Havana declaration on IL, and the Iberoamerican wiki

The Declaration of Havana has been published in English. This declaration (already published in Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese) proposes 15 actions for information literacy. Themes include recognising contextual differences and needs, collaboration, inclusion and a life-wide perspective. http://www.ifla.org/node/6964

It is also the 3rd anniversary of the project ALFIN [Information Literacy]/ Ibero-America, with the wiki-repository containing more than 1400 entries from 22 Iberoamerican countries at http://alfiniberoamerica.wikispaces.com/
Thanks to Alejandro Uribe Tirado for keeping me updated with this information.
Photo by Sheila Webber: fallen leaves, October 2012

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Information practices of refugees

The online pre-publication issue of the Journal of documentation has an article:
Lloyd, A., Kennan, M., Thompson,K. and Qayyum, A. (2012). Connecting with new information landscapes: Information literacy practices of refugees, Journal of Documentation, 69(1).
Information literacy practice is defined as "a coconstruction brought about by those who are co-located and participating in the everyday life of a community". Interviews and focus groups were used with refugees and service providers in an Australian town. The researchers found that there were phases of settlement (during which time the refugees had to develop new information practices), that refugees need help to cope with the new information landscape, that compliance (e.g. knowing about relevant laws) and everyday focus are the information foci to start with, and that visual and social information are important (including using storytelling).
The journal home page is here http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17062806
There is a related article: Lloyd, A., Qayyum, A. and Thompson,K. and (2011) Settling in: the relationship between information and social inclusion. Australian academic and research libraries, 42 (3),191-211.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn park, October 2012

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UK major report: Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

There are some new reports from Ofcom (the UK "watchdog" for the communications sector). The main report, published today, is a substantial 200 page document, and the other 2 reports which I'll mention supplement that one.
Ofcom (2012) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report Research Document. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/main.pdf
The report is "designed to give an accessible overview of media literacy among [British] children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers, as well as an indicative view of media use by children aged 3-4." Key research was 1,717 in-home interviews.
The report is packed with statistics about what kinds of device children access, and where they do so. 91% of children have internet access at home (for the first time, this is not an increase compared with the last report) - some children still do not access the internet anywhere. Unsurprisingly, mobile devices feature heavily, with gender differences in how the devices are used. Also, just picking up on a personal interest, in 8-11 year olds the only "creative or civic" activity that has gone up every year is creating an avatar in an online world (this year 48% had).
For some of the conclusions, I will be lazy and copy from the Executive summary.
" Children are using a wide range of media devices, and internet access is not confined to the desktop PC, laptop or netbook. Those aged 12-15 in particular are spending more time online, are more likely to go online using their mobile phone and are more likely to say that their mobile phone is the device they would miss the most.

"For the first time this report contains indicative data on the media habits of 3-4 year olds. This indicates that many in this age group are using a range of different media devices, including over a third who are going online using a desktop PC, laptop or netbook and 6% who are going online via a tablet computer.
"These trends have implications for how we consider children’s media literacy, as the requirement for media literacy skills begins at a young age, and the types of devices children need to be proficient on, and the opportunities for them to encounter media content, increase.
"Children, particularly 12-15s, are prolific social networkers with large numbers of friends – an average of 92 friends for 8-11s and 286 for 12-15s. This has implications for how children protect and share personal information, given that personal data available to “friends” on social networking sites is likely to be shared with large numbers of people."

2. Ofcom (2012) Websites visited by children: Nielsen analysis. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_3.pdf

The data is "derived from Nielsen's UK panel of households, comprising 45,239 individuals". This is short, but interesting in listing top 25/50 sites for 3 age groups. As with the other reports, data was gathered in 2012.
- 5-7 years old: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, BBC, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, YouTube, BBC CBeebies, Yahoo!, eBay, Ask Search Network
- 8-11 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, YouTube, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, Facebook, BBC, YouTube Homepage, Google Image search, Wikipedia, Windows Live Messenger
- 12-15 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing ,YouTube,Google Image Search, YouTube Homepage, Yahoo!, Wikipedia

3. Jigsaw Research (2012) Parents’ views on parental controls: Findings of qualitative research. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_1.pdf

The research used a purposive sample of parents (in the UK), with qualitative methods including focus groups and journaling (it gives details of the questions etc., useful for other researchers). Parents were more concerned about issues like cyberbullying and "grooming" and the impact of internet use on other parts of the child's life (e.g. exercise, writing), rather than issues to do with access to inappropriate content (partly because they didn't perceive it as a particular problem). Some quotes from the executive summary are:
"Overall, ensuring balanced and safe use of the internet was seen as an important parenting challenge, but one where parents were not always clear on how to get it right. This was because they could not necessarily draw on their own experiences growing up, and also because they felt that the issues and risks were constantly developing and shifting".
"Overall, technical controls were viewed as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, hands-on parenting. Supervision and other forms of parental mediation were felt still to be needed to prevent all of the day-to-day issues as well as risks emanating from children’s internet usage."
Photos by Sheila Webber: Autumn chrysanthemum blooms, October 2012

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Chat Literacy Information Literacy discussion: day 1

Today was the first day of the information literacy discussion on Chat Literacy. It's been very interesting - 80 posts so far, from all around the world. This is the page for Day 1 http://community.eldis.org/.5b285b4d?128. You have to join up to Chat Literacy to contribute to the discussion. I thought I would post my own initial posting to today's discussion here, as well, so here it is:

"My own view of information literacy is that it is both a subject in its own right and contextual, and I don't think these two things are contradictory. By "subject in its own right" I Mean that it is already something that people can study in itself (there are journals, people get PhDs by studying it, there are conferences etc.; I argued this e.g. in this paper about IL as an international concept http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/information-literacy-an-international-concept-presentation)

"I also think that learners need to be aware of information literacy as something each person has to develop for themselves through their lives, because information literacy will change for them through the course of their lives. In formal education, educators and librarians can support learners to develop the information literacy learners need to suceed in their studies and also to deal with the rest of their lives outside study. However, once they leave formal education, people tend to lack this support. They are lucky if they have a workplace that develops staff's information literacy. They are also lucky if they even have a public library system that helps them meet their changing information literacy needs. My information literacy/needs, at age 59, in 2012, are different from when I was (e.g.) 20, at university. I HAVE been lucky, because my jobs have given me the opportunity to develop my personal information literacy.

"Therefore I do not think it is a good idea ONLY to embed information literacy in another subject, in such a way that learners just tackle information literacy as part of the subject, without consciously developing their understanding of IL. I think that this is poor preparation for developing information literacy for the rest of your life. However, I'm not saying here that people shouldn't integrate IL into other subject teaching at all. This integration is sensible and useful, but I think that learners need to become aware of themselves as information literate people (indeed, take responsibility for themselves as information literate people)

"I said that I thought that information literacy was CONTEXTUAL, and part of what I meant was this need to look at your OWN context and diagnose how you need to develop new skills, knowledge and attitudes of information literacy. An important aspect is understanding how information itself is contextual (means different things to different people). One example is academic discipline e.g. "information" for a chemist is a different concept (e.g. molecular structures are very important) than "information" for a marketing person. Another difference is when looking at people of different cultures and nationalities.

"In the video http://youtu.be/hQn4OoSMF1M, which I prepared for the recent UNESCO meeting on media and information literacy, I quote from the work of one of my former PhD students, Dr Shahd Salha. She investigated conceptions of information literacy amongst school librarians in Syria. Some of their conceptions, for example with information literacy seen as illumination, and with a spiritual dimension, have not emerged in Western studies. Personally I do not think it is duplication for different countries and cultures to reflect on the meaning of information literacy for them, I think it is an important step in seeing how information literacy is relevant to you, in your own time and place and culture.

"To take that back to the "micro" level of what this means if you ARE teaching in formal education, with a bunch of students in front of you ... well, I do put forward IL as an exciting, international concept, as well as a very practical concept that they can use to get better marks! I have classes with an international mix (e.g. more Chinese than British students in my largest postgraduate class of 114 students last year).

"One exercise they did was to find material about information literacy in their own language and post a link to this in their team blogs that they were keeping. Then they had to explain what the material was to people who were from different countries/language. This exercise went well - it got students talking about what information literacy was (and so developing their own ideas), it got them talking to people with different first langauges, and it made them aware that IL was indeed international."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wayside flower, Sweden, August 2012

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IFLA #wlic2012 Internet censorship in context: the shape of things to come

Another post from the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Päivikki Karhula (University of Tampere, School of Information Sciences, Tampere, Finland) spoke about Internet censorship in context: the shape of things to come. Again this was livestreamed, so should be viewed afterwards on http://express.ifla.org/videos

Karhula traced the origins of the open internet and the growing practice of control, through legislation and filtering. From about 2005-2010 the control and surveillance became more nuanced and pervasive. She felt that the latest issue was the militerisation of cyberspace.
About 20 countries are reckoned to practice pervasive levels of censorship, including very large countries like China. There are different actors in censorship and control, public and private, and an increasing range at different points in the process. Karhula gave some specific examples involving journalists and artists. She identified some worrying trends, with increased ability to identify where people were, and when they were there, integrated with other information giving new mass surveillance. She felt that digital civil rights therefore needed to be redefined. We need protective technologies (against data sharing and tracking), legislation to protect rights, and activism and lobbying to highlight these issues.
Some questions afterwards were raised about the place of libraries. The panel chair pointed to the work of FAIFE itself: notably the IFLA Internet manifesto. Obviously there are implications for information literacy here (though I'm afraid I didn't raise them - too busy blogging!), making people aware of the issues and indeed helping people understand how they can know whether such controls are being practised in the first place.

Karhula finished by showing the video: (un)LAWFUL ACCESS: Canadian experts on the state of cyber surveillance. http://unlawfulaccess.net/

A recent article by Karhula on the FAIFE site is:
Karhula, P. (2012) Data driven futures - censorship takes new forms. FAIFE spotlight. http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/data-driven-futures-censorship-takes-new-forms

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IFLA #wlic2012 Privatization of cyberspace - case Google

Siva Vaidhyanathan was the first speaker in a session from IFLA's Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) group, which is taking place at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. He spoke on Privatization of cyberspace - case Google. He is the author of:
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2011) The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). Updated Edition. University of California Press.
This whole FAIFE session is livestreamed and I think it will be available here from tomorrow: http://express.ifla.org/videos
Siva Vaidhyanathan (pictured speaking at the session) started by identifying the ways in which Google search has changed, to have more localisation and personalisation, to smooth out some more offensive sites and to screen out what they term "low quality" news: in other words making editorial decisions. I've blogged presentations from Karen Blakeman, that detail this kind of thing.
Most recently (last week) Google has yielded to pressure, and will give more prominence to "legitimate" sites for films, music and television (so bit torrent sites and fan sites will slide down the rankings). Thus it has moved towards consumerism and he saw further movement in that direction in the future.

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IFLA #wlic2012 Information for civic literacy

There was a pre-IFLA-conference meeting in Riga, Latvia, on Information for civic literacy, 8-10 August 2012. This sounds a very interesting meeting with lively discussion, with people from different countries and contexts presenting very different points of view. There may be a follow-up conference. There are some papers online at http://www.lnb.lv/iflariga2012/papers-and-proceedings including:
-Saknicté Pisté Beltrán: Propuesta: La alfabetización en información como motor de la educación cívica en México (A proposal: information literacy as the driving force of civic education in Mexico) [in Spanish and English ]
- Natalia Gendina: Триада ‘Гражданская, информационная и медиаграмотность’ в контексте новой инициативы ЮНЕСКО - Учебной Программы ЮНЕСКО по медиа- и информационной грамотност (The triad of civil literacy, information literacy and media literacy in the context of a new initiative of UNESCO, the Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers) [in Russian and English ]
- Vincas Grigas: The preparedness of librarians to undertake educational activities in the context of civic literacy development [in English ]
- Reyna Josvah-Rabiaza: Accès à l’information et à la documentation: enjeu pour le développement de l’individu et de la société (Access to information and documentation: a challenge for the development of citizens) [in French ]
- Emmanuel Kabou: L’information pour une culture civique (Information for civic literacy) [in French ]
- Joyce Kinyanjui, Dennis N. Ocholla: The missing link: civic literacy when information literacy or financial literacy are lacking? [in English ]
- Ahmed Ksibi: Le programme OpenGov de l’alphabétisation civique pour le Printemps arabe (The OpenGov program of civic literacy for the Arab Spring) [in French ]
- Simon Jules Koudjam Yameni: La fonction didactique de l’information dans une bibliotheque universitaire comme outil de sensibilisation à la citoyennete de la jeunesse estudiantine : cas de la Bibliothèque Centrale de l’Université de Douala au Cameroun (The instructional role of information delivery in a university library as a tool for developing awareness of citizenship among student youth : the case of the Central Library of the University of Douala in Cameroon) [in French ]
- Mandiaye Ndiaye: La maîtrise de l’information pour un meilleur exercice de la citoyenneté (Information literacy for a better exercise of citizenship) [in French ]
- Yan Xiangdong, Guo Wanli: Library service and civil information literacy [in Chinese and English ]
Photo by Sheila Webber: coffee in Johan and Nystrom, Helsinki, August 2012

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IFLA #wlic2012 IL in developing countries; Faculty attitudes to librarians

I'm blogging froom the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. In this post I'm going to highlight a couple more papers from a session this afternoon.
Dan Dorner (Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand) talked about Improving the resources for supporting information literacy education in developing countries. A key theme was the contextual and culturally-situated nature of IL. He cited work by me and Bill Johnston (this is one of our key themes), so I immediately felt more warmly towards him ;-) He also mentioned, for example, Hofstede's framework for cultural analysis [Hofstede, G. (1983) "National Cultures in Four Dimensions: A Research-Based Theory of Cultural Differences among Nations." International Studies of Management & Organization, 13 (1/2), 46-74]. Dorner discussed this in relation to two countries: Vietnam, USA, UK and Sri Lanka and proposes a conceptual model of IL education. Questions after his talk raised the important issue of indigenous knowledge. His full paper is here: http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/105-dorner-en.pdf

In the same session, Christina Nilsen (Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada) presented on Faculty perceptions of librarian-led information literacy instruction in postsecondary education. As a practitioner, she understands the challenges of integrating IL and gaining access to students, and she highlighted the research and writings about faculty-librarian relationships. Nilsen carried out a questionnaire survey of faculty in Canada (106 respondents), to investigate their perceptions of academic librarians and the importance they placed on information literacy in their discipline. A large number rated their students' IL as poor or fair, also a majority rated IL as important and about half don't regularly ask librarians to teach their students. There was an interesting variety of reasons for not inviting librarians into their classes. Nilsen's full paper is here: http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/105-nilsen-en.pdf

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