The Scottish Information Literacy Project: working with partners to create an information literate S

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The Scottish Information Literacy
Projectworking with partners to create an
information literate Scotland
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Advocacy - a core function for Information
Literacy

• John Crawford
• Project Director

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Some basic points

• Advocacy is not a part of information literacy.
  It is fundamental to the process
• The term information literacy must be used
• Information literacy is too ghettoised in the
  information world
• We must align our aims with the bodies we are
  targeting
• We must use the language of the bodies we target
• Look for pegs to hang IL on
• Well intentioned generalisations wont do

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A quote

• Is this not just a case of librarians finding
  something new to do i.e. information literacy
  to fill in the time between nine and five
• Charlie Gordon
• MSP

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From the librarians point of view

• Australian Library and Information Association
  Information Literacy Forum Advocacy Toolkit
  http//alia.org.au/advocacy/literacy.kit.pdf
• Public libraries will expand their programs to
  include information literacy training but
• Libraries are part of our lives. They are a
  place for education and self help

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Four Alexandria Proclamation principles

• Education and Learning,
• Health and Human Services,
• Business and Economic Development,
• Governance and Citizenship.
• http//www.ifla.org/III/wsis/info-lit-for-all.htm

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Draft CILIP Advocacy Strategy

• Focuses around mobilising CILIP in the direction
  of advocacy internal feel
• It is extremely weak on specific targeting and
  this is only mentioned in an appendix
• Could I go out and do something specific after
  reading it?
• Can we suggest any key stakeholder groups for
  targeting from IL point of view ?

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Workplace study

• Contacts should be established with chambers of
  commerce, Adult Literacies partners, trade union
  learning representatives (STUC),CBI Scotland the
  Institute of Directors the Scottish Council
  Development and Industry and the planned new
  super skills council
• Organizations information polices which are
  largely implicit should be made explicit and
  should include accessing a wide range of
  information, of high quality, including sources
  outwith the organisation
• Preliminary skills audits should be carried out
  within organizations to determine staff
  information literacy skills and the
  organizations information literacy policy
• The viability of developing information literacy
  training programmes should be further researched
• Information literacy training programmes should
  initially target sympathetic organizations
• Advanced Internet training programmes should be
  offered to all workplace employees
• The private sector should be researched further
• The provision of information literacy training
  programmes by public libraries should be
  investigated
• Developmental work should be undertaken with
  Adult Literacies agencies
• NHS contacts should be expanded to progress the
  health literacies agenda

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Skills Agenda

• Skills are fundamental to achieving our
  ambitions, as individuals, for our families and
  for our communities. They help businesses create
  wealth, and the help people realise their
  potential. So they serve the twin goals of social
  justice and economic success.
• But only ICT skills mentioned
• Skills, getting on in business, getting on at
  work (Great Britain. Department for Education and
  Skills 2005. vol. 1. pp.1,)

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Futureskills Scotland

• A recently published report (Futureskills
  Scotland 2007, p.26) took a broadly optimistic
  view of the training situation in Scotland but
  found gaps, mainly in the soft skills area, among
  which problem solving was particularly
  highlighted

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Higher education

• UK universities are engaging with information
  literacy at a strategic level but performance is
  uneven
• IL well represented in institutional strategies
  for information, student skills and LT
• Less evident in graduate attributes and research
  strategy documents
• The resource implications of IL initiatives are
  rarely elaborated
• The term information literacy featured
  explicitly in documents on 34 sites
• Information literacy teaching is embedded within
  75 of the undergraduate and postgraduate taught
  course curricula and the aim is to achieve 100
  penetration by 2008
• Learning and teaching strategies now seem the
  preferred institutional strategy for
  practitioners to target
• Patchy evidence linking information literacy
  strategically with research
• Corrall (2007)

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A few questions

• What about support staff?
• Working with learning and educational development
  departments?
• Are you involved in retention and progression
  issues, student experience, independent learning
  initiatives, transitions

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Government and lifelong learning

• Appropriate national authorities should develop
  a National Information Literacy and Lifelong
  Learning Strategy and Vision for the country as a
  whole
• (Horton p.41)
• Problem over specific targeting
• Dont let it get confused with ICT policy
• Model Government (National) Information Literacy
  Lifelong Learning Policy Statements
• Lifelong learning strategy for Scotland mainly
  ICT http//www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/0
  2/16308/17750

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Finland as an example

• The Information literacy project (2004 - 2006)
  was funded by the government and aimed to raise
  the profile of IL by
• Informing decision makers at all levels
• Integrating IL into academic studies
• Testing the implementation of IL with different
  projects.the Ministry of Education has
  recognised that libraries have a role to play in
  the development and teaching of study skills and
  that IL skills are vital.   See
  http//www.minedu.fi/export/sites/default/OPM/Julk
  aisut/2004/liitteet/opm_190_opm08.pdf?langfi

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Our friends in the North
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Health literacy (1)

• the capacity to obtain, interpret, understand,
  and use information to promote and maintain
  health
• Health care moving from a paternalist to a
  partnership model
• More individual responsibility for prevention,
  informed decision making and consent
• Bob Lindsays Blog http//boblindsay.blogspot.co
  m/2008/01/health-information.html

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Health literacy (2)

• Target groups include young people, older adults
  and those suffering from long term conditions
• Partnerships between public libraries and health
  care professionals
• East Dunbartonshire healthy reading scheme
  aimed at young people school/public librarians
  and health professionals
• Partnership for Patients Update July/ Aug 2007
• But good work not getting reported

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Medline Plus Go Local

• Begun in 1998 as a result of the use of Medline
  by non specialists and is now the highest scoring
  US Government website. It contains information on
  740 health topics on conditions, diseases and
  wellness. There is also information about drugs
  and supplements, a medical encyclopaedia and a
  dictionary, reports on clinical trials,
  interactive tutorials, health information for
  senior citizens and even videos of surgical
  procedures. Successive redesigns have led to an
  increase in visuals over text which is compiled
  by medical writers and pitched at a reading age l
  of 11-13. The text is available in English or
  Spanish and the drawings are created by a medical
  illustrator. The site is managed by a team of
  five supported by 25 contractors who supply
  content and add web links. Maintained by National
  Library of Medicine.

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Media Literacy

• The Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA)
  http//www.amlainfo.org/history
• AMLA was formed in 2001 to unite the media
  literacy field and lead the drive to include the
  teaching of media literacy in a wide range of
  formal and informal educational settings,
  including classrooms as well as after-school
  programmes and youth organisations like the Boy
  Scouts
• Recent policy document Core Principles of Media
  Literacy Education (AMLA 2008)
• Who should we speak to Ofcom, Association for
  Media Education in Scotland

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A supporting quote

• Information Age, January 2008 reports on a
  Microsoft commissioned survey which showed that
  information literacy and ICT skills which are
  currently ranked 7th out of 12 in a list of
  skills needed for business success are set to
  jump to 2nd place by 2017.

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Petitions and e-government

• A petition can be hosted on the Scottish
  Parliament's website for an agreed period
• an opportunity to attract a much wider audience
  and gather more names in support of the petition
• Signatures welcomed from outside Scotland
• Each e-petition has its own discussion forum,
  where visitors and supporters can discuss and
  debate the petition
• After agreed period presented to Petitions
  Committee in usual way
• Not many comparators (Bundestag)

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What we did

• Submitted petition electronically late October
  2005
• Publicised on elists
• Attracted 710 signatures worldwide
• Wrote to the Scottish press
• Ken Mackintosh (MSP) asked questions in the
  Scottish Parliament
• Attended committee to present petition

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Outcomes

• Very favourable reaction from the profession and
  professional media otherwise zilch
• Petitions Committee wrote to the Scottish
  Executive, a range of NGOs and unions
• Other interested bodies subsequently submitted
  evidence

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Some conclusions

• Target groups need to be identified and pursued
• We must influence the skills agenda
• We must deghettoise information literacy
• No quick fix our experience of the Curriculum
  for Excellence as an example

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Some sources

• CILIPS Information literacy toolkit. Has a
  section on advocacy http//www.slainte.org.uk/cili
  ps/infoliteracy/ilresources/index.htm
• Understanding information literacy a primer .
  Forest Woody Horton, Unesco, 2008.
  http//portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID25956
  URL_DODO_TOPICURL_SECTION201.html
• Information Literacy Resources Directory
  http//www.infolitglobal.info/

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Contact details

• Dr. John Crawford, Christine Irving
• Library Research Officer, Research Assistant /
  Project Officer
• Room 302, (3rd floor) Room 302, (3rd floor)
• 6 Rose Street, 6 Rose Street,
• Glasgow, G3 6RB Glasgow, G3 6RB
• Tel [phone] Tel [phone]
• Email jcr_at_gcal.ac.uk Email christine.irving_at_gcal.
  ac.uk
• Project website
• www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/

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Questions?