Trip to Liverpool

I travelled to Liverpool last week to attend the Members Day and AGM of the Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) on the 1^st July and the CILIP conference where I was a speaker on the Friday.  The core of the LIRG event was three presentations:  Jess Elmore speaking about information literacy and home education which she noted had parallels with workplace IL activity; Miggie Pickton, discussing her work in promoting research in the University of Northampton Library which will be the envy of many practitioner researchers and Emily Wheeler who gave an insightful presentation on how academic librarians view their teaching activities, a study which I think could be further developed.  The implication seems to be that departments of information studies should be providing training in teaching methods.

On Friday 3^rd July I attended the CILIP conference. There were several keynote presentations but the one I found most interesting was the speaker from Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking organisation which, among other things, verifies claims and statements made by political parties. He mentioned an organisation called Information Norway which provides the Norwegian public at elections with information to help them decide on which party to vote for.  There might be lessons for Scotland here. The discussion of the role of information in civic engagement and political decision making was very welcome to me as it echoed some of the points I made in my presentation in the afternoon which was entitled: ‘ An information literacy policy for a small state?’. This described the work of the Community of Practice and its activities including its contributions to the Spreading the benefits of digital participation report and the successful February conference which greatly extended the scope of information literacy. I reviewed possible action points arising from the conference and reported on our meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Culture. This was followed by some discussion about IL in the workplace and the problems of promoting IL in other countries. It was a very hot, sticky afternoon and the audience did well to stay awake, let alone pay attention.  

The organisation of the conference was very good and Jason Russell and his CILIP colleagues did a great job   in making sure things ran smoothly.

John Crawford 

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