from the executive summary are:
"Overall, ensuring balanced and safe use of the internet was seen as an important parenting challenge, but one where parents were not always clear on how to get it right. This was because they could not necessarily draw on their own experiences growing up, and also because they felt that the issues and risks were constantly developing and shifting".
"Overall, technical controls were viewed as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, hands-on parenting. Supervision and other forms of parental mediation were felt still to be needed to prevent all of the day-to-day issues as well as risks emanating from children’s internet usage."
Photos by Sheila Webber: Autumn chrysanthemum blooms, October 2012

Chat Literacy Information Literacy discussion: day 1

Today was the first day of the information literacy discussion on Chat Literacy. It's been very interesting - 80 posts so far, from all around the world. This is the page for Day 1 http://community.eldis.org/.5b285b4d?128. You have to join up to Chat Literacy to contribute to the discussion. I thought I would post my own initial posting to today's discussion here, as well, so here it is:

"My own view of information literacy is that it is both a subject in its own right and contextual, and I don't think these two things are contradictory. By "subject in its own right" I Mean that it is already something that people can study in itself (there are journals, people get PhDs by studying it, there are conferences etc.; I argued this e.g. in this paper about IL as an international concept http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/information-literacy-an-international-concept-presentation)

"I also think that learners need to be aware of information literacy as something each person has to develop for themselves through their lives, because information literacy will change for them through the course of their lives. In formal education, educators and librarians can support learners to develop the information literacy learners need to suceed in their studies and also to deal with the rest of their lives outside study. However, once they leave formal education, people tend to lack this support. They are lucky if they have a workplace that develops staff's information literacy. They are also lucky if they even have a public library system that helps them meet their changing information literacy needs. My information literacy/needs, at age 59, in 2012, are different from when I was (e.g.) 20, at university. I HAVE been lucky, because my jobs have given me the opportunity to develop my personal information literacy.

"Therefore I do not think it is a good idea ONLY to embed information literacy in another subject, in such a way that learners just tackle information literacy as part of the subject, without consciously developing their understanding of IL. I think that this is poor preparation for developing information literacy for the rest of your life. However, I'm not saying here that people shouldn't integrate IL into other subject teaching at all. This integration is sensible and useful, but I think that learners need to become aware of themselves as information literate people (indeed, take responsibility for themselves as information literate people)

"I said that I thought that information literacy was CONTEXTUAL, and part of what I meant was this need to look at your OWN context and diagnose how you need to develop new skills, knowledge and attitudes of information literacy. An important aspect is understanding how information itself is contextual (means different things to different people). One example is academic discipline e.g. "information" for a chemist is a different concept (e.g. molecular structures are very important) than "information" for a marketing person. Another difference is when looking at people of different cultures and nationalities.

"In the video http://youtu.be/hQn4OoSMF1M, which I prepared for the recent UNESCO meeting on media and information literacy, I quote from the work of one of my former PhD students, Dr Shahd Salha. She investigated conceptions of information literacy amongst school librarians in Syria. Some of their conceptions, for example with information literacy seen as illumination, and with a spiritual dimension, have not emerged in Western studies. Personally I do not think it is duplication for different countries and cultures to reflect on the meaning of information literacy for them, I think it is an important step in seeing how information literacy is relevant to you, in your own time and place and culture.

"To take that back to the "micro" level of what this means if you ARE teaching in formal education, with a bunch of students in front of you ... well, I do put forward IL as an exciting, international concept, as well as a very practical concept that they can use to get better marks! I have classes with an international mix (e.g. more Chinese than British students in my largest postgraduate class of 114 students last year).

"One exercise they did was to find material about information literacy in their own language and post a link to this in their team blogs that they were keeping. Then they had to explain what the material was to people who were from different countries/language. This exercise went well - it got students talking about what information literacy was (and so developing their own ideas), it got them talking to people with different first langauges, and it made them aware that IL was indeed international."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wayside flower, Sweden, August 2012

IFLA #wlic2012 Internet censorship in context: the shape of things to come

Another post from the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Päivikki Karhula (University of Tampere, School of Information Sciences, Tampere, Finland) spoke about Internet censorship in context: the shape of things to come. Again this was livestreamed, so should be viewed afterwards on http://express.ifla.org/videos

Karhula traced the origins of the open internet and the growing practice of control, through legislation and filtering. From about 2005-2010 the control and surveillance became more nuanced and pervasive. She felt that the latest issue was the militerisation of cyberspace.
About 20 countries are reckoned to practice pervasive levels of censorship, including very large countries like China. There are different actors in censorship and control, public and private, and an increasing range at different points in the process. Karhula gave some specific examples involving journalists and artists. She identified some worrying trends, with increased ability to identify where people were, and when they were there, integrated with other information giving new mass surveillance. She felt that digital civil rights therefore needed to be redefined. We need protective technologies (against data sharing and tracking), legislation to protect rights, and activism and lobbying to highlight these issues.
Some questions afterwards were raised about the place of libraries. The panel chair pointed to the work of FAIFE itself: notably the IFLA Internet manifesto. Obviously there are implications for information literacy here (though I'm afraid I didn't raise them - too busy blogging!), making people aware of the issues and indeed helping people understand how they can know whether such controls are being practised in the first place.

Karhula finished by showing the video: (un)LAWFUL ACCESS: Canadian experts on the state of cyber surveillance. http://unlawfulaccess.net/

A recent article by Karhula on the FAIFE site is:
Karhula, P. (2012) Data driven futures - censorship takes new forms. FAIFE spotlight. http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/data-driven-futures-censorship-takes-new-forms

IFLA #wlic2012 Privatization of cyberspace - case Google

Siva Vaidhyanathan was the first speaker in a session from IFLA's Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) group, which is taking place at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. He spoke on Privatization of cyberspace - case Google. He is the author of:
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2011) The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). Updated Edition. University of California Press.
This whole FAIFE session is livestreamed and I think it will be available here from tomorrow: http://express.ifla.org/videos
Siva Vaidhyanathan (pictured speaking at the session) started by identifying the ways in which Google search has changed, to have more localisation and personalisation, to smooth out some more offensive sites and to screen out what they term "low quality" news: in other words making editorial decisions. I've blogged presentations from Karen Blakeman, that detail this kind of thing.
Most recently (last week) Google has yielded to pressure, and will give more prominence to "legitimate" sites for films, music and television (so bit torrent sites and fan sites will slide down the rankings). Thus it has moved towards consumerism and he saw further movement in that direction in the future.

IFLA #wlic2012 Information for civic literacy

There was a pre-IFLA-conference meeting in Riga, Latvia, on Information for civic literacy, 8-10 August 2012. This sounds a very interesting meeting with lively discussion, with people from different countries and contexts presenting very different points of view. There may be a follow-up conference. There are some papers online at http://www.lnb.lv/iflariga2012/papers-and-proceedings including:
-Saknicté Pisté Beltrán: Propuesta: La alfabetización en información como motor de la educación cívica en México (A proposal: information literacy as the driving force of civic education in Mexico) [in Spanish and English ]
- Natalia Gendina: Триада ‘Гражданская, информационная и медиаграмотность’ в контексте новой инициативы ЮНЕСКО - Учебной Программы ЮНЕСКО по медиа- и информационной грамотност (The triad of civil literacy, information literacy and media literacy in the context of a new initiative of UNESCO, the Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers) [in Russian and English ]
- Vincas Grigas: The preparedness of librarians to undertake educational activities in the context of civic literacy development [in English ]
- Reyna Josvah-Rabiaza: Accès à l’information et à la documentation: enjeu pour le développement de l’individu et de la société (Access to information and documentation: a challenge for the development of citizens) [in French ]
- Emmanuel Kabou: L’information pour une culture civique (Information for civic literacy) [in French ]
- Joyce Kinyanjui, Dennis N. Ocholla: The missing link: civic literacy when information literacy or financial literacy are lacking? [in English ]
- Ahmed Ksibi: Le programme OpenGov de l’alphabétisation civique pour le Printemps arabe (The OpenGov program of civic literacy for the Arab Spring) [in French ]
- Simon Jules Koudjam Yameni: La fonction didactique de l’information dans une bibliotheque universitaire comme outil de sensibilisation à la citoyennete de la jeunesse estudiantine : cas de la Bibliothèque Centrale de l’Université de Douala au Cameroun (The instructional role of information delivery in a university library as a tool for developing awareness of citizenship among student youth : the case of the Central Library of the University of Douala in Cameroon) [in French ]
- Mandiaye Ndiaye: La maîtrise de l’information pour un meilleur exercice de la citoyenneté (Information literacy for a better exercise of citizenship) [in French ]
- Yan Xiangdong, Guo Wanli: Library service and civil information literacy [in Chinese and English ]
Photo by Sheila Webber: coffee in Johan and Nystrom, Helsinki, August 2012

IFLA #wlic2012 IL in developing countries; Faculty attitudes to librarians

I'm blogging froom the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. In this post I'm going to highlight a couple more papers from a session this afternoon.
Dan Dorner (Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand) talked about Improving the resources for supporting information literacy education in developing countries. A key theme was the contextual and culturally-situated nature of IL. He cited work by me and Bill Johnston (this is one of our key themes), so I immediately felt more warmly towards him ;-) He also mentioned, for example, Hofstede's framework for cultural analysis [Hofstede, G. (1983) "National Cultures in Four Dimensions: A Research-Based Theory of Cultural Differences among Nations." International Studies of Management & Organization, 13 (1/2), 46-74]. Dorner discussed this in relation to two countries: Vietnam, USA, UK and Sri Lanka and proposes a conceptual model of IL education. Questions after his talk raised the important issue of indigenous knowledge. His full paper is here: http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/105-dorner-en.pdf

In the same session, Christina Nilsen (Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada) presented on Faculty perceptions of librarian-led information literacy instruction in postsecondary education. As a practitioner, she understands the challenges of integrating IL and gaining access to students, and she highlighted the research and writings about faculty-librarian relationships. Nilsen carried out a questionnaire survey of faculty in Canada (106 respondents), to investigate their perceptions of academic librarians and the importance they placed on information literacy in their discipline. A large number rated their students' IL as poor or fair, also a majority rated IL as important and about half don't regularly ask librarians to teach their students. There was an interesting variety of reasons for not inviting librarians into their classes. Nilsen's full paper is here: http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/105-nilsen-en.pdf

IFLA #wlic e-Learning delivery mode extends reach to IL learners in Singapore

I'm liveblogging the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. The next paper is Proliferating Information Literacy - e-Learning delivery mode extends reach to IL learners in Singapore from Gee Miaw Miin.
She explained how schools in Singapore schools may not have librarians, and they look to the National Library to provide training. So there was a 5 year project (2007-2011) involving parents and teachers as well as students. They developed 26 "bite sized" IL modules, which people have to pay for, with a target of 40,000 learners.
The skills they targetted were resource skills, serach skills, critique skills and publishing, focusing on citation and presention. They used an instructional designer, with the principles:
- allow individual control of pace and learning activities (allowing pause and additional sources)
- addressing three learning styles (visual aural, kinesthetic)
- break information into bite size (the photo shows that slide)
- connect information to ptrior learning (e.g. reflecting on past searching experiences)
- create scenarios around real life information problems e.g. a housewife looking for recipes, a businessman looking for data
- provide hands on activities or incorporate games e.g. crossword puzzles
- provide templates and summaries for learners' future use
- have final assessment
In terms of marketing, to get 40,000 people to actually pay and take the modules, the speaker emphasised parttnerships with all sorts of agencies - a real variety including business sector and public sector organistions. There was support from the top level, as there was a media and information literacy initiative from government. This includes training adults (about 10% of the total of 50,00 people taking units, I think).
The Ministry of Education's 21st century Competencies framework provides a valuable context, and also there is an initiative to train all teachers, so that IL is integrated into the curriculum. They are exploring the possibility of supporting more collaborative leraning (which is not an element at the moment). A project team is also looking at delivering the IL training using mobile apps.
There is preview material at http://www.nlba.sg
Full paper at Proliferating Information Literacy - e-Learning delivery mode extends reach to IL learners in Singapore GEE MIAW MIIN (National Library Board, Singapore)

Social media and the life cycle of rumors

A TED-London talk from Farida Vis is: Social media and the life cycle of rumors. She talks about her research into the way misinformation is spread and quashed (as mentioned in an earlier post)
Farida will also be speaking at the OKFestival in Helsinki 17-22 September 2012. This festival looks interesting, of relevance to Media and Information Literacy, and I think some sessions will be streaming to the web.

Moscow Declaration on Media and Information Literacy

Just released is a declaration from the meeting sponsored by UNESCO and other bodies, in Moscow, held in June: the Moscow Declaration on Media and Information Literacy. I was invited to this meeting, but was unfortunately unable to attend, though I did prepare a video which was presented at the meeting.
The Moscow Declaration is an important document: it starts by asserting some fundamental, first of which is:
"Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is a prerequisite for the sustainable development of open, plural, inclusive and participatory knowledge societies, and the civic institutions, organizations, communities and individuals which comprise these societies."
It then goes on to make some robust proposals for heads of state etc. about what should be done.
The declaration is here: http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/moscow-declaration-on-media-and-information-literacy

Alfabetización digital y competencias informacionales: substantial Spanish publication on Info and digital literacies

The Fundación Telefónica, Spain, has published (free online) a substantial item:
Area Moreira, M., Gutiérrez Martín, A. and Vidal Fernández, F. (2012) Alfabetización digital y competencias informacionales. [Digital and Information Literacy] Madrid: Fundación Telefónica. ISBN: 978-84-08-00823-1
My Spanish is poor, but I can report that there are three chapters: one on the importance of (in particular) digital literacies in society today, one on education of the faculty in multiple literacies (including how teachers need to use technology in teaching) and one on informed homes and families, looking at digital and information literacies as regards members of the family, school etc. There is an introduction which identifies that there are new definitions of literacy and illiteracy, which are no longer just to do with reading and writing, and introduces the main topics of the book. I think there is rather more emphasis on digital literacy than information literacy, but still this seems a very useful work. One of the authors has blogged about the book here (in Spanish)http://ordenadoresenelaula.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/libro-alfabetizacion-digital-y.htmlThis is the book in pdf format https://ddv.ull.es/users/manarea/public/libro_%20Alfabetizacion_digital.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: graduation on Wednesday, Sheffield University

Project mapping Twitter rumours, in graphics

A project which shows, graphically, how rumours spread via Twitter about events in the 2011 UK riots won a Data Journalism award: First Prize for ‘Data Visualisation and Storytelling". These visualisations could be useful if you are working with learners on topics to do with information, misinformation and social media. You can move the timeline along and see key tweets, and see how the tweets are connected (see the screenshot, which is taken from the site which I linked to below).

The project was led by Dr Farida Vis, who will be joining us here at Sheffield University in September. She has a research fellowship and is attached to my department, the Information School, so it will be exciting to work with her. The Twitter project was "carried out in collaboration with Dr Rob Procter from the University of Manchester, the project lead and Dr Alex Voss from St. Andrews University. The team analysed 2.6 million tweets to show how rumours ebbed and flowed across Twitter as claims were bolstered or debunked. Topics covered ranged from the absurd – animals on the loose after damage to London Zoo – to the true, such as the arson attack on Miss Selfridge in Manchester."

The website is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/07/london-riots-twitter

Information literacy in employability training: The experience of Inverclyde Libraries

Crawford, J. and Irving, C. (2012) "Information literacy in employability training: The experience of Inverclyde Libraries." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 44, 79-89. This is a priced publication. The abstract reads "The study is an evaluation of an employability training programme provided by Inverclyde Libraries in West Central Scotland and the role of information literacy within the training programme. Inverclyde is an area with high unemployment and pockets of multiple deprivation. Modern, applicable skills are also lacking. The findings are based on interviews with five learners and also one with an adult literacies tutor. The interviews were conducted in August 2009 and a Learning Life Histories methodology was used. Interviewees had mainly previously worked in the service industries and none had post-school qualifications, despite which all the interviewees were highly motivated. Information literacy was found to between 30% and 60% of course content depending on learner needs. Family influence was found to be the main motivation to enrol on the course and the learners sought personal social development as well as employability skills. There was found to be a lack of appropriate, relevant training materials and a lack of collaboration between the LIS sector and Community Learning and Development in developing them. The article concludes with a number of recommendations including the need to improve recruitment and course scheduling and planning."
When announcing the publication of the article, John Crawford added that last week "at the CILIPS conference in Dundee, Sean McNamara, who is in charge of Digital participation initiatives with Inverclyde Council gave an excellent presentation on his work there and it was clear that he has been able to incorporate the recommendations into service improvement, a good example of how evaluation in information literacy can contribute to service development."
Photo by Sheila Webber: convolvulus and grass blade, June 2012

"The Power of Information" (new Government strategy)

The power of information http://informationstrategy.dh.gov.uk/ is the new information strategy from the UK's Department of Health which "sets a ten-year framework for transforming information for the NHS [National Health Service], public health and social care." As Vicky Grant noted in the talk she gave on Thursday, it doesn't mention information literacy and doesn't seem to say anything about libraries either. In fact it is using the word "Information" to mean (in a fuzzy way) technology, networks and actual information content. However, as regards information content, it seems like the focus is on the information generated within the NHS, rather than having a real perspective on patient needs for information.
I'm afraid with this one, I find it impossible to write impartially, as a quick glance at the site made me angry as a UK citizen who values the NHS. You will see from the one slide which is supposed to make the whole strategy easy to understand that basically they want everyone to go online for everything, including things like booking doctor's appointments. This will leave people like my mother (who is very alert and independent, but has worsening sight and does not use the internet) with a second class service, I assume.
"One of the key commitments is that you will be able to view your GP record online by 2015." I'm sure that this promise has nothing to do with saving the Government money - except Information Age reports that - "Online GP records will save over £2bn, DoH claims". Hmm.
On Thursday I did a post on my cpd23 blog about using Storify and coincidentally they have put together a Storify page on the new strategy: http://informationstrategy.dh.gov.uk/storify/ It would be an interesting task for an information literacy class to match the stories snagged for this Storify, and see whether they reflect the full spectrum of commentary on it, or indeed to assemble alternative stories.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Goat in Maryon Park, May 2012

Health Information Obesity

Today there was an event from CILIP Career Development Group (Yorkshire and Humberside Division) here at Sheffield University. Vicky Grant, Faculty Librarian for Medicine, Dentistry and Health at Sheffield, was talking about Health information obesity: the new epidemic? It was a very interesting presentation, and I'll mention a couple of things she talked about.
One was a new strategy from the Department from Health The power of information. I'm going to put more about that in a separate posting. Secondly, whilst talking about the value of patient networks for health information she showed some of a TED video about e-Patient Dave: http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_debronkart_meet_e_patient_dave.html "When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online -- and found the medical treatment that saved his life." Dave is also an advocate for libraries. Finally, she showed this video which tells the story of one person becoming empowered to find, evaluate and use information (including stories from fellow patients) to apply to her own illness.

Media and Information Literacy Recommendations from IFLA

In cooperation with UNESCO's Information for All Programme (IFAP), the IFLA Information Literacy Section drafted new Media and Information Literacy Recommendations which are now available in several languages: here http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/ifla-media-and-information-literacy-recommendations. These recommendations were endorsed by the Governing Board of the International Federation of Library Asjavascript:void(0)sociations and Institutions (IFLA), at its meeting in Den Haag, The Netherlands, 7 December 2011. The recommendations will also be a topic at an international conference of Media and Information Literacy for Knowledge Societies on 24-28 June, 2012, in Moscow, Russia.
As already noted on theis blog, UNESCO has combined media literacy and information literacy into Media and Information Literacy (MIL). This new document from IFLA reasserts that MIL is a " basic human right in an increasingly digital, interdependent, and global world". It defines MIL as consisting "of the knowledge, the attitudes, and the sum of the skills needed to know when and what information is needed; where and how to obtain that information; how to evaluate it critically and organise it once it is found; and how to use it in an ethical way. The concept extends beyond communication and information technologies to encompass learning, critical thinking, and interpretative skills across and beyond professional and educational boundaries. Media and Information Literacy includes all types of information resources: oral, print, and digital"

Pew Internet reports: use of smartphones; hyperconnected millennials; privacy management

I have a backlog of reports that I meant to read before I blogged, but I think I had better just blog them, starting with some Pew Internet and American Life project reports. On March 19th they published a report about Teens, Smartphones & Texting. They did "telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 799 teens ages 12 to 17 years old and their parents living in the continental United States". "Teens are fervent communicators ... they communicate frequently with a variety of important people in their lives: friends and peers, parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, and a myriad of other adults and institutions. This report examines the tools teens use to communicate, with a particular focus on mobile devices, and then places the use of those tools in the broader context of how teens choose to communicate with people in their lives."
Just dipping in (since we have been discussing use of email in my department), texting dominates: "8% of teens say they email daily with friends, down from 14% in 2006. More than half (54%) of all teens now say they never use email to talk with friends, and one third of teens say they never use instant messaging or send messages via social media sites."

Another fairly recent report, released on March 1st, revealed that Nearly half of American adults are smartphone owners. "46% of American adults now have a smartphone of some kind, and for the first time smartphone owners outnumber users of more basic phones." "The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from January 20 to February 19, 2012, among a sample of 2,253 adults, age 18 and older."

Then on 29 February, they revealed that Millennials will benefit and suffer due to their hyperconnected lives "A Pew Internet/Elon University survey reveals experts’ hopes and fears about the hyperconnected generation, from their ability to juggle many tasks to their thirst for instant gratification and lack of patience." "Teens and young adults brought up from childhood with a continuous connection to each other and to information will be nimble, quick-acting multitaskers who count on the Internet as their external brain and who approach problems in a different way from their elders, according to a new survey of technology experts."
I must say my immediate reaction is to trouble the expert opinions, as I don't think those things all necessarily follow on from one another. Still it does say that "Since the data are based on a non-random sample, a margin of error cannot be computed, and the results [i.e. the opinions in the report] are not projectable to any population other than the experts in this sample."

Finally, on 24th February a report was released on Privacy management on social media sites "Social network users are becoming more active in pruning and managing their accounts. Women and younger users tend to unfriend more than others" "The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from April 26 to May 22, 2011, among a sample of 2,277 adults, age 18 and older."
Photo by Sheila Webber: more forsythia, March 2012

Religious information literacy: article

Gunton, L. (2011) "Religious information literacy: using information to learn in church community." Australian Library Journal, 60 (2), 155-164.
"What informs members of the church community as they learn? Do the ways people engage with information differ according to the circumstances in which they learn? Informed learning, or the ways in which people use information in the learning experience and the degree to which they are aware of that, has become a focus of contemporary information literacy research. This essay explores the nature of informed learning in the context of the church as a learning community. It is anticipated that insights resulting from this exploration may help church organisations, church leaders and lay people to consider how information can be used to grow faith, develop relationships, manage the church and respond to religious knowledge, which support the pursuit of spiritual wellness and the cultivation of lifelong learning. Information professionals within the church community and the broader information profession are encouraged to foster their awareness of the impact that engagement with information has in the learning experience and in the prioritising of lifelong learning in community contexts." http://eprints.qut.edu.au/41943/1/Gunton_Lyndelle_Religious_information_literacy_ALJ_May_2011.pdf
Photo by Sheila webber: Church, Tórshavn, Faroes