Information Literacy meets Library 2.0

Mobile delivery of Information Services

2012-01-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

Char Booth has posted here about her recent survey for Council of Chief Librarians of California Community Colleges, which was partly about use of mobile technologies.
It showed most users were very or fairly likely to use mobile content, resarch and support.
She also linked mobile service to the kind of mobile support which can be offered by a no-frills vendor pushcart which can go between sites and be among our users. This is a fascinating post and the report below is important.

California Community College Student Library & Technology Engagement Survey: 2011 Pilot, Final Report

View more documents from char booth

Skills that travel : Transliteracy and the Global Librarian

2012-01-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

Must recommend this presentation by Lane Wilkinson at ACRL/NY Annual Symposium on 2 Dec. 2011. If you have not come up against the concept of Transliteracy, this presentation is an excellent advocate for showing how it can illuminate the role of the modern librarian. Highly recommended.

Skills That Transfer: Transliteracy and the Global Librarian (ACRL/NY 2011 Symposium)

View more presentations from Lane Wilkinson

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T23:25:00.000-08:00

Advent has been full of music making and end of term so that's why no posts!
It's time to say Happy Christmas to all those who read my site! Watch out for 2012 there will be some news!
The pic below is of an old building in the centre of St. Albans : it was all snowy that year : reckon it will be quite warm and no snow this year!

Framing transliterate learning through inquiry and participatory culture

2011-12-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

This inspiring presentation by Buffy Hamilton, whom I much admire, at AASL 2011 asks how we are helping students create conversations about multiple ways of reading and writing today’s world?
It includes a number of definitions of transliteracy from various experts and proponents of the term. Having just done a good deal of research around this area myself I can recommend this presentation as a good indication of where librarians should be positiooining themselves to help our students in schools and beyond. Regret no time now to view say more : I shall return to this. I do admire such a great presentation but 148 slides may put you off...It wears me out to imagine how long this lot took to prepare! Some great images and captions though!

Framing Transliterate Learning Through Inquiry and Participatory Culture

View more presentations from Buffy Hamilton

Libraries to go : mobile tech in libraries

2011-12-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

Ellyssa Kroski has done it again! A great summary of how libraries are engaging with mobiles.Last year at the Online conference in London I was able to see her present and this latest update is really worth looking at.

Mobile Tech in Libraries

View more presentations from Ellyssa Kroski

Truth, lies and the internet

2011-12-01T04:52:00.001-08:00

This Demos report here looks at the ability of young people in Britain to critically evaluate online information. We librarians may have a view on this already (!) This report reviews current literacture and the views of 500 teachers.
The report calls for scepticism online to ba the heart of learning. Censorship of the web is neither needed nor desirable. This will be a useful report to be able to use and cite.
Great stuff!

Web 2.0 tools in education : a quick guide

2011-12-01T04:36:00.000-08:00

Came across this guide by Mohamed Amin Embi from Centre of Academic Advancement, University Kebangsaan Malaysia. It is a remarkable guide available for us all to consult on the web using FlipSnack. The experience is therefore like reading an orginal book and flipping over the pages. Coverage includes blogs, Diigo, Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Glogster, Jing, Prezi, Sype, Slideshare, Twitter, YouTube and Wordle.
Each is explained with visual diagrams. Great and useful resource.

Research Supervisors and Information Literacy

2011-12-01T04:18:00.001-08:00

Just in case you haven't come across the recent RIN report "The role of research supervisors in information literacy" - here is the link. It looks at the role of PhD supervisors in ensuring research students have the appropriate level of IL ability to manage their work and later career. Two online surveys were done (one for supervisors and one for research students)plus 5 case studies. A complex and variable picture emerges (doesnt surprise me..) Supervisors are an influence, even if they dont real;ly recognise the IL concept.A minority do not engage their students in IL. There is emphasis on academic writing and importance of critical thinking which I finbd encouraging. Supervisors are not always aware of the training and help available (surprise surprise). Many admit to being out of date or not fully up to date.
We have an opening here and the recommendations will help this. See here

Information Literacy 2.0

2011-11-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

I agree with so much of an article by Meredith Farkas on Information Literacy 2.0 when she says :
"The birth of the web made it necessary for librarians to shift more towards teaching search strategies and evaluation of sources. The tool-focused “bibliographic instruction” approach was later replaced by the skill-focused “information literacy” approach. Now, with the growth of Web 2.0 technologies, we need to start shifting towards providing instruction that will enable our patrons to be successful information seekers in the Web 2.0 environment, where the process of evaluation is quite a bit more nuanced."
She goes on to emphasise the importance of critical evaluation. This has always been important : it is simply that it is now the most important factor - in my opinion.Search is significant but its what you do with the results - how you interpret them and make them into an argument. That's what my students can't do and need help with. And of course being able to use the wonderful collaborative tools that Judy O'Connell was speaking about here.

Teacher Librarians are important

2011-11-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

Brilliant post from Judy O'Connell about the importance of teacher librarians.
"The importance of the teacher librarian is intrinsically linked to effective and responsive information curation and dissemination in distributed environments within and beyond the school. Use of Web 2.0 tools has become embedded in good practice, and information curation has extended beyond the library catalogue to library and school information management systems for bibliographic and media resources, and various organizational tools that reside beyond the school in web environments, such as Libguides, Diigo, Live Binders, wiki, Delicious, Google tools, RSS, media tools, netvibes, iGoogle, and many more."
Read this clarion call!

Textbooks of Tomorrow

2011-11-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

Stephen Abram posted about the Textbook of Tomorrow. It shows predictions as an Infographic.
I ask though : would 1 in 4 students really give up sex for a month in order to have all-digital textbooks?!

QR codes and Information Literacy

2011-11-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have been playing with QR codes for over a year now.Students have been slow to take to this new technology. Lauren Pressley has done a large presentation on QR codes, location based services and augmented realit, including a section on IL. I am sure this is an important and developing area.
At the moment it is still about experimentation. Some great slides. See here.

RefWorks Tutorials on Video

2011-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

I owe a big thank you to LSU Health Sciences Center for producing such useful videos about Write n Cite and RefGrabit to help with our RefWorks training. I imagine that other libraries who have to do RefWorks training will find them equally helpful. Here they are.

Finding free images online!

2011-11-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

Judy O'Connell has provided a terrific guide to finding free images here.
She says "It’s not just about copyright – its about being practical, and showing students the wonderful world of possibilities beyond Google images or taking anything they find that is not actually in the public domain – a vital point as more students and teachers move into online environments of blogs, wikis and more. Including images with postings enriches the experience for the reader and can also help to illustrate or support the writer’s viewpoint." Thank you Judy!

More about Infographics

2011-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

Kathy Scrock has collected some information about Infographics on her site here : books, samples, online tutorials and advice on how to create them and how to use them in class.

Integrating Information Literacy into the HE curricula

2011-11-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

I have long believed that IL should be integrated into the curriculum where it fits into the student learning experience. This is preferable to those standalone study skills units which mean little to the student.
The challenge is to get the stuff embedded. When I was in Brisbane at the RAILS seminar at Queensland University of Technology (QUT)I found out about a thesis by Xiaoli Wang which goes into the characteristics of IL integration, key stakeholders involved,curricula design strategies and the process of integration.Here it is in the QUT depository,

Infographics are in!

2011-10-20T05:21:00.000-07:00

The 2.0 phenomenon has spawned the ability to create visual representations of data, which can be really powerful. Of course creating visuals was always possible but it has got easier and "infographics" are here to stay. Here is an example of one from UMPF about the use of social media by people in the UK, based on a survey of 2387 UK adults.See original posting for details.
It was also featured and commented upon on the Cool Infographics blog. It's the infographic that you should look at.

Slideshare and Facebook joined up

2011-10-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

After a long break (which I shall explain in later posts) I'm back and catching you up with things you may already know about!!
SlideShare announced :
"While the Facebook application is not an exact replica of SlideShare, we have tried to include the core features. You can upload your presentations, tag them, comment on others’ presentations and browse using “latest” or “most viewed” tabs . You can also import any of presentations from SlideShare into Facebook with a single click, by specifying the username or tag. This saves the hassle of copying-pasting the embed code. These presentations will show up in Facebook as “imported” with the proper attributions to the original author/user on SlideShare. We think this feature will allow the best content from SlideShare to be consumed by an entirely new audience. "

Day in the Life Project Round 7 26 July 2011

2011-07-26T04:13:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-14T02:47:00.001-07:00

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

2011-07-14T01:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-07-14T01:39:00.000-07:00

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.

New Teaching Tools for Chat Reference

2011-06-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

This brilliant presentation using Prezi was given recently at WILU 2011. It was by Lauren DiMonte and Joanna Szurmak from University of Toronto Mississauga. They demonstrate the value of a chat reference service in a University Library and then show how they developed short videos to meet FAQs. They refer to recent articles about screencasts and include an example of their own work at Toronto. Wish I'd been at the presentation to applaud!

M-Libraries 2011 Summary

2011-06-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Alex Miller has done a great job summarising the M-Libraries Brisbane 2011 Conference in a Prezi

m-libraries 2011 summary on Prezi

Information Literacy and Higher Education : a toolkit for curricular integration

2011-06-18T00:43:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Jarson has written a great paper here in College and Research Libraries News (Nov 2010) which " is to guide readers to important resources for understanding information literacy and to provide tools for readers to advocate for information literacy’s place in higher education curricula."

Reading this and following the links is likely to save colleagues who need sources and justification for their IL interventions hours of time!

Good practice advice for using Web 2.0 in schools

2011-06-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Somehow I came across this useful attempt at a good practice guide for schools wanting to move on using Web 2.0. It is by Matthew"Toward a set of theoretical best practices for Web 2.0 and Web-based technologies" and it appeared in Meridian School Computer Technologies Journal this year. Access it here.

SCONUL Seven Pillars Model revised!

2011-06-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

At the LILAC Conference in London recently Moira Bent and Ruth Stubbings unveiled the new version of the SCONUL Seven Pillars Information Literacy framework. This is a major development and I should have shouted about it before! I quote :

"In order for the model to be relevant to different user communities and ages, the new model is presented as a generic “core” model for Higher Education, to which a series of “lenses”, representing the different groups of learners, can be applied. The Research Lens is the first of the lenses to be developed."

Here is the generic model for HE
Here is the research lens

It's just not the same : mobile information literacy

2011-05-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is the presentation Andrew Walsh (University of Huddersfield) and I gave at M-Libraries in Brisbane.

This was the abstract :

"Libraries are increasingly developing services that take into account the massive effect of mobile devices upon our users. But what does this increase in use of mobile devices and related services mean for information literacy?
Some databases and library catalogues are delivered in mobile friendly formats, or cross platform search tools (such as Summon at University of Huddersfield). More of our users have the equipment to take advantage of these services each year, with mobile access to the internet soon expected to overtake fixed access. When a library user is as likely to search for information on a mobile phone, tablet or handheld
gaming device as on a fixed PC or in the physical library, will that change the concept of what it means to be information literate? How does mobile search change the discovery, evaluation and re-use of information?
We should consider how the concept of information literacy may be affected in this pervasive mobile context and whether we need to develop a new lens through which to view the literacies required by our clientele.
This paper will first consider the mobile context for information literacy. Then the presenters will compare and contrast their experiences in meeting and harnessing these devices in the delivery of Information Literacy in their own institutions, the University of Bedfordshire and University of Huddersfield in the UK."

You can see a pdf here

Social media survey

2011-05-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

There is a survey about use of social media, from the International Federation of Library associations and Institutions.
"In an effort to learn more about how librarians, library workers, library students, and library associations use social media, the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has developed a short survey on these topics. Our hope is that the results will allow us to communicate better with those in the worldwide library community - using the most effective tools at our disposal. We're also very interested in those who DON'T use certain social media, and why they don't."
"If you have not yet done so, please take a few moments to complete the survey (deadline: Wednesday, 1 June 2011) and share it widely with your colleagues and members!" Also you can "Be a fan of FAIFE on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/faife"
In English: http://www.surveymonkey.com/IFLAsocialmedia
En Español: http://www.surveymonkey.com/IFLAredessocial-espanol
En Françes: http://www.surveymonkey.com/IFLAreseauxsociaux-frances

M-Libraries 2011 : Keynote: Stephen Abram

2011-05-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

I have heard Stephen talk before but his was way the best : entertaining, challenging and in the end hard to keep up with! Here it is :

M libraries final

View more presentations from Stephen Abram

Back from Oz!

2011-05-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

This has been the longest gap between posts-ever!
Most blogs which I follow are drying up a bit so I guess I am not unusual. However the main reason is that much of May I have been in Australia visiting and attending the RAILS seminar and M-Libraries Conference in Brisbane. I shall be posting about these as fast as I can.
The first presentation at M-Libraries I want to showcase was one I didnt even go to! It is by Sally Cummings, Julie Cartwright and others from Charles Darwin University, at Darwin. It is an excellent description of how they have used a treasure hunt to engage new users both on and off campus. The slides show uses of QR codes and how the treasure hunt helped to encourage the use of these. There are details of how effective they felt the hunt had been and pointers for the future.I particularly liked the plans for future use of QR codes there "Aim for high impact low cost.Linking physical spaces or items directly to associated electronic resources."A lot of the presentation resonated with our experience at University of Bedfordshire but there are some great tips which we can use too. Wish I had gone to this session and isnt Slideshare wonderful that we can all "attend" it now!

Exploring student engagement with mobile technologies at a regional university

View more presentations from Sally Cummings

Nicholas Carr : the age of perpetual distraction

2011-04-08T06:07:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Carr (author of The Shallows, what the internet is doing to our brains) features in the latest Project Information Literacy (PIL) "Smart Talks" here. It's both interesting and provocative. Makes me want to read the above book. As it mentions the report mentiuoned in the previous post about the latest research by Head and Eisenberg, this is a useful follow-on.

This excerpt is the most interesting for me ;

"I don’t think anyone is “born digital” (at least not yet). We’re all born with human bodies and human minds, and those bodies and minds are influenced in similar ways by the ways we use them and the environment in which we use them. I’ve never subscribed to the fear that people wouldn’t be able to figure out how to navigate online information. People are generally pretty good at learning how to use new media, to separate the wheat from the chaff—and that goes for older people as well as younger ones. I’m 52, and I don’t take anything I find online at face value, either. What concerns me is the mode of thinking that the online world encourages, with its emphasis on speed, multitasking, skimming, and scanning. The web provides little encouragement or opportunity for quieter, more attentive ways of thinking, such as contemplation, reflection, introspection. Those ways of thinking used to be considered the essence of the human intellect. Now they’re seen as dispensable."

So, following from this does this mean that our information literacy interventions should pay more attention to this need to encourage reflection?

BTW this is the 400th post on this blog!!! Somehow I dont think we will make 500...

Latest Head and Eisenberg research

2011-04-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

How college students use the Web to conduct everyday life research in First Monday, is the latest piece of research by Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg. (Project Information Literacy PIL).
Here is the abstract
"This paper reports on college students’ everyday life information–seeking behavior and is based on findings from 8,353 survey respondents on 25 U.S. college campuses. A large majority of respondents had looked for news and, to a slightly lesser extent, decision–making information about purchases and health and wellness within the previous six mont

Publish Post

hs. Almost all the respondents used search engines, though students planning to purchase something were more likely to use search engines, and those looking for spiritual information were least likely to use search engines. Despite the widespread use of search engines, the process of filtering relevant from non–relevant search results was reportedly the most difficult part of everyday life research. As a whole, these students used a hybrid information–seeking strategy for meeting their everyday life information needs, turning to search engines almost as much as they did to friends and family. A preliminary theory is introduced that describes the relationship between students’ evaluation practices and their risk–associated searches."

What is Information Literacy?

2011-03-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Mike Eisenberg answers some key questions in this excellent vodcast.He still sees IL at the centre of the literacies in the 21st century, with technology and digital literacies fitting in as part of the IL process. He refers extensively to his Big6 framework. It's a really useful vodcast for those wanting answers to the basic questions of what IL might be and how to start putting it into the curriculum.

Barack Obama and information

2011-03-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

"Is education mainly about information?" asks a little video made by the University of New Brunswick Library. In the clip Barack Obama makes a guest speech at a University (in an amazing blue robe).This might be useful trigger video for a discussion about education or what the library can offer.
Information + Time for Research, Reading, and Thinking = Success for Your Research Paper.

Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter

2011-03-09T03:37:00.000-08:00

No doubt about it : I don't blog as much as I did ; there aren't so many posts on the blogs that I follow.
In an article 'Blogs wane as the young drift to sites like twitter" in the New York Times Feb 20, 2011 by Verne. G. Kopytoff, we discover the trends. The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.
Among older internet users blogging is still preferred. Some will see Twitter and Facebook as complementary to blogs - a place to promote their blogs.

Glimpse of the future

2011-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

This article from the XPLanation : What the educational technology world can expect - convergence, product evolution, and problems with metadata management : is a bit outside what I usually cover.

However it raises so many important issues :

He postulates by autumn 2012 tablet devices will take up 25% of HE computing devices in HE.
Students will be using these for sheer convenience : they are for e-books or word-p[rocessing but for convenience....
E-Books are disruptive and libraries will find them hard to come to terms with and manage.

They aren't learning to think critically...

2011-02-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, a book (Univ. Of Chicago Press)by Richard Arum, derives from an unusual study that followed several thousand undergraduates in the USA through 4 years of study. The important finding is that 45% of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college. After four years, 36% showed no significant gains in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills.
Being able to be critical about what you find and read and then build up an agument is what I am teaching most of the time. Therefore this report is of interesting to me and is a light bulb moment for those of us involved in Information Literacy. For more see here and here.

Five years Later Library 2.0 and Balance

2011-02-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

These two massive articles by Walt Crawford are full of insights. Taken from Cites and Insights vol.11, nos.2 and 3 they are of great interest to anyone interested in the Library 2.0 phenomenon. I shall not begin to summarise them : your time is better spent taking a look through them! I am just in awe of anyone having the time and dedication to produce such material.
Here is the first part and here is the second part.

Don't make it easy for them!

2011-02-18T07:47:00.000-08:00

I'm catching up with some posts at last! Been too busy with teaching lately (we did have to see 400 students in groups of 8 over 3 days...) but enough of excuses!

Don't make it easy for them was a little article on ACRLog by Andy Burkhardt of Champlain College, Vermont.
He says :
"I love customer service in libraries. I love improving our systems and services so they are more user-friendly. I love helping students with their research and answering their questions. But I don’t want to make things easy for students. If I did, I wouldn’t be giving them what they want: an education."

Then he goes into the old quandary : are we there to guide or do the work for them?
I understand this only too well because in a few moments I have to e-maila student about books on outsourcing. He seems to expect me to recommend an exact book and if there are no books with that subject keyword or title, we have failed. So do I take the easy way out and go search through dozens of book indexes or spend as long explaining how to do it in an e-mail? I shall do the latter but as Andy says "it's hard work" and "If my job is starting to seem easy, I’m doing something wrong."

Pic is of our learning space in the 70s. So they used to work in groups then too!

Images of QR codes

2011-02-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

We have been experimenting with QR codes here at University of Bedfordshire. If you need some neat images of QR codes I recommend you go to Robin Ashford's set of QR codes on flickr here.

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

2011-02-18T01:33:00.000-08:00

This occasional paper "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" is by Henry Jenkins (MIT) and others. It is published by the MacArthur Foundation and springs from their major initiative in 2006 to investigate how young people are being affected by digital technologies to learn, play, socialise and participate in civic life.

It talks a lot about a participatory cultures.

To quote :

"Some have argued that children and youth acquire these key skills and competencies on their
own by interacting with popular culture.Three concerns, however, suggest the need for policy
and pedagogical interventions:
The Participation Gap — the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and
knowledge that will prepare youth for full participation in the world of tomorrow.
The Transparency Problem — The challenges young people face in learning to see
clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world.
The Ethics Challenge — The breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and
socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media
makers and community participants."

It's a useful document for anyone researching how the present generation learn and for explaining the challenges we face in supporting them.

Peer review : trial by Twitter

2011-02-02T04:36:00.000-08:00

Blogs and tweets are ripping papers apart within days of publication, leaving researchers unsure how to react writes Apoorva Mandavilli in NatureNews for 19 January. Apparently the practice of
critques of scientific papers via twitter is growing and is of concern to some researchers. Should these critiques be answered?

It's a useful articles and draws together open review practices which have gone on in the scientific community for some time. It also considers how there would be interest in methods to aggregate and quantify all online responses and evaluations of an article.

Academic Library autopsy report, 2050

2011-01-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

Brian T.Sullivan wrote here in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 02/01/11

"The academic library has died. Despite early diagnosis, audacious denial in the face of its increasingly severe symptoms led to its deterioration and demise. The academic library died alone, largely neglected and forgotten by a world that once revered it as the heart of the university. On its deathbed, it could be heard mumbling curses against Google and something about a bygone library guru named Ranganathan."

It's a nice little read for the start of the year and has provoked some reactions!

He declares "Information literacy was fully integrated into the curriculum" Not here I here you saying!

How Twitter is changing

2011-01-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Brian Solis has come up with an interesting take on how Twitter seems to be developing.
How have we 150 million Twitter users changed in the past year?
For example 69% now share their biography which double last year.
Who you follow says a lot about us.
Only 0.06% Twitter users have over 20,000 followers.
22.5% of users post 90% of tweets.
Take a look here.

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

Let's have none of this Season's Greetings stuff! This is my 100th post this year - just made it - not so much news this year - and next year will bring some surprises.

We're covered with snow again and not coping too well. My proposed trip yesterday aborted through car with flat battery!

This is just to wish everyone who reads this a very Happy Christmas and let's have a great 2011
(Twenty eleven, not Two thousand and eleven!).

Pics are of the Nativity with a Scottish flavour ; and St Albans Abbey this weekend.

How Twitter is changing : new study reveal's Twitter's new direction

2010-12-21T07:12:00.000-08:00

Brian Solis writes about a new report from the social media monitoring service Sysomos.
It is true that twitter has changed so much in the past year with users being more willing to share their identity and personal information. Only 2.05% connect to over 1000, and 22.5% of users post 90% of tweets. An interesting read - see here.

Engaging Millenials through Problem-Based Learning

2010-12-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Henri Mondschein is holding an event simultaneously in California and in the virtual world Second Life: Engaging Millenials through Problem-Based Learning. It takes place on 17 December 2010 at 11am SL time (which is 7pm UK time). A bit late to sign up for the real life event, but you can for the session in Second Life. Go to https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGxwTmNfVnFSUjZFRmNSN2pwcDBQN0E6MQ#gid=0 and fill in the form if you want to attend the hour long workshop. You must have an SL avatar and download SL software in order to participate through SL. This is a LILi (Lifelong Information Literacy) workshop. Henri Mondschein is Specialist/Manager of Information Literacy, California Lutheran University, USA.

Academic excellence in 140 characters

2010-12-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

This YouTube video about the use of Twitter to encourage engagement and improve grades could be imp-ortant amd is worth a quick look.

They say :
"This is a video created by one of my students to summarize the research we conducted on the effects of Twitter on student engagement and grades. The journal article summarizing the study and our findings is available online at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10...

Abstract

Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to deter-mine if using Twitter -- the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue -- for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. A total of 125 students taking a ﬁrst year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantiﬁed by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a signiﬁcantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role."

Next is Now!

2010-12-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Another futuristic video which is useful as a discussion trigger.

They say
"Advancements in technology are quickly creating a mobile environment, and one that has students hooked. This isn't new news, but what's telling is that it's not stopping, or slowing down. The video you are about to see paints the real picture of how students are connecting more and more heavily with the digital world. They reap 24/7 access to all the information they could ever want, and enabling them to learn and absorb whatever information they choose. For education, what we fear we should prepare for is already here. In order to bring our students the information they need to take on unknown careers of the future, we have to discover now who they are, and what it is they are dealing with. We have to choose to participate, and openly share and collaborate with them. Yesterday was the day to be present, and this video will bring you more reason to believe that what is next is definitely now."

PubChem instruction videos

2010-12-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

Cam across this interesting article from Jeffery Loo at University of California Berkeley demonstrating how they created several videos about using PubChem. They used Powerpoint for the slides, GIMP to edit graphics, Audacity to recoird and edit the audio, Screen-cast-o-matic to create the screencasts, Windows Live Movie Maker to edit it, and Youtube to store and distribute.
They last about 6 minutes each. Here is a sample

It's all about social media, stupid!

2010-12-09T06:39:00.000-08:00

This is the title of a session I gave at this year's Online Inormation Conference at Olympia, London on 1 December 2010.It is a rather different topic to my usual concerns, being an overview of the problem of trying to define how libraries can get value out of social media.

It's all about social media, stupid!

View more presentations from Peter Godwin.

Library 2.0 Bah Humbug! in Oxford

2010-11-26T01:51:00.000-08:00

It seemed a while since my last gig so I enjoyed speaking at the excellent COFHE and UC&R day conference "Web 2.0 untangled : reaching and teaching our users with new technologies" at Wolfson College, Oxford.

Library 2.0 : bah Humbug!

View more presentations from Peter Godwin.

Sheila Webber was also there and has blogged on her Information Literacy Weblog about :
my talk here
Eric Davies Web 2.0 : ethics and law here
Helen Clough : Elluminate use at the OU Library here
Lucy Power : Scientific social networking here
Philippa Levy and Sheila Webber Technology enriched IBL here

How can you help Tom? A school librarian's guide for preparing students for University.

2010-11-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my Twitter stream I came upon this presentation by Jo Alcock to a school library conference. The link between schools and Universities is crucial and any work here is going to be an improvement! I liked the concentration first on social networking : I always stray into those areas when first seeing new students. There is a virtual transcript of the talk here and the slides are below.

How can you help Tom? A school librarian's guide to preparing students for university

View more presentations from Jo Alcock.

Libraries in a transliterate, technology fluent world

2010-11-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

This presentation by Bobbi Newman is hard hitting and has some great quotes.

I liked the one by Douglas Adams (of "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy" fame) best :

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

- Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
- Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. "

Libraries in a Transliterate, Technology Fluent World

View more presentations from Bobbi Newman.

Best Video creation tools for the classroom

2010-11-23T08:27:00.000-08:00

This article from School Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2010, by Richard Bryne looks well worth following up. He says :
"There was a time, not too long ago, that making a video required expensive video equipment and software. That’s no longer true. Now, without spending a dime on cameras or software, your students could craft the next great documentary or YouTube sensation."

All that is needed is creativity and patience...oh and the time to try these out!

15 easy to use apps for adding multimedia to Twitter

2010-11-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

Want to add multimedia to your tweets on Twitter? Then this article could be your answer : 15 easy to use apps for adding multimedia to Twitter, by Aliza Sherman. I'd come across Twitpic and Audioboo and I love Screenr, but here are a load more.

Attention !

2010-11-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

This article by Howard Rheingold on "Attention and other 21st century social media literacies" is interesting.
Howard Rheingold (howard@rheingold.com) is the author of Tools For Thought, The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs, and other books and is currently lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University.

He says :

"I focus on five social media literacies:

Attention
Participation
Collaboration
Network awareness
Critical consumption

Although I consider attention to be fundamental to all the other literacies, the one that links together all the others, and although it is the one I will spend the most time discussing in this article, none of these literacies live in isolation. They are interconnected. You need to learn how to exercise mindful deployment of your attention online if you are going to become a critical consumer of digital media; productive use of Twitter or YouTube requires knowledge of who your public is, how your participation meets their needs (and what you get in return), and how memes flow through networked publics. Ultimately, the most important fluency is not in mastering a particular literacy but in being able to put all five of these literacies together into a way of being in digital culture."

We've launched our Android App !

2010-11-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

University of Bedfordshire Learning Resources now have our own Android app to help students and staff access our services from anywhere 24/7. How this will affect access and help us to get our Information Literacy message across better we shall have to wait and see. I am very excited by it. It will suit some students and if it reaches those who ignore us at the present, this will be really good news.

It features :

Links to the Learning Resources website and Library Catalogue with full search facilities
A subscription link to the uoblibrary Twitter feed
Listings all of our 'Just a Minute' Library videos which you can watch on the go
GPS 'Find a campus' to guide you to any of our campuses from wherever you are
E-mail through the auto-enquiry function or call us directly to renew items and more.
Compatible with all Android phones running version 1.6 and above

Plagiarism resources

2010-11-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

If you want some resources to use to combat plagiarism you might try Guide to Online Schools Complete Plagiarism Resource. It pulls together a number of tutorials from various institutions in the USA.

Finding our students at their point of need

2010-10-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

Lauren Pressley has done a humdinger of a presentation here! This is the keynote at the Library Instruction at the Point of Need Conference today 29 October 2010, at Thomasville, North Carolina.
She says: Higher Education is changing ; The point of need is changing ; What we do changes too ;
It's not about us..... it's about them.

This is the best presentation I've seen this year - love the images and style, but it's the message that is really important. I was only thinking about some of the same issues earlier this week (for a Conference talk) and pleased (and a trifle relieved) to see common ground! Not going to tell you what ! Do take a look at it!

Finding Our Students At Their Point of Need

View more presentations from Lauren Pressley.

How to use Delicious : the King of Socialbookmarking

2010-10-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

Kristi Hines (on Socialmedia Examiner) has produced a useful guide.
For exisiting users it gives some ideas you may not have thought of - particularly with use of tags. For new users ( and I am a great fan of delicious and could not do without it...) there is good guidance on how to get started.

Libraries in a Digital Age

2010-10-27T02:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a detailed write-up by Lyn Robinson of a recent one day Conference on Libraries in a Digital Age organised by the Association of Independent Libraries at the Royal Astronomical Society, London, 14 October 2010. Of particular interest here is a presentation by Gwynneth Price (Institute of Education) on Social Networking : just a lot of twittering?

Tara Brabazon : the end of shhhhh in the Library

2010-10-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

Tara Brabazon makes a spirited defence of the use of podcasts in her article in the Times Higher, 20 October 2010. She argues :

"In a time of shrinking funding, librarians’ savvy use of time- and space-shifting podcasts can aid diverse groups of students and scholars and highlight valuable resources".

John Palfrey: Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age?

2010-10-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Plagiarism is such a hot topic and John Palfrey (co-author of Born Digital : understanding the first generation of Digital Natives.) features in an interview on the Project for Information Literacy (PIL) site here.

He says "we need to find ways to give students a finer-grained understanding of what plagiarism means in the information context in which they are growing up. My view is that we start with first principles."

It's quite a short but interesting read.

Information Fluency Strategies and Practices to Help Enhance Critical Thinking Skills

2010-10-16T02:42:00.000-07:00

Thia presentation by Chad Mairn of St Petersburg College, Florida is full of ideas for your information literacy classes.
I particularly iked the idea that
"Information fluency is the intersection of information literacy, computer literacy and critical thinking."

Information Fluency Strategies and Practices to Help Enhance Critical Thinking Skills

View more presentations from St. Petersburg College.

Web 3.0 : enhancing reality with mobile applications

2010-10-16T02:21:00.000-07:00

This is a good summary of the possible future : as the summary says :

"A visual exploration of current possibiilities of augmenting physical reality through new mobile/wireless applications and the mobile web. New reality augmentation methods for business, advertising, travel, geolocation, social networking, history and information literacy through mobile devices, QR codes, geolocation, barcode reader and reality augmentation applications for the mobile web, web 3.0."

Prepare yourself for an aural assault....

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 Information Literacy

2010-10-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a great presentation I came across by Mark Mitchell, from the schools sector in Australia.There is some excellent thought provoking stuff here about what 2.0 means and how students now need to have what he calls E Information Literacy ability.

Information Literacy Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

View more presentations from Mark Mitchell.

Librarians Do Gaga

2010-10-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Been doing too much "inducting" anbd teaching to post lately.Now here is a video to cheer us on a Friday afternoon or anytime!
Thanks to a query on lis-link I have come across this video Librarians Do Gaga. Students and faculty from the University of Washington's Information School get their groove on!!Directed, edited, and produced by Sarah Wachter and lyrics by Sarah Wachter. It's aiming to get students to get to the Ca-ca-ca-catalogue and those databases! Must try it out with a group sometime. Maybe 4 minutes is a bit long??

Future of screen technology

2010-09-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

This has been a barren month for my posts! So before October starts take a look at this fantastic vision of the future.
It is the result of TAT's (The Astonishing Tribe)Open Innovation experiment - an experience video showing the future of screen technology with stretchable screens, transparent screens and e-ink displays...

I'm not sure I could cope with the displays while I am shaving....

The Principal who wants to ban social media in his school

2010-09-16T01:22:00.000-07:00

THanks to Stephen's Lighthouse blog I have come across this US story about a principal (headmaster) who wants to protect his pupils from social media by banning them. This little video is a response to this blinkered view of education!
It comments :
“Kids beat each other up in the playground all the time. We don’t ban schools”

Not fully commissioned : Do not use

2010-09-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

After a holiday break in Scotland I am back but I feel like a sign on a water machine here :

"Not Fully Commissioned : Do Not Use"

I was amused by this because it is a good example of official language that is designed to be hard for the users! Could be added to Michael Stephens' collection of notices on his Tame the Web blog : here is an example.

How the internet is altering your mind

2010-08-25T04:54:00.001-07:00

John Harris wrote an interesting article in the Guardian (see here) recently following a look at a forthcoming book called "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr. Is the extensive use of the internet affecting our brans? Or our ability to think deeply? Worth having a read.
I tend to agree with comments from Professor Andrew Burn of University of London Institute of Education"Temporary synaptic rewiring happens whenever anybody learns anything," he says. "I'm learning a musical instrument at the moment, and I can feel my synapses rewiring themselves, but it's just a biological mechanism. " (Yes!! so that's why I am finding it so hard learning to play the organ at the moment reading two bass lines, one for feet and one for left hand...")

Delivering information literacy programmes in the context of network society and cross-cultural perspectives

2010-08-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

This article derives from a paper given at IFLA recently by Huy Nghiem (Vietnam National University, Hanoi). As I was cited I felt I should blog about it! Amusingly my name has become Godwill but the references at the end are OK. Sheila Webber has already blogged about this paper here.I am grateful to the article for the emphasis put upon the nature of the information landscape and global network society and how this might alter the way we look at information literacy. It is not easy to pin down yet ... however I found the diagram which maps the individuals' information landscape and the role of information literacy on page 7 very interesting and well worth investigating.

No link between social media and student grades

2010-08-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Predictors and Consequences of Differentiated Social Network Site Usage is a report by Eszter Hargittai and Yu-Li Patrick Hsieh, published in Information Communication and Society, 13(4) June 2010, 515-536.

There is a useful commentary of the report on Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog.
Here is the abstract :
"Applying a typology of social network site (SNS) usage that takes into consideration the intensity with which people use such sites, this piece offers an empirical investigation of how users' social practices on SNSs differ and whether different levels of engagement have consequences for academic performance. We rely on a unique survey-based data set representing a diverse group of young adults to answer these questions. We find, not surprisingly, that the more intense users of such sites engage in more social activities on SNSs than those who spend less time on them and only use one such site. This finding holds both in the realm of stronger-tie activities and weaker-tie activities, that is social practices involving one's close friends as well as less established ties. Our analyses suggest gender difference in level of engagement with SNS social practices. Women pursue more stronger-tie activities than men, such as interacting with existing friends. In contrast, women engage in fewer weaker-tie activities than men, such as developing new relationships on such sites. However, neither SNS usage intensity nor social practices performed on these sites are systematically related to students' academic performance, findings that challenge some previous claims to the contrary. "

Blended Librarian talks Information Literacy

2010-08-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

This little article in Chronicle of Higher Education 2 August 2010 tells of the work of Mark McBridge at Buffalo State College of the State University of New York. The work of this "blended librarian" should not be too much of a surprise to readers of this blog. "Mr. McBride teaches a course called Library 300. Its goal is not just to teach college students how and where to find information but how to weigh it—what counts as a reliable source and what doesn't." But there might just be some ideas here which could be of use in developing or justifying a service.

Google chief's fears for Generation Facebook

2010-08-20T06:51:00.001-07:00

The Independent carried an article this week based on comments by Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google.

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society."

The weirdest thing he came out was " a stark warning over the amount of personal data people leave on the internet and suggested that many of them will be forced one day to change their names in order to escape their cyber past."
Bet the Passport Office and ID Card development staff are not too keen on this...

Want some good advice about screencasting?

2010-08-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

Then look at Tips from the Experts Five Minute Screencasts - The Super Tool for Science and Engineering Librarians, by Olivia Bautista Sparks, Noble Science and Engineering Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. This excellent article comes from Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Winter 2010.

She often uses screenr. a free screencasting serice. There are some examples of her work introducing herself (Meeting your chemistry librarian) ; Exporting references from PubMed into RefWorks (this one really impressed me because I thought no-one can make this intelligible and yet I stayed wake through the whole 5 minutes..) ; more stuff on class instuction voia screencast ; and a very useful comparison chart comparing four screencasting services.

Finally : this is not just for Science and Englibneering librarians! All subject librarians can gain hugely from this brilliant little article!

Pic is of St Albans Abbey

Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content

2010-08-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web content by E.Hargitti, L.Fullerton, E.Menchen-Trevino and K.Y.Thomasi of Northwestern University, is an important article. Net Gen Skeptic blog comments on how this article draws upon user research at that University into how their students evaluate web content.It throws further doubt onto claims made by such as Tapscott and Prensky that the digital natives know instinctively how to assess what they find.They conclude :

"As our findings show, students are not always turning to the most relevant cues to determine the credibility of online content. Accordingly, initiatives that help educate
people in this domain – whether in formal or informal settings – could play an important role in achieving an informed Internet citizenry."

Web 2.0 in the classroom? Dilemmas and opportunities inherent in adolescent Web 2.0 engagement

2010-08-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

Sandy Schuck, Peter Aubusson, and Matthew Kearney of the University of Technology, Sydney have written an interesting paper on Web 2.0 in the classroom and adolescent attitudes to engagement with Web 2.0.
"Young people are increasingly active Web 2.0 users, and their interactions through these technologies are altering their social identities, styles of learning, and exchanges with
others around the world. The paper argues for more research to
investigate this phenomenon through the use of virtual ethnography and
identifies the ethical challenges that lie therein. It raises questions for
school education and presents an argument for studying the area in
culturally sensitive ways that privilege adolescents’ voices."

If you build it will they come? Researchers and Web 2.0

2010-08-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

If you build it, will they come? is a Research Information Network (RIN) report about researchers and Web 2.0.

They conclude "Our study indicates that a majority of researchers are making at least occasional use of one or more web 2.0 tools or services for purposes related to their research: for communicating their work; for developing and sustaining networks and collaborations; or for finding out about what others are doing. But frequent or intensive use is rare, and some researchers regard blogs, wikis and other novel forms of communication as a waste of time or even
dangerous."
Uptake of Web 2.0 varies according to discipline. There is a lack of trust and a good deal of conservatism around. It is a useful document for all librarians who have to support researchers to have a look at.
The message is :
"Information professionals should not seek to re-establish centralised provision, which might
inhibit the dispersed processes of innovation and experimentation. Instead they may need
to rethink their current roles and organisation, and to broaden their agendas to include
effective support for web 2.0.
Their roles might usefully include:
• raising awareness of the range of tools and services and their relevance for different
kinds of activities;
• publicising examples of successful use and good practice by research groups and
networks across a range of disciplines;
• providing guidelines and training to help researchers make informed choices;
• helping to set standards and providing advice on curation and preservation."

Teaching Strategies for the Net Generation

2010-08-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

This article by Ronald A. Berk of John Hopkins University is worth a read. The author acknowledges the limitations of a wide brush approach but still "acknowledging those limitations, I still think there is legitimacy to suggesting a set of characteristics and cultural trends derived from sound scientific research that can guide future teaching practices for faculty." When I was at London South Bank we had a Learning and Teaching Day and we had the pleasure of hearing Professor Berk speak. It was a name I could not forget.

Pic is of student group at Luton in our Library some years ago. I wonder how different they were?

Information Literacy in context

2010-08-04T05:32:00.000-07:00

Miss Sophie Mac did a great post "Information Literacy in context" which emphasises the connect between their studies and everyday life. I have believed for a while that the breakthrough in public understanding of information literacy would come if there is an understanding that this is important in whatever task we seek to undertake. At a simple level we require to read the up to date bus timetable to get to work, or reliable health information on the web rather thana site that has a vested interest in selling to us.
She goes on "Within an everyday life information seeking context there are socio-cultural contexts to consider when planning IL training. For example, an academic library IL program might be three tiered consisting of: generic skills, subject specific skills, assignment specific skills. When teaching subject or assignment specific skills is there a way to apply an everyday life lens so the experiences can be applied to formal and informal settings? I believe we can achieve this by understanding the needs of learners and the socio-cultural context of their learning."

Pic shows the activity going on in our LRC over the summer!

21st Century Information Fluency

2010-08-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

If you haven't come across the IMSA (Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy) projects before, I can heartily recommend that you do. It is now under the direction and banner of 21st Century Information Fluency.
The latest material that I have had a brief look concentrates on Web 2.0. There is a comparison chart between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. here. Also material on digg, twitter, delicious, Google bLog Search etc. Very useful for teaching ideas.

Library Day in the Life

2010-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

This post is part of the 5th version of this little project "Library Day in the Life" wiki so that we can share what we do!
I used to think : how has anyone the time to do this? Who cares anyway? In fact it can be an interesting little time capsule for others and ourselves!

Here goes :
This morning began early : at 5.30 I began to think "how can I best contribute to the brainstorm sharing on use of presentation software that we are going to have at work at 10.00 today?" Maybe I should use my iPad for the first time to show how some of these little projects I have been trying have turned out? How well will it work in the wireless environment there?
Let's forget yesterday's 3 hours bafflement with Camtasia Studio followed by trying to play the feet and left hand at the same time on the church organ in the evening...

6.00 and time to get up. No time for exercises or piano playing today - it's straight into trying to get a Photo Story movie working on PBWorks on my iPhone.
Plenty of time to make the tea and still no image. Could do a full English and eat it before this would work...
Time to get the bus to work. Still so keen ..no time today for Paul Wellman's 'Glory God and Gold' about the Spanish excesses in 16th century New Mexico! Reading latest updates on TweetDeck, favouriting the best for later scrutiny.. then deep little sleep..where am I? Is this the ride home...oh no it's the journey in!!!

8.30 Hiding the iPad on the desk - don't want to let on about it yet. Hear that there's a video conferencing and "Oh no there's no meeting - the presentation software sharing is next week!"
What a relief so can forget the agonising over the merits of Jing, Photo Story, Camtasia, Movie Maker, Audacity etc. and how it all fits together.
Let's relax and try out a little video I made on Jing in one of our blogs : loads beautifully - so easy. Let's try it on my iPhone ...aargh it's invisible.
Tomorrow is my day off : Friday is the Mashup event in Huddersfield. We have to make our own badges - have to do something for this....
Let's return to yesterday's battle with Camtasia - that slide just didn't line up with my dulcet tones - 30 more minutes or dragging, cursing, poring over help pages - time for tea.

Let's put some photos on flickr - find out about possibility of storing a short video there. Will thisd help with the badge if I can get a QR code on the badge?

11.30-12.30 moving and shelving books as part of the rebuilding exercise overthe summer.
12.30 Lunch i9n the Business School building - more building work going on. Glad to see that the wall that was being constructed yesterday in front of the main door is only partial, creating a new slim-line ingress! Lamb Rogan Josh with rice - excellent.
1.00 My first Photo Story movie placed in flickr, and works with a QR code created in BeeTagg and read via I-nigma! It was a spoof "Art Show" made up of some photos I took last year, introduced by a certain John Farquhar-Robotham.

2.00 Create new little movie in Photo Story about University of Bedfordshire using photos taken today on iPhone, put on flickr create barcode and badge for Friday! Feel like a lie down.
3.50 Phone rings and have to meet earnest new researchers and give short tour of the library (hard hats not necessary).
4.20 Return to writing this. Decide not to mention the iPad - looking forward to playing with it tomorrow planning Scottish trip, Last-fm etc.

InfoWhelm and Information Fluency

2010-07-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a really powerful video from the 21st Century Fluency Project.
They say
"We live in a 24/7 InfoWhelm world. We have access to more information than we will ever need. This video will tell you just how much information there is out there. It requires a different set of skills than the ones we leave school with today."
I say
"What a world we live in and what an exciting opportunity for librarians to act as information guides".

New students require new librarians

2010-07-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Just found a really interesting video via Dean Giustini's Search Principle blog where four High schoolers discuss how they use technology for communication, problems they have with traditional education, and how they learn best.
They speak of the convenience of texting; e-mail is for corresponding with teachers or your aunt; used to multi-tasking ; bored with lectures ; texting with th ephone that is like an extension of your arm ; you can learn via mobiles, text Google for definitions and social media helps "like to give us independence and freedom to learn".

So much of this we have read in other places but like the thing that stood out to me was like it was WHY do they have keep saying LIKE all the time? There were 78 LIKES in 6 minutes 18 seconds!
There's been a lot said about the Web generation not being able to write (I do n't really accept this - twitter can be a great way of making us succinct) but it's the way that they express themselves which I notice. At that point my grumpiness will cease.
I do- like- recommend the video!

Ever wondered how Google searches?

2010-07-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Dan Nosovich has come up with an interesting infograph of how Google maybe works based on clues. He says "Google search really is amazing, and it's even more amazing that this entire flowchart (which is just a basic overlook) all happens in milliseconds."

Out Google Your Students!

2010-07-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a short presentation given by Dean Giustini recently to some education students at University of British Columbia. Contains some really good ideas

Out Google Your Students 2010

View more presentations from Dean Giustini.

and this great handout useful to help us use Google for more than a search engine!

Google 2.0 For Librarians

View more documents from Dean Giustini.

Evaluating Websites Tutorial

2010-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

This TeacherTube video from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Prescott may suite your need for a video to tackle the problem of how students should evaluate what they find.It's only 3 minutes long (I always favour the short ones...) and you may get some ideas here.

How do they (even) do that?

2010-07-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

Pew Internet guide to teens, mobile phones and social media. Here is a presentation about this report by Amanda Lenhart.
Here are her Final Thoughts

Cell phones leap frog connectivity roadblocks for low income, minority teens and adults

Teens and young adults are not monolithic – so a multi-pronged approach is prudent

Changes suggest a move towards mobile…

… but teens and young adults do not always embrace the newest thing

Young adults know that you are watching, and are increasingly taking steps to manage their online reputations

"How do [they] even do that? A Pew Internet guide to teens, young adults, mobile phones and social media

View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Digital Literacy Handbook

2010-07-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Cassie Hague and Sarah Peyton have produced a useful Digital Literacy Handbook, for Futurelab. It is aimed at eduactional practitioners and school teachers in primary and secondary schools who are interested in creative and critical uses of technology in the classroom. Really useful for teachers and school librarians trying to influence teachers. With sentences lioke "Digital literacy supports th eprocess of young people becoming active meaning-makers" there is much here to warm of hearts of information literacy advocates.

Library Mashups

2010-07-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

Library mashups, exploring new ways to deliver library data, is a presentation by Nicole Engard, who also wrote Library Mashups Exploring new ways to deliver library data Edited by Nicole C. Engard - ISBN 978-1-57387-372-7 Published by Information Today, Inc., 2009.

Library mashups: Exploring new ways to deliver library data

View more presentations from Nicole C. Engard.

Adventures in Library Instruction Podcast

2010-07-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Adventures in Library Instruction podcast series is a mine of information from well-known practitioners like Buffy Hamilton and Lauren Pressley.
In the latest episode, Jason and Rachel interview Chad Mairn, and talk about a variety of technology issues and questions, including bringing technology to new populations, QR codes, the future of technology, research, and the library, and how to teach Wikipedia. Oh, and how to update an information literacy tutorial.

Pic shows Apple store in London on day of launch of new iPhone.

Savvy Web 2.0 Teens Forge Critical Thinking Skills

2010-06-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

This article by Lauren Barack on 15 June 2010 in School Library Journal tells of a study by Natalia Ronda, a PhD candidate at York University, Toronto. She is discovering that 14 year olds are using critical thinking skills independently online.For example, "One teenager used YouTube as a social networking tool, viewing videos of potential friends in order to make a judgment whether this person would be interesting as a friend." Another interesting finding was related to privacy. Those in the study had a good idea of what their privacy options were, and all put some time into researching their privacy settings, says Ronda, explaining that teens made decisions on who they connected to and what they shared, after exploring options and reflecting on how these decisions would affect their online experience.

Web 3.0

2010-06-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

Web 3.0 on Vimeo by Kate Ray, is a brilliant 14 minute which introduces the semantic web. Includes interviews with
Tim Berners-Lee
Clay Shirky
Chris Dixon
David Weinberger
Nova Spivack
Jason Shellen
Lee Feigenbaum
John Hebeler
Alon Halevy
David Karger
Abraham Bernstein.

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

Kate Ray is a recently-graduated NYU journalism/psychology student.

This looked great!

2010-06-21T05:34:00.001-07:00

When we started this blog IL and Web 2.0 were not that connected. It is really good now to see examples of how things have moved on. Here is the programme for an event "Everything you wanted to know about teaching Information Literacy but were too afraid to ask " which was a Summer Information Literacy Workshop sponsored by the User Education Committee
of the NJLA College and University Section/ ACRL/NJ and the Shared Information Literacy Committee of VALE‐NJ, the Virtual Academic Library Environment.
And I've just noticed that the Instructional Design course was moderasted by Jacqui DaCosta from the College of New Jersey, who is an old friend from the UK!

Pic is of our LRC here at University of Bedfordshire and it is sunny today just like that.

Twitter Tutorials

2010-06-21T04:49:00.000-07:00

Pam Dyer has posted about the best 10 Twitter tutorials on YouTube.
Includes Twitter in Plain English, Getting started with Twitter, Twitter lists in a nutshell, How to do a Twitter profile, Best Twitter tools, Finding Twitter followers, Tweeting from any cell phone, and Twitter for business and branding.

Is it Social Media or Web 2.0?

2010-06-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

An interesting post on ReadWrite Web suggests Social Media is set to peak in 2012.This is the view of Justin Kistner, a Social Evangelist at web analytics company Webtrends.THere is a graph of Google Trends showing how Web 2.0 has been replaced by social media.

Google Scholar launches a blog!

2010-06-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Scholar is trying to be more helpful to academic users. In the first post of a new blog they say they have recently added email alerts to Scholar. You can now create alerts for queries of your interest. When new articles that match your alert query are added to Google Scholar, they will send you an email update with links to these articles. This service has meant they have to update entries quicker than in the past with articles now being added twice a week.
Sounds as though this could be useful to some researchers.
Anybody tried it yet?