Day in the Life Project Round 7 26 July 2011

I am still an Academic Liaison Librarian here at University of Bedfordshire in Luton, UK.

I usually mutter about how does anyone have the time! I have done it though before and this week I thought I will go with it! Let's do today!

At the moment I am locked in combat with writing a few chapters of a book about Information Literacy. I woke up about 5.00 a.m. and was trying to make some sense of what the hell IL is all about....how sad is that!

Yesterday I spent most of the day chained to my laptop (see pic) except for the time when I went and moved a few bushes round in the garden! Guess which gave me the most satisfaction...(see pic).

I came to work by bus and had to read an important book for my research : sentences like "the focus of information literacy has largely been centred on instrumental or cognitive views of learning, which have historically been framed within a Cartesian approach to learning" and then there are epistomological concerns and I want to scream!

At work I find I have 85 e-mails again and it takes me til 11.20 to sort through them all!
Everyone is very quiet : perhaps they think I am grumpy because of all those e-mails.
Two more articles arrived from British Library electronically in my e-mail. What a huge improvement this service is but I have to read them now! "Millennial students' mental modes of search : implications for academic librarians and database developers" and "Towards Library 2.0 : the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in public libraries". I'll save them for the bus on the way home...hope I dont sleep through my stop....
Found out about the Library 2.0 online megaconference planned for November. Must follow this up.

What does the rest of the week hold? Oh no I find I have a whole day on Friday teaching RefWorks. That's the first of the sessions we offer to M level students. Suppose they all come at once..... I dont go in for booking in advance : it went OK last time : "I always hope for the best" : reckon that should go on my tombstone.

I spy a book on my desk - that's unusual - it's a PhD thesis for cataloguing - how I admire anyone who has the staying power to go through all that. Think of the referencing...even with RefWorks.Can't face cataloguing it : there's a new version of Dewey around and that might complicate things.Talking of that reminds me of shelving books years ago with those huge long numbers after the decimal point - always wanted to get the Dewey revising committee to do a few days shelving...

Go to a leaving party for our University Head of Student Welfare : very moving as he has been here 18 years and will be much missed.Lovely jokes too but such a noisy room.

Preparing for session for 5 international students on a Writing course tomorrow. Only 5 : 3 Russians, 1 Finn and 1 Roumanian. It will be about social media : what a nice change from banging on about databases. Reckon I might learn as much from them and the way they are operating as they will from me.I'll do Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Dropbox, Blogger, Netvibes, Evernote according to their interests.

Half an hour on the phone talking to my ex-colleagues at London South Bank University who have been through a management restructure and are being made redundant. I had that 4 years ago. I know how they feel. To say that they will feel very different about it in a month or two is no comfort.These restuctures are going to be conmmon in this economic environment.

Just found out about two great little videos from LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans from our E Services Librarian.They will really help our sessions on Friday. I hope that others are using our Just a Minute videos on other topics available here.

It's no good : time to go back to reading about Information Literacy. Let's see "........current information literacy frameworks based on these concepts are 'incompatible with emergent concepts of knowledge and epistemology for digital and online environments". Aaaaaargh! Time for tea.
The answer lies in the Naxos Library (only £13 a year I think I pay) so I can listen to all the stuff in their library. Just the thing when I am ordering or in this case reading tricky stuff.
Am trying Honegger's score for "Les Miserables."I like Honegger but this isnt the happiest music he has written!
Time to go home : read on the bus and then piano playing and maybe a bit of writing late on tonight but no mention sof epistomology or praxis or whatever it was!

Transition Literacy

Information literacy from school to higher education is one of the most important areas for development. I was very interested to find this recent presentation at WILU at Regina in Canada. They used the term transition literacy to describe this challenge : a useful label I think.

T8 Grassroots collaborations and beyond : bridging the gap between high school and post-secondary, by Jennifer Sigalet, Okanagan College, Leslie Barton, Pleasant Valley Secondary School and Sherri Savage, San Jose State University (MLIS). See it here.

The abstract said :

"Recent surveys indicate there is a widening gap between the information literacy skills of high school students and the information literacy skills expectations post-secondary professors have of first-year university students. In response to this growing concern, a high school teacher-librarian and a college librarian recently collaborated on a joint production of the video Research Skills: Bridging the Gap Between High School & Post-Secondary. The film features interviews of six university professors discussing their research skills expectations of first-year university students. The interviews confirm the results of ongoing studies and reports on information literacy and the significant gap between high school and first-year university student preparedness.

Since its production (2010), Research Skills: Bridging the Gap Between High School & Post-Secondary has become a powerful tool for creating an awareness of the existing information literacy skills shortfalls of students entering post-secondary education. The film has subsequently been presented to key players in education including high school administrators, teachers, teacher librarians, school boards, and university professors and librarians.

The original goal of the film Research Skills was to create an impactful means of advocating for teacher-librarians while reiterating the importance of teaching information literacy skills in high schools in preparation for post secondary education. As well, the film has subsequently stimulated discussions amongst high school teacher-librarians and post-secondary librarians as they continue to explore collaborative bridging opportunities within school districts.

The session will bring together useful information on the current state of bridging the gap between high school and post-secondary and will explore collaborative ways of bridging this information literacy gap."

There was also a useful handout here.

Comic guide to Miller Library, McPherson College

Take a look at this new style Library guide for the Miller Library at McPherson College, Kansas here.
They call it a Zombie Guide. It will be interesting to know how their users take to it! Certainly different!

This is the Silver Bullet!

I didnt put the title of the article as the title of this post in case it put you off!
Participation and pedagogy : connecting the social web to ACRL learning outcomes, by Greg Bobish, Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37 (1) 54-63 is the most comprehensive and important summary of how Web 2.0 can be used to deliver Information Literacy!
True, it is tied to the ACRL standards and this makes for a long and detailed article, but there are so many great ideas here! It is really the epitome of much of what our book and this blog is about! It is the article that I should have written (but was too lazy) months or years ago applied to the SCONUL Seven Pillars Framework.
So thank you Bob for this.