Paris Declaration on Media and Information Literacy released

The Paris Declaration on Media and Information Literacy has been released. I haven't the time today to read it properly and see whether my suggested amendments were taken into account ;-) so I will most likely produce another post looking at the declaration in more depth.
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/In_Focus/paris_mil_declaration_final.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: coot, Lyon, France, August 2014

Information Literacy Best Practices: Exemplary Programs

The Association of College and Research Libraries has published an Information Literacy Best Practices: Exemplary Programs list. The libraries are listed by Best Practice Category (Mission; Goals and Objectives; Planning; Administrative and Institutional Support; Articulation (program sequence) within the Curriculum; Collaboration; Pedagogy; Staffing; Outreach; Assessment/Evaluation. There is a brief paragraph in each case describing what is considered exemplary. Mostly theexamples are North American, although there is one British example (University of Manchester).
http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/sections/is/iswebsite/projpubs/bestpractices-exemplary
Photo by Sheila Webber: echinaceas (I think), Lyon, August 2014

Apologies for hiatus

It's been just over a week since I last posted, which is unusual for this blog, so apologies for that (life intervening!) I will be catching up on Limerick and IFLA, interleaved with other news.

MOOCs not just in the keynote at #wlic2014

Pierre Dillenbourg was today's keynote at the World Library and Information Conference (IFLA) 2014 in Lyon, France. Academic director of the EPFL Center for Digital Education at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), he's talked about Ten surprises in our MOOC experience. Since I've now gone through the process of preparing material for a MOOC (the Play MOOC offered by Futurelearn) and have read a good deal about them I didn't find so many surprises, but it was interesting to hear from someone from outside the English-speaking sphere and he is an entertaining speaker. Just to remind you, MOOC stands for Massive Online Open Course. This will find my previous posts about MOOCs http://information-literacy.blogspot.fr/search?q=moocs
Just to pick out a few things that struck me:
- One of his messages was that MOOCs can enable a smaller university to punch above its weight, reaching a huge audience internationally (e.g. they have many students from the USA, France and the UK).
- Dillenbourg said that "MOOCs save Books" i.e. the MOOC may stimulate book buying particularly if the video is attached to an academic or a course that has produced the book-of-the-course.
- Students may use a MOOC as the "textbook" for the credit-bearing course they are studying at university, and the speaker positioned this as part of a flipped classroom approach.
- Learners may be "watching MOOCs in teams" (the MOOC platforms that his university uses are Cousera and EdX i.e. what are termed xMOOCs, taking a less social/constructivist approach, so "watching", the word he used, may be appropriate)
- amusing soundbite "Good MOOCs are (in general) better than bad MOOCs"
- I was surprised, but not in a good way, by the statement that "MOOCs turned teaching into a high stakes activity" (surely it should be high-stakes anyway - it certainly is high stakes for the learners!), though it may just present the reality that teaching is seen as less important than research even now (in terms of getting promotion etc.)

Also rather surprisingly, considering he'd been invited to a library conference, the speaker evidently hadn't done much googling of "moocs librarians" or "moocs bibliothécaires" as when asked about the role of librarians he did not seem to feel there was one. I did feel compelled to make a comment on that e.g. mentioning the Futurelearn librarians' group.

A quick google turned up other presentations on MOOCs in which this speaker was an author e.g. this one which makes some of the same points.

Last year at IFLA there was this paper:
CALTER, Mariellen (2013) MOOCs and the library: engaging with evolving pedagogy. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2013 — Singapore — "Future Libraries: Infinite Possibilities" in Session 98 - Knowledge Management with Academic and Research Libraries.

There was a whole session on MOOCs this year, but unfortunately none of the papers from that session are in the IFLA library yet (and I couldn't go to it as it clashed with the session in which I was givinga paper). I will link to them when they appear. There is a paper in another session that also focuses on the librarian's role in MOOCs:

Eisenberger-Pabst, D. et al. (2014) The academic library – a hidden stakeholder - in the age of MOOCs. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 – Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 210 - Information Technology. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/905
Photo by Sheila Webber: cakes at teh reception last night

Information literacy + Service Learning = Social Change #wlic2014

I've just been in the session organised by the IFLA Social Science Libraries with Women, Information and Libraries Special Interest Group at at the World Library and Information Conference (IFLA) 2014 in Lyon, France, where Tiffini Travis gave a paper (coauthored with Jennifer Gradis) on Information literacy + Service Learning= Social Change. They work at California State University, United States and this presentation was about the information literacy contribution to a service learning course at their university.
Service Learning is a term that doesn't really get used in the UK, but it seems a part of US higher education. Wikipedia says it means "a method of teaching that combines classroom instruction with meaningful community service" (although that article is flagged as having issues, that seems pretty much what service learning means).
Travis started by saying that she connected information literacy with empowerment and it should lead to action. She identified that research and problem solving can be used for social activism. Travis referenced the new proposed ACRL information literacy framework, and saw this teaching intervention as fitting in the "Research as inquiry" frame. She categorised what she was doing as experiential learning, with a cycle of thinking, doing, experiencing and reflecting. In a video, Travis' coauthor described the service learning assignment - the learners have to select an organisation that addresses a socially significant problem, they have to contact it and undertake some service learning, and produce a portfolio including a presentation about the organisation and their own specific contribution. The information resources that the students discover can contribute to learning about the organisation and its impact, and the library's contribution has meant that the students are finding better and more wide ranging materials that help them understand and complete their assignment. Travis gave an example of finding scholarly articles about the problems of homeless pregnant women.
The speakers emphasised the impact, including attitudinal and emotional impact, of this particular course, since students are learning to work with classmates and people in the outside world. The issues they investigate also can have a big impact on the students which the speakers felt "could lead to a positive social change". One of teh messages from the talk's conclusion was that this intervention "allows the reenvisioning of IL to focus on the application of information rather than just the search for information".
The slides will be available at http://www.slideshare.com/T_Travis (added 28 August: this is the specific link: http://www.slideshare.net/T_Travis/social-activism-and-information-literacy-video
Photo by Sheila Webber: the reception last night at La Saltiere, Lyon

Role of information literacy in agricultural productivity #wlic2014

The IFLA Agricultural Libraries Special Interest Group had a session focusing on information literacy at the World Library and Information Conference (IFLA) 2014 in Lyon, France: Role of information literacy in agricultural productivity and food security: An international perspective. I didn't go to this session (as it clashed with the IL Section Lunch), but most of the papers are already in the IFLA library, and they include:
- Embedding Information Literacy into the Agriculture Curriculum in Liberia: A Model Approach for Developing Countries Worldwide from Martin Kesselman (Rutgers University, New Jersey, United States)
- Farmers Information Literacy and Awareness towards Agricultural Produce and Food Security: FADAMA III programs in Osun state Nigeria from Abiola Abosede Sokoya (Yaba College of Technology Library, Sabo, Lagos, Nigeria) and colleagues
- Influence of Information Literacy skills in accessing agricultural information: with special reference to paddy farmers of Ampara district, Sri Lanka from Mohamed Majeed Mashroofa (South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Oluvil, Sri Lanka) and Wathmanel Senevirathne (Open University of Sri Lanka, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka)
- Attaining Information Literacy: An assessment of Indian Agricultural Universities approach to enhancing Student’s Information and Research skills from Neena Singh (G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttrakhand, India)
Photo by Sheila Webber: more trees in the park (Parc de la Tête d'Or), Lyon, August 2014

Information-seeking behaviour of LGBTQ health professionals #wlic2014

Another post from the LGBTQ session at the World Library and Information Conference (IFLA) 2014 in Lyon, France. Martin Morris (Schulich Library, McGill University, Canada) and K.R. Roberto (Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States) talked about Information-seeking behaviour of LGBTQ health professionals: New data to inform inclusive practice

They reported on the results of a research project. This was folowing up on a study by Fikar and Keith (2004). There is evidence that medicine "has been almost silent on the issue of access to healthcare for LGBTQ patients". The researchers carried out a questionnaire survey and got 123 responses. They found that a majority (64.5%) did feel that they had specific information needs.  Comments included a need to have information related to (amongst other things) abuse, reproductive options, LGBTQ mental health, transgender issues. There was a call to be educated by LGBTQ peers. Straight librarians were felt to have a lack knowledge about LGBTQ issues. The researchers asked whether the participants in online chat with a librarian, and about 43% found it more appealing than f2f (in this case having the chat with a LGBTQ librarian didn't make the option more appealing). Lessons drawn from this included that: LGBTQ people continue to have specific needs; librarians can expect more complex questions; better trained librarians are needed; making the physical library more LGBTQ friendly e.g. having gender-neutral toilets inthe library; advertising these things on your library website. There was also the issue of "were respondents wrong about straight librarians"; there did seem to be a need for librarians who were out as LGBTQ and have librarians who engage with LGBTQ networks. A short paper is at http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1032

Fikar, C. and Keith, L. (2004). Information needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered health care professionals: results of an Internet survey. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 92(1), 56- 65.

Other talks in this LGBTQ session are available in the IFLA library:
JOSÉ AUGUSTO CHAVES GUIMARÃES et al. Gay Marriage and Homoaffective Union: a terminological analysis of the social values of libraries as a source for an ethical subject representation and dissemination in Brazil
B. Mehra and L. Gray “Don’t Say Gay” in the State of Tennessee: Libraries as Virtual Spaces of Resistance and Protectors of Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) People
N. Somorjai Reducing the Suicide Risk of LGBTQ Library Users
J.A. Winkelstein Public Libraries: Creating Safe Spaces for Homeless LGBTQ Youth She also mentioned http://lambda.sis.utk.edu
C. Edeholt and M. Lindgren. The Rainbow Library at Umeå City Library and The Swedish Network for LGBTQ Issues at Libraries (the photo is of a slide showing the Rainbow shelf at Umeå City Library.
E. da S. Alentejo Power and community: organizational and cultural LGBT responses against homophobia and promotion of inclusion values