Sample presentation title Information literacy, what it means to us as librarians and how to get it across to other people By Terry Dooley Sample presentation title A presentation to… Name and date Introduction:

Why Information Literacy? Why IL?: It’s my opinion that the 1964 Act harmed the profession when the recession hit us in 2010. The Act itself discusses libraries, but can anyone tell me a crucial word that’s not included within the Act? Hint: There’s a bunch of them in this room. Yes, librarians aren’t explicitly mentioned, which allows the Government to apply a piece of brilliant, if damaging, cold logic: We’ll keep the buildings, get rid of the professional staff and keep on a minimal support staff. It’s a great piece of logic. Governments are businesses, so too are universities and law firms. What’s to stop this same strand of logic being applied to Law Librarians? Information Literacy, I hope. Selling and promoting our skills is now a priority, and, as my experiences show, it’s something that can take patience, time and a lot of energy, but it is worthwhile as in my first professional post I went from a remote, distant Department who were openly dismissive of the library to a Department who were keen to include the library and, crucially, briefed their students about our resources and encouraged them to interact with their Librarian.

Jargon… Information literacy i-Skills Transliteracy Epiliteracy CILIP: “Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner.” CILIP. (2012). Information literacy: the skills, [Online] [Accessed 26/04/2017] https://www.cilip.org.uk/research/topics/information-literacy i-Skills Academia.edu: “[T]he ability to identify, assess, retrieve, evaluate, adapt, organise and communicate information within an iterative context of review and reflection.” Dr. Mark Hepworth et al (2006). i-Skills: An investigation of the staff development issues relating to i-skills development of Higher Education non-Academic Staff, [Online] [Accessed 27/04/2017] http://www.academia.edu/8359615/An_investigation_of_the_staff_development_issues_relating_to_i-skills_development_of_Higher_Education_non-academic_staff Transliteracy Transliteracy.com: “Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.” Transliteracy.com [2013]. Transliteracy definition, [Online] [Accessed 23/04/2017] https://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/what-is-transliteracy/ Epiliteracy Epiliterary.com: “Epiliteracy is a position in the field of Information Literacy according to which mental understanding of a subject is caused by interaction of physical states with events in the brain, but these states do not themselves cause anything unless communicated effectively.” Epilteracy.com [2013] Epic Literacy, [Online] [Accessed 25/04/2017] http://www.epiliteracy.com Gibberish: What is the purpose of our teaching and training? It is to communicate ideas and techniques such as good search practice, sourcing items and cross-referencing or mining a bibliography to indentify further sources. If you love something you give it a name and we love IL, clearly, so with so many terms we run the risk of hitting people with a wall of words and concepts, and losing them in the process. Epiliterary is something I made up, but a few of my fellow professionals believed it was a real term, one said: “I just thought they’d slipped yet another one in!”

Fitter, Faster, Stronger. At the Student/Trainee level: Better research capabilities and skills Better essays Better marks At the Departmental level: Can be used for Widening Participation Ties in with Employability Increases student confidence Selling: If you discount the field-specific terminology, all selling equates to: Fitter, Faster, Stronger—and Information Literacy can be sold this way. See the slide above, I discovered what was being pushed at the departmental level and linked these concepts to IL. WP because we can go out to schools/colleges, or bring them in, and sell the library services, and therefore university, using scaled down Library sessions. Employability because, in the Information World, we can improve IL and provide transferrable skills. Confidence comes with the increased ability to source and critically evaluate materials and, at the Departmental/training level, Student/Trainee Confidence, either real or perceived, is a big thing.

Cold Calling “Do you know how to open this .PDF?” (They didn’t even tell me what the .PDF document was, where they found it or the problems they were having). “Has my article been published yet?” “How do I apply for digitisations?” (I sent a detailed response, they never replied). “I’ve published my own collection of eNovels, add them to a Reading list. Here’s the link.” “Who is this and what do you want?” Cold Calling: Once you’ve explained what it is you can provide, and why it’s important, you can find yourself in the position of a Cold Caller. The Department or specific Academic may still be remote or disengaged, so you send out friendly emails selling your wares. Here’s some amalgamated and paraphrased versions of the responses I received when sending a emails to academics.

Selling through Customer Service. Student rep meetings Links with individual tutors IT queries Staff awareness The results? A twofold increase in Year One in my first role A mandatory Library PLR session for LPC students for 2017-18 cohort The department I mentioned earlier went from one session a year to a number of drop in and refresher sessions.

Conclusion… ‘Great insight into search strategy…maybe closer to the actual research eTMA.’ ‘I never knew Lexis had a Glossary! We should be offered this before the PLR!’ ‘Research will be easier now I know how to use Lexis and Westlaw.’ ‘It has changed how I do my research and will save me time.’ ‘I’d have liked even more time on paper sources.’ ‘We should have a lecture about how to use print and electronic sources!’ ‘Indexes are great, it is like having Google at the back of a book!!’ ‘Less time for lunch please.’ Conclusion: Positive feedback and customer satisfaction among UoL’s students. So that’s my take on why we need to sell both ourselves and our skills. It’s generally seen as poor form to blow one’s own trumpet, but, and to paraphrase Blackadder, we should at least let people know that we’ve got a trumpet. Otherwise we run the risk of being left behind by the faculties we are linked to. What we do is important, timely and useful, especially in the age in which we are living, so we should give ourselves a round of applause and a few pats on the back.