Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition (RIDLs)

RIDLs was established last month, coordinated by the Research Information Network, with SCONUL, RLUK, CILIP and the Special Libaries Association, BAILER, the British Library, the Digital Curation Centre, the Higher Education Academy, JISC, Jorum, the UK Council for Graduate Education and Vitae. I won't spell out all the acronyms! You can check on the website for that. They aim to "promote the value of information and research data literacy for academic researchers; and to enable activities which help to advance this knowledge and skills." Professor Pam Denicolo (Universities of Surrey and Reading) is the chairperson, and there is one year's funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The funding will be used to support a programme of six broad activities:
- "establishing RIDLs and endowing it with mechanisms which enable it to function as a collaborative venture"
- "setting out, testing and disseminating criteria that can be used to describe and review training courses" etc.
- "identifying and promoting good practice in information literacy training"
- "supporting the use of the Researcher Development Framework and the Seven Pillars of Information Literacy"
- "supporting small-scale project work to advance the evidence base in this area"
- "developing links with relevant information literacy projects and initiatives in other countries"
More detail on the website: http://www.researchinfonet.org/infolit/ridls/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Water feature, Sheffield Station, July 2012

New articles in Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education

The Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education 4 (1), 2012 includes:
Changing anatomies of Information Literacy at the postgraduate level: refinements of models and shifts in assessment by Sonja Spiranec, Mihaela Banek Zorica
Information Literacy from the Policy and Strategy Perspective by Sirje Virkus
The reflective information literacy educator by Andrew Whitworth
Go to: https://noril.uib.no/index.php/noril
Photo by Sheila Webber: Lilac, May 2012

Information literacy and employability

There is now a section on the Sheffield University Library website about information literacy and employability, including short "testimonies from recent University of Sheffield graduates, reflecting on how information literacy skills learned at University are now helping them in their daily working lives." http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/infolit
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet another poppy, Sheffield, July 2012

Gates Foundation 2013 Access to Learning Award (non-USA; $1m!)

This isn't specifically about information literacy, but I thought it was good to publicise it. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Access to Learning Award is for those outside the USA, to reward existing achievements of public libraries and similar institutions who have been providing free access to the internet and/or "Outreach to underserved communities" and/or "Public training to assist users in accessing online information that can help improve their lives". The recipient of the Access to Learning Award will receive $1 million. You have to apply by July 31 2012. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ATLA

The Digital University: A Proposed Framework for Strategic Development

Information Literacy figures prominently in the presentation that was given by Bill Johnston and Sheila MacNeill at the Employer Engagement in a Digital Age Conference in Greenwich on 4th July 2012, The Digital University - A Proposed Framework for Strategic Development. They gave a workshop around what it means to be an (information literate) digital university. I have embedded the presentation below, and you may (if you are interested in digital literacy, employability etc.) find other presentations from the conference of interest at
https://showtime.gre.ac.uk/index.php/ecentre/apt2012/schedConf/presentations
Sheila MacNeill's blog is at http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/sheilamacneill/ and she and Bill have posted on it about their ideas.

The Digital University - A Proposed Framework for Strategic Development

CILIP reaffirms commitment to Information Literacy

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (the UK's professional association for library and information) "is proud to reaffirm" the importance of Information Literacy, following on from its IL event last week. "At a recent CILIP Council meeting, it was decided unanimously that CILIP would endorse UNESCO, International Federation of Library Associations and National Forum on Information Literacy’s Alexandria Proclamation which states that Information Literacy and lifelong learning “empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals. It is a basic human right in a digital world and promotes social inclusion of all nations.”" More at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/pages/news120710.aspx

Conference in Warsaw: Edukacja informacyjna i medialna #eim2012

The Międzynarodowa Konferencja Edukacja informacyjna i medialna (EIM) (International Conference on Information and Media Literacy) will take place 4-5 October 2012 at the University Library in Warsaw, Poland. The event has a practical focus and aims to involve librarians from all sectors. The language of the conference is Polish, with a couple of English-language contributions. More information (in Polish) at http://www.sbp.pl/eim2012
Photo by Sheila Webber: Poppy after the rain, Sheffield, July 2012