Catch up from John Crawford

Dear All, 

I am very much aware that I have been very uncommunicative lately but I have benn busy with other things, not ot mention major IT problems which are now hopefully sorted out. Not that there is nothing to report.

Lauren Smith, a PhD researcher at Strathclyde University has been awarded a grant by the Information Literacy Group (See press release below and CILIP news item 'Groundbreaking research in schools and workplace will marry information competenncies with citizenship and employability') and she will be working with the Community of Practice among others. 

Morag Higgison, John Crawford, Lauren Smith at the Il Symposium 2015

Learning, lending, liberty? Can school libraries be engines for youth citizenship?

The first research project, Learning, lending, liberty? Can school libraries be engines for youth citizenship? will explore the role of school libraries in the wider school environment including citizenship education. The project will identify how Scottish school libraries support young people’s political participation in two major political events – the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 and the UK General Election 2015. The project will also explore the information and information literacy (IL) needs of young people outside the school environment and identify how IL provision is vital in helping them become informed and meaningful participants in politics. Principle Investigator Lauren Smith (the University of Strathclyde) will work in partnership with YoungScot, a young people’s information charity; the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC); The Right Information, Scotland’s information literacy community of practice and CILIPS. 

IL Symposium, 13/02/2015The conference on February 13^th at Atlantic Quay in Glasgow seems to have been a success, judging by informal feedback. One of its main aims was to bring together people from a range of sectors so that they could understand each other’s problems and understand how IL can help to solve them. Bill Johnston, Ian McCracken and I are meeting with SLIC staff next Monday to review feedback and consider what to do next. 

I submitted a proposal to speak at this year’s CILIP conference in Liverpool at the beginning of July and it has been accepted http://cilipconference2015.org.uk/programme/ . My topic will be: An information literacy policy for a small state? No prizes for guessing what the small state is.

Rather further down the line is ECIL 2015 http://ecil2015.ilconf.org/ which will take place at Tallin University, Tallin, Estonia from 19^th to 22^nd October. Scots have presented at the two previous conferences and it would be good if there were Scottish presentations again this year, a co-ordinated panel perhaps.

Rather more locally I hope to attend the Welsh Information Literacy Project conference www.library.wales.org/informationliteracy . It is taking place in Wrexham on 26^th March.

Best wishes

John  Crawford

RGU's Report on The Impact of School Libraries on Learning is now on-line

RGU's Report on The Impact of School Libraries on Learning is now on-line. 

CILIPS Autumn Gathering 2013: Inspiration and Education - school libraries, digital and information literacies and professional development

On the 10 October I attended the  at the John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh. The themes for this year were school libraries, digital and information literacies and professional development. Audrey Sutton, CILIP in Scotland's President kicked off the day and welcomed everybody.

The first keynote speaker was Barbara Band, CILIP Vice President - Let’s shout about advocacy Barbara is a school librarian and very passionate about what she does and called upon everyone to be an advocate and shout out about libraries. That self advocacy does not come naturally to most people but we need self advocacy to support our role, services we provide and our profession. Advocacy she said 'was a bit of a scary concept for people' as it was associated with lobbying, putting yourself out there, not a comfortable position. However if you looked at alternative words for advocacy, it was closely aligned to promotion, a term / activity which people were more comfortable with. The major reasons for advocacy was to influence, to inform, to educate and to change.  People's perceptions are based on their experience, so what you do influences people's perceptions of what you and we do as a profession and the services you/we provide.

“30% of our success is due to skills and experience but 70% is due to visibility.” Steve Bowman, University of Chichester

When advocating / promoting it is important to decided who your target audience is, what your key message is, it must be pertinent and relevant and you need to speak their language. How or what you will do, will depend on your circumstances and commitment, for example:  

1. your organisation - let people know what you are doing
2. your sector (your tribe) - collective wisdom - participate, collaborate, disseminate with others
3. the profession - get involved

You need to: be creative and persistent; look at how others do it; use your network. We all have a voice - so use it.

Many of the above themes were picked up by other speakers / presentations throughout the day.

I next attended the Schools Libraries: Advocacy! A group discussion facilitated by the School Libraries Advocacy Group Firstly we learnt about the advocacy being carried out by the group including:

• focusing on Education Scotland
• sharing of good practice / evidence of supporting learners - there is a space on the cilips website http://www.cilips.org.uk/shared-practice/
• SLIC has commissioned Robert Gordon University (RGU) to undertake research into the impact of school libraries. The information was gathered through Freedom of Information requests from local authorities not just in Scotland but in England as well. Some information was shared with us. Of the 21 local authorities in Scotland who responded (2 failed to respond) there is a variation of service offered across Scotland and unfortunately an overall demise of centralised library services. 12 authorities provide some provision through public library services and all but one employs a professional librarian. The English scene is still to be analysed. See http://www.scottishlibraries.org/school-libraries/ for a summary of the findings, full details of the project and the RGU final report which will be available soon.

The discussion part of the session focused on specific questions regarding advocacy linked to how, what, where etc. The delegates from each table discussed the question at thier table - suggestions, comments etc. where recorded by a facilitator and the group moved on to the next time when time was up. Hopefully the recorded thoughts will be written up and made available. If I hear about it I will let you know. If you hear about it - please let me know.

The second keynote speaker of the morning was Liz McGettigan – A Force for Change - The infinite possibilities of libraries and librarians in the digital age I know and have heard Liz speak before and she is certainly a force for change and an inspirational speaker. Her presentations are always filled with powerful images and quotations. I didn't take any notes during her presentation so please have a look at it.

As this is quite a lengthy blog posting I will finish here and post another day about the afternoon sessions I attended which concentrated on professional development. There are I think some useful activities and strategies that we could use for information literacy. 

The presentations from this year's Gathering are now online and available at http://www.cilips.org.uk/autumn-gathering-presentations/

CILIPS Autumn Gathering 2013: October 10th

Email out from the CILIP in Scotland Team to say that booking is now open for this year's CILIP Autumn Gathering at the John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh. It looks like a great programme / line up

This year is all about Education and Inspiration and the programme contains three main strands:

• Digital and Information Literacies
• School Libraries
• Professional Development

The keynote speakers reflect this diversity as we have Barbara Band (CILIP Vice President), Liz McGettigan (Head of Edinburgh Libraries) and Simon Finch (Northern Grid).

Other sessions offer a choice for delegates and include a debate on e-books, a session on using social media effectively, school library best practice 'shout-outs', a case study of CPD 23, some best practice examples of information literacy projects, tips on how to deliver an elevator pitch, discussion about the new CILIP Professional Knowledge and Skills Base and school library research.

The early bird price for CILIPS members is only £55 so book now

#CILIPSAG13