An exploration of the information literacy experiences of home educating families

I'm looking forward to hearing Jess Elmore speak about An exploration of the information literacy experiences of home educating families at the LIRG Member's Day and AGM. The event takes place on the 1st July at the Wolfson Meeting Room, Harold Cohen Library, University of Liverpool. Event details are at https://sites.google.com/site/lirgweb/home/events/agm-2015  
 
Abstract: 
Jess will discuss her dissertation, which explored the information literacy experiences of five home educating families. The research was constructivist with a grounded approach to data analysis and involved in-depth interviews with family groups (parents and children were interviewed together). The children in the study were aged between eight and seventeen. The presentation will include a summary of the context of home education in the UK and highlight the lack of information literacy research in this area. It will involve a brief discussion of the research methods and findings. The focus will be on how these findings relate to existing models of information literacy, with particular reference to the importance of reflection; the significance of communities of practice and the potential challenge to the orthodoxy of formal educational models.

Biography: 
Jess completed her MA Librarianship at the Information School, Sheffield in 2014. She is now a PhD student at the Information School and is researching the information literacy experiences of ESOL (English for Speaker of Other Languages) learners. She has previously worked as a teacher, a university administrator and a community learning development worker.

I'm also looking forward to hearing Miggie Pickton - Developing a research culture in the workplace: top down and bottom up approaches and Emily Wheeler - Teaching or training? Academic librarians’ conceptions of their IL activities. 

The event is free to CILIP and LIRG members and £21 (inc VAT) to non members. Just a few places left. 

I'll be tweeting from the event @CM_Irving using the #scotinfolit and Fari the LIRG Social Media Officer will be tweeting from @ciliplirg 

IL in the workplace - updating the annotated bibliography

Would recommend that you support the updating of the annotated bibliography and if you haven't read it then read it. See details below. 

Dear all,

In July 2014, Professor Dorothy Williams, Katie Cooper and Caroline Wavell, from Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, working in association with InformAll, produced an annotated bibliography on information literacy in the workplace. This document is a valuable resource, but its value would be enhanced by ensuring that it maintains its currency. We are therefore proposing to update it on at least a yearly basis, and we invite all those with an interest in information literacy – academics, practitioners, research consultants and others – to provide us with information about new or recent publications that might be added to the bibliography. We would welcome such information by Wednesday 19 August; please contact either of us at the address below.

The bibliography describes publications which, since around 2000, have addressed two key issues:

- How should information literacy be described within workplace settings? What are the priority / key information skills and abilities related to the effective use of information in the workplace?
- Is there any evidence of the value and / or impact of information literacy in the workplace?

The bibliography takes the form of a table which, against each of around forty publications – journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and reports – provides a brief description of (i) key relevant points in the material; and (ii) how information literacy in the workplace is defined. Selected quotations from the publications are provided where appropriate, and the well-structured presentation provides a convenient, pithy overview of contemporary understanding of information literacy in the workplace. The table is prefaced by a short, five page summary that picks out major issues.

We should therefore be grateful to receive brief descriptions of additional material, in the same bulleted format as the current document. Once we have collected this, we will publish a new version of the bibliography, in September or October 2015. Of course, we will acknowledge the assistance received from all those who will be providing input.

Thank you in anticipation for your assistance; and please feel free to get back to us if you would like further information. An online version of this message (and a pdf version for circulating) can be found at http://www.researchinfonet.org/infolit/ridls/transferable-skills/updating-bibliography/

Katie Cooper – Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, k.cooper2@rgu.ac.uk

Stéphane Goldstein – InformAll, stephane.goldstein@researchinfonet.org

Help an information need

Help an information need to show the scale & scope of the Library, Archives, Records, Information & Knowledge Management Services in 2015

We all have a need for information in order to make decisions. This need could be for ourselves or for the organisation or institution we work for or are a member of such as a professional body.

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the Archives Reccord Association (ARA) have commissioned major research to map the workforce across the Library, Archives, Records, Information and Knowledge Management Services and related professions in the United Kingdom. 

cilip.org.uk/putyourselfonthemap

They need information to show the scale and scope of the profession in 2015.

I am part of the research team working on this commissioned project.

If you are a member of this workforce, please complete the survey at http://bit.ly/workforcemap. As well as helping the research, respondents could also win £200 worth of vouchers of their choice.

The survey takes no more than 15 minutes to complete, and has been designed so that it can be completed on a range of devices, but it is most accessible on a desktop, laptop or tablet computer.

The project team would be grateful if you could also spread word of the survey amongst colleagues who work in libraries, archives, records management, information management and knowledge management. We are interested in the views of all workers at all levels, whether in paid or unpaid employment.

Thank you in anticipation of your support to help meet this information need. 

Christine 

Information Literacy and the Housing Sector

This is the last of my postings about the presentations from the information literacy symposium in Glasgow on the 13th February 2015. 

Evelyn McDowal, Business Solutions Leader at the Wheatley Housing Group was the last speaker of the day and she spoke about information literacy and the housing sector. Some of her remarks where familar, for example "digital exclusion is a problem" and issues regarding people not being online. Evelyn highlighted that the majority of the Wheatley Housing Group customers are not online and that in Glasgow 90% of older people are not on line. It was interesting to hear that 

Evelynn highlighted Digital Glasgow and Digital Glasgow's Strategy 

Eveleyn spoke about citizens participation and the aspiration for all citizens in Glasgow. It was good to see and hear what had been achieved so far (see link to slide below for full details) with "key partners collaborating across the city" and the "number of digital access points across the partners". With the move to online benefits and the need to support this, it was good to hear of the initiative to have "trained staff in Welfare Benefits and University Credits at Digital Access points" and "free literacy and numeracy training to underpin support for basic digital skills". Also a 'digital skills standard' created for the city and a 'digital volunteers programme'. 

The presentation then moved on to the Wheatley Housing Group's vision which was innovative with "affordable internet access in every rented home" and "enhancing employability through better digital skills". A pilot project saw free broadband given to a group of house tenants supported by local learning centres. The results included successful high rise wifi access for 138 families and communal areas. Not surprising is that people asked their neighburs and friends for advice and support with their information seeking. Other results were:

It was surpirsing to hear that all tenants did not sign up to the project but not surpirsing that once the pilot started a few more came forward. 

Whilst this pilot is and has digital participant success stories, Evelyn highlighted that there are still major challenges out there. It was good to hear of the housing sector working with libraries / learning centres to advance digital participation. The Wheatley Housing Group next steps are to:

• Continue to work with Digital Glasgow
• Welfare reform support
• End to end solutions
• Replicate across Housing sector
• Digital skills for staff
• Training, voluteering and apprenticeship opportunities for customers.

Evelyn said she would like to see broadband in all social housing and that digital skills for staff were just as important as for customer. 

The slides are avialble at Information Literacy and the Housing Sector

It would be great to hear how the Wheatley Housing Group progresses there plans and to see if other social housing groups do similar initiatives. Thanks to Evelyn for a really interesting presentation. 

Information Literacy and Welfare Reform: challenges and opportunities

Welfare Reform ChallengesInformation Literacy and Welfare Reform was the title of the fifth presentation at the IL Symposium. Gregory Colgan, Head of Corporate Debt and Welfare Reform, Corporate Services Department, Dundee City Council certainly presented a picture of what he called challenges and opportunities around welfare reform. Connected to that is the digital world we live in and the necessary skills people need.

According to Gregory, we are digital by default. Dundee City Council stopped advertising jobs in newspapers, they are all now advertised online. For many other employers the situation will be the same.  

Gregory presented some demographic figures relating to Dundee citizens and benefit claimants, lower income, deprived areas compared to the Scottish averages (see slide 2 for specifics - a link to the presentation is at the end of the posting).

He then went on to list the welfare reform challenges as:

• Universal Credit
• Universal Support Delivered Locally
• Claimant Committment - Day 1 Conditionality
• Universal Job Match
• Job Searches / Activities
• Digital Access / Skills 
• Literacy / Numeracy
• Local access to Services
• Budgeting
• Banking
• In work Benefits

To tackle these challenges Dundee City Council has set up strategic partnerships within and outwith the council that relate or need to respond to Welfare Reform. Included is: Employability and Learning; Supportive Initiatives; Scottish Welfare Fund: Housing Services; DLA to PIP; Universial Credit.

Employability and learning includes upskilling individuals. Equipping locla people with employability skills. Partenrship is seen as key: DWP (Department of Work and Pensions), Libraries and Voluntary Sector. Gregory saw an opportunity for library and voluntary sectors. 

Examples of activities taking place include:

Opportunities Room - This project operates within the Central Library in Dundee, where they have created a space which is around IT, learning and Development. The project also recruits volunteers who train individuals on IT skills.

IT4 Work. This project is funded from the DWP local flexible fund and provides IT support in local community centres to those who are looking to enhance there IT skills to assist them in entering the job market. It is a 6-8 weeks course with Adult Learning Tutors that results in a certificate. Gregory said there was a 'clear referal path from the library to the project'. Some of the quotes on the slide/s showed that it was helping people for example

Browsing from home, I saw a job and applied for it as I now know how to do it. 

I was also interested in the following quote "I go regulalry to Douglas Library, I didn't have the confidence before". Confidence building was an outcome / benefit that John Crawford and I found in a library employability course study. People attedning these course often have had a bad or poor experience of mainstream education resulting in poor confidence.

Another aspect that interested me was using visual digital resources e.g. videos for those who are illiterate. The resources are create by Dundee College with captions for the deaf. I have heard of and seen visual resources created by Dundee College in the form of graphic novels. 

The key message from the presentation was 

Universal credit will be a bit of a challenge to us with information and digital literacy problems. The only way we will make a difference is is we work in partnerships.

I would certainly reiterate and endorse that last sentence. I know from experience the difference partnership working makes. 

Gregory's presentation slides are available on slideshare so please have a look at them.  

For those working in public libraries, they are already seeing some of these challenges particulalry in the present economic climate with the loss of staff and in some places library servcies. I couldn't help but think that for those working in Public Libraries it may seem like a dam is about to burst on them. I not sure if the rest of us are aware of the challenges: I think we are obilvious to the impact the welfare reform will have on libraries. However hopefully Gregory's presentation highlighted some opportunities and strategies that public libraries can take advantage of.