Information literacy presentations from WILU conference

There are abstracts and presentations from the major Canadian conference, WILU, which took place in May 2012. Numerous very interesting presentations e.g. (to choose a few at random)
- Massive! Open! Online!: Understanding MOOCs and Their Impact on Library Instruction and Services
- Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Technology-Oriented Support by Liaison Librarians at the University of Alberta
- Reel Life, Reel Students, Reel Experiences: Videos as a Teaching and Learning Tool
- Best practices for Very Large Team Teaching: A Case Study of a Graduate Course in Health Librarianship
- A Sampling of Post-Secondary Integrated Information Literacy Programs in British Columbia
Abstracts and links at http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/program/program-abstracts/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Trees, shadow, autumn, November 2012

Recent articles

A few assorted articles I hadn't picked up before:
- Kelley, J. (2012) "Off the Shelf and Out of the Box: Saving Time, Meeting Outcomes and Reaching Students with Information Literacy Modules" Library Scholarship. Paper 15. http://dc.cod.edu/librarypub/15
- Limberg, L., Sundin, O. and Talja, S. (2012) "Three Theoretical Perspectives on Information Literacy" HumanIT. 11 (2) http://etjanst.hb.se/bhs/ith/2-11/llosst.pdf [I had already blogged the other papers in this issue, I think this one must have been added later]
- Gunton, L., Bruce, C., & Stoodley, I. (2012) "Experiencing religious information literacy : informed learning in church communities." Australian Library Journal, 61(2), 119-132. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/51026 I already blogged an earlier article on the same research
- Emami, M. and Seify, S. (2012) "Determining the information literacy competence (ILC) of faculty members in University of Applied Sciences and Technology." Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business. 3 (9), 1488-1495.
http://www.journal-archieves14.webs.com/1488-1495.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn starts to touch the beech leaves.

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

Information literacy instruction in four Vietnamese university libraries

An article I came across recently: Diep, K.C. and Nahl, D. (2011) "Information literacy instruction in four Vietnamese university libraries." The International Information and Library Review, 43 (4), 198-206.
"This case study explored the perceptions of academic stakeholders about the development and delivery of information literacy (IL) programs in four universities, and identified elements necessary to establishing IL credit courses in Vietnamese higher education. The following research questions framed this study: 1) How do library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty perceive the current implementation of information literacy instruction (ILI) programs for undergraduates studies in universities libraries in Vietnam? 2) What are the challenges to including IL as a credit course in the curriculum as perceived by library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty? Respondents were purposefully recruited from four universities, including library administrators, instruction librarians, and faculty. Three online surveys were distributed to 537 individuals through Survey Monkey with 149 replies and a final receipt of 133 completed surveys. Interview and focus group data collection included 23 face-to-face interviews and nine focus groups. Findings showed IL is considered the domain of librarians and has not influenced Vietnamese campus culture. IL activities at four university libraries take the form of lectures, workshops, and basic IL skills modules. Few ILI activities are subject discipline-related. Respondents reported challenges to an ILI credit course revolve around the lasting impact of teacher-centered instruction and rote learning, misperceptions about the effect of IL on student learning outcomes, degree of support of IL by academic stakeholders, degree of faculty-librarian collaboration, and scarcity of resources. Recommendations are given for academic librarians in Vietnam implementing ILI programs and considering developing IL credit courses."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Pattern of new leaves, May 2012

The Informed Researcher Booklet and Information literacy lens on the Vitae Researcher Development Framework

There are two important new publications from Vitae (the organisation in the UK that focuses on developing researchers' skills and employability): a short and attractive booklet aimed at researchers themselves (that gives advice and explains the relevance of information literay) plus a 2-pager that relates the SCONUL 7 Pillars model of Information Literacy to the framework for developing researchers' skills and knowledge (the RDF framework). They were produced in collaboration with other key bodies including SCONUL and the Research Information Network. They are both professionally produced and can be downloaded for free.
- Bent, M., Gannon-Leary, P., Goldstein, S. and Videler, T. (2012) The Informed Researcher. Vitae. http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae_The_informed_researcher_2012.pdf
- Information literacy lens on the Vitae Researcher Development Framework using the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy. http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae_Information_Literacy_Lens_on_the_RDF_Apr_2012.pdf (the picture here is the second page of this publication)