Information Literacy in Africa

The Centre of Excellence for Sustainability in Africa (CESSAF) is a new PhD facility in Luanda, Angola. It's a partnership between universities in Angola, Brazil and the UK, alongside  the Planet Earth Institute and the private sector. The UK University (and awarding body)  is Newcastle and we are currently hosting four senior staff from CESSAF as they undergo a variety of leadership, mamangement and academic practice courses. I was delighted to be asked to contribute to their programme and have spent two fascinating afternoons so far discussing the Researcher Development Framework, the Info Lit lens, the 7Pillars model and a range of issues surrounding good academic conduct as it relates to IL. Tina, Cristina, Emidio and Lopes are tasked with creating a strategic plan for their new research centre and for developing a research training programme for up to 100 researchers from sub-Saharan Africa over the next 10 years. I hope that I have convinced them of the centrality of information literacy to research and that this groundbreaking project will also afford an opportunity to raise the profile of information literacy in Africa. It's so important to ensure that attitudes and behaviours to information are developed alongside skills. There are so many different aspects to consider - cultural differences in approaches to ethical issues such as plagiarism, skills development around searching, managing, evaluatingand disseminating information, practical considerations of access to technology. I hope I'll be able to keep in touch with the group and see how the project develops.

Learning from Recent British IL models

"Learning from Recent British IL models: A report to ACRL's Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force" is a comprehensive analysis of four recent UK IL models, oulining prevalent or innovative concepts and comparing them to the ACRL standards. The report has been compiled by Justine Martin of Minnesota State University, USA. Justine visited the UK last year and travelled around interviewing folks who had been involved with the four models (ANCIL, SCONULs 7 Pillars, Scottish IL framework, Welsh IL framework).

I spent a fascinating day with Justine, talking, of course, mainly about the Seven Pillars, the way it had been created and the thinking behind it and it's interesting to see how our conversations fed into her research. By drawing together information from all four initiatives, Justine has been able to emphasise some of the strengths of each of the approaches, highlighting congruencies and trends and analysing some of the key elements.
Justine has also undertaken a useful mapping exercise, included as an appendix, mapping some of the British models to the learning outcomes of the ACRL standards.
Her report is very comprehensive and well worth reading, all 51 pages! If that sounds like too much, she's hoping to publish it as a journal article in the coming months, so watch out for that too.

Librarian in Residence

At the beginning of last year, I was mystified to receive an email from a Canadian librarian asking if she could become a librarian in residence here in Newcastle for a while. This was a concept I hadn't come across in libraries before but we were delighted to agree and in November Jennifer Sigalet from Okanagan College in BC arrived and took up "residence" with us for 2 weeks.

Hosting a librarian in residence has to be different from just hosting a visitor, doesn't it? Jennifer was allocated a desk in the staff workroom next to my office and immediately settled in by helping us with a workshop for Masters students on her first morning. Over the course of the two weeks we all learned a lot. Many of my colleagues went for coffee or lunch with Jennifer and we all enjoyed hearing about the differences between her library and our own. Jennifer also shared some interesting information about her own IL work and some useful links, which I will write about in a later post

Herbal magic project

I thought readers of my blog might be interested to know about a small project we are currently involved with in Newcastle. Led by our Education Officer, Sara Bird, a small group of library staff are working with academics, university students and local schools on a series of activities focused towards the British Science Festival. The BSF will be held in Newcastle in September and we wanted to find a way to showcase library resources and information literacy for science subjects. We decided to base our work on the fabulous collection of herbals held in our Special Collections and to work with staff and students involved with the Masters in Medicinal Plants. This has resulted in an exciting collection of activities. The project started with a workshop for 20 MSc students, to introduce them to library resources and IL techniques. Their task is to create a handout, each focused on a different herb, drawing material from the old herbals as well as modern library resources. The work is assessed and the students have to make it accessible to a wide audience, school children and their parents as well as future MSc students. This is great practical experience for them and we will also use the material they produce to create a Library Guide on medicinal plants.
The next step is to design a workshop for local school children and next month we will be testing our ideas on a group of local children, who will come into the university for a day. They will visit the Library and use our herbals to make their own herbal handouts, following this with an exciting session with some of the academic staff and students, as well as library staff, using herbs to make bath bombs and hand creams. Who would ever have thought working in a library would involve making bath bombs!