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

Advocacy - a core function for Information Literacy: John Crawford Project Director

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 won’t do

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

From the librarian’s point of view Australian Library and Information Association – Information Literacy Forum Advocacy Toolkit ‘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…’

Four Alexandria Proclamation principles Education and Learning, Health and Human Services, Business and Economic Development, Governance and Citizenship. all.htmhttp:// all.htm

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 ?

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 organization’s 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

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 vol. 1. pp.1,)

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

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 L&T 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)

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

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 Don’t let it get confused with ICT policy Model Government (National) Information Literacy & Lifelong Learning Policy Statements Lifelong learning strategy for Scotland – mainly ICT

Finland as an example The Information literacy project ( ) 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 004/liitteet/opm_190_opm08.pdf?lang=fi 004/liitteet/opm_190_opm08.pdf?lang=fi

Our friends in the North

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 Lindsay’s Blog : information.html information.html

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

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 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.

Media Literacy The Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA) 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

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.

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)

What we did Submitted petition electronically late October 2005petition 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

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

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

Some sources CILIPS Information literacy toolkit. Has a section on advocacy ex.htm ex.htm Understanding information literacy: a primer. Forest Woody Horton, Unesco, URL_ID=25956&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION =201.html URL_ID=25956&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION =201.html Information Literacy Resources Directory

Contact details Dr. John Crawford,Christine Irving Library Research Officer, Research Assistant / Project OfficerRoom 302, (3rd floor)6 Rose Street,Glasgow, G3 6RB Tel: Tel: Project website

Questions?