Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy, cfp

September 21-22 2012 is the date of the 9th Annual Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy, held in Savannah, Georgia, USA. The deadline for proposals for workshops and presentations is April 15, 2012. The keynote speaker is Joyce Valenza. Full information at http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/infolit.html

CILIP IL Group committee seeks members

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) CSG Information Literacy group (UK) is actively seeking enthusiastic information literacy champions from the following library sectors to join the group: Commercial/ Specialist; Further Education; Health. The role entails promoting information literacy and the group to colleagues in their sector, as well as keeping the group up-to-date with issues in the specific library sector. A job role ilg_jobdescription_sectorreps is available that outlines in detail the groups expectations of a Sector representative. If you wish to be considered for one of these voluntary roles, please send a short personal statement (no more than 500 words) indicating your ability to undertake the activities listed in the job description. Please send this personal statement, together with a CV to Ruth Stubbings, r.e.stubbings@lboro.ac.uk, indicating clearly which of the three roles you would like to be considered for. The deadline for applications is Monday 30th April 2012.
Photo by Sheila Webber: spring steps, April 2012

Library Trends: 2nd infolit special issue

The 2nd special issue of Library Trends (volume 60, issue 3, 2012) to focus on information literacy has been published. This is a priced journal at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/
Articles include:
Exploring health information use by older Australians within everyday life by Christine Yates et al.
Information and health literacy in the balance: findings from a study exploring the use of ICTs in weight management by Audrey Marshall et al.
Supporting informed learning in the twenty-first century by Christine Bruce et al.
The information world of parents: a study of the use and understanding of information by parents of young children by Christopher Walker
Teen content creators: experiences of using information to learn by Mary Ann Harlan et al.
Helping the non-scholar scholar by Lark Birdsong and Jennifer Freitas
From Lampitt to libraries: formulating state standards to embed information literacy across colleges by Jacqui Weetman DaCosta and Eleonora Dubicki
Student learning and workplace IL: a case study by Barbara D’Angelo
Photo by Sheila Webber: Garlic mustard, Hailsham, April 2012.

Undergraduate information behaviour: 2 new articles

Latest issue of Information Research (volume 17 no. 1), the open access journal,includes:
A study of the information search behaviour of the millennial generation by Arthur Taylor. "The longitudinal study discussed here examined the information behaviour of undergraduate college students who were members of the millennial generation. Data were collected from the students using surveys throughout an information search process as part of an assigned research project. [...] Statistically significant findings suggest that millennial generation Web searchers proceed erratically through an information search process, make only a limited attempt to evaluate the quality or validity of information gathered, and may perform some level of 'backfilling' or adding sources to a research project before final submission of the work."
Information resource selection of undergraduate students in academic search tasks by Jee Yeon Lee, Woojin Paik and Soohyung Joo. "A self-generated diary method was employed with 233 undergraduate students in achieving their academic search tasks. [...] This study reaffirmed recent information usage trends that online sources are preferred by university students in their academic searches. This study identified twenty nine factors in four different dimensions, including information type, resource feature, search strategy, and interaction with others. Moreover, perceptions of users were investigated quantitatively focusing on usefulness, credibility, accessibility, familiarity with source, satisfaction, and intention of continuous use."
Go to http://informationr.net/ir/17-1/infres171.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, March 2012.

2012 Horizon Report

Another report I should have blogged earlier is: Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. (2012). The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
This is a collaborative publication from the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). The report identifies the following trends (I must say they don't seem very new to me - perhaps we are ahead of the trend here in my iSchool ;-)
1. "People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
2. "The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized
3. "The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
4. "The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators
5. "Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative
models.
6. "There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning."
In terms of technologies: Near-term ("within the next 12 months") are mobile apps and tablets; mid term (2-3 years) are game-based learning and learning analytics; and on the far horizon are gesture-based computing and "the Internet of Things" ("the latest turn in the evolution of smart objects — a category of small devices or methods that enable an object to be assigned a unique identifier.")

The official place to get the report is here: http://www.nmc.org/publications/horizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (have to register) I got it directly here http://microsites.csusm.edu/sysnews/files/2012/02/2012-Horizon-Report-HE.pdf There is also the Horizon Report wiki at http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org/ The following video introduces the report.

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"

European Conference on Information Literacy

The European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), organised by the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University and Department of Information and Communication Sciences of Zagreb University, will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, 23-25 October 2013. The first call for papers opens in May 2012. The website is at http://www.ilconf.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry blossom, Sheffield, March 2012