I'm liveblogging from the
IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland
The next talk in this session on e-learning and information literacy was
Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy from NICOLE KRÜGER (my phot of her, right). To quote her paper "The term "Microlearning" refers to the acquisition of a given information or learning
material in small units that can be absorbed quickly." She started by explaining why microlearning is useful - with some arguing that some e-learning is too long and ineffective, and microlearning seen as appropriate for digital natives by commentators such as Prensky.
So in her library, firstly they have an online reference service, so that users can interact via chat and email. The librarians aim to give short clear answers, but obviously this short answer may not answer the complete information need.
The second microlearning option is LOTSE, a modular online tutorial. It has multimedia content, interactive learning in a Moodle section. However, the speaker observed that this still might be too
macro for the users.
Therefore they tried to merge the advantages of the two services. Thus on the reference desk they still give short answers, but also provide a link to the relevant bit of LOTSE and point out other multimedia content. For LOTSE, there is now a personal tutor available to help people orientate themselves in LOTSE. Further ideas are: making the e-learning content searchable, offering service on Facebook, forums where people can discuss their questions and publication on Youtube.
There were a number of questions afterwards, including one person troubling the notion that you have to acceed to a microlearning approach, when people still need to learn to engage more deeply (this was a point that came to me, too, as I am not happy with teh "digital native" discourse either). The speaker admitted this was a problem, but felt that since IL was so essential and the IL was not compulsory, it was at least a way of getting the information to those who would not otherwise be engaged with IL at all.
I blogged about LOTSE in more detail before:
http://information-literacy.blogspot.fi/2010/09/slavic-information-literacy-tutorial-at.htmlThe full text paper is at:
Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy
Translations: [Français] NICOLE KRÜGER (ZBW - German National Library of Economics, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel/Hamburg, Germany)
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Creaser, C and Spezi, V. (2012) Working together: evolving value for academic libraries. Sage. This newly-published report is the outcome of a project for Sage (the publishers) undertaken by LISU at Loughborough University, UK. The report is fairly short (16 pages). The findings are based on investigating some "best practice" at 8 universities: 2 in Nordic countries, 2 in the UK and 4 in North America, plus a questionnaire which was publicised via discussion lists etc. and got 630 responses. There are short sections on "embedding information literacy", "integrated teaching", "other support services", and "integrated research services". There is also a chapter on marketing issues. Recommendations are made for individual librarians (including developing teaching skills), library managers, and the wider institution. I'm not sure there is anything startlingly new here, but the report and the examples it gives could be useful when planning or putting together a case about services. The report is free (you have to give your contact details before downloading the report), downloaded from the "Report" tab on the project blog at http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/
Reference Services Review, Volume 40 issue 1, 2012. Articles include:
I have blogged about the recent information literacy currculum project which was part of the Arcadia Programme, but I don't think I have highlighted some of the other outcomes from the prammes. There are still some reports to be published, Student reading in theory and practise by Oszkar Nagy and a report on implementing the information literacy curriculum. As background, "The Arcadia Programme was a three-year programme (2008-2011) funded by a generous grant from the Arcadia Fund to Cambridge University Library. The grant enabled us to explore the role of academic libraries in a digital age, create new programmes and services, particularly for undergraduates -- and also to improve the external environment of the library."
A new issue of SCONUL Focus (Number 53, 2012) has, as usual, numerous short and readable articles about academic libraries. These include:
1. Havelka, S. and Verbovetskaya, A. (2012) "Mobile information literacy: Let’s use an app for that!" College and research libraries news, 73 (1), 22-23. http://crln.acrl.org/content/73/1/22.full. A short article. Their mobile resources page, as an example, is at http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/library/database-mobile.php Thanks to Mark Jones, who highlighted this article.
I think I failed to blog about the Library Impact Data Project (based at the UnNiversity of Huddersfield), for which Phase 1 was carried out last year and Phase 2 is continuing this year. The aim of Phase 1 was "to prove a statistically significant correlation between library usage and student attainment." This they did by taking data from 8 universities and showing a correlation between class of degree and both borrowing books and using electronic resources. As they emphasise, this is a correlation, and you cannot prove causality, but nevertheless it is a very useful piece of research. They also did some focus groups, and Phase 2 is exploring further; it "will further exploit the data, investigate possible causal aspects and disseminate findings from both phases". The project blog is at http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/, with papers at http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/articles-and-conference-papers/ and a data collection toolkit at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/11571/
Just published, the USA's University Leadership Council's report Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services
The latest issue (Volume 37, Issue 5) of Journal of Academic Librarianship (homepage http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333) includes:
At the LILAC (Information Literacy) conference 18-20 April 2011 in London, UK, Emily Albion talked about Stimulating student learning when visual is king: learnmore at City University. Although the online resources she has developed are aimed at law students, some of them could be used by other students, and certainly there are good ideas to follow. The Lawbore website is at http://lawbore.net/ with an attractively laid-out home page, featuring topic guides and news. The Learnmore site is at http://learnmore.lawbore.net/. Learnmore has sections for newbies (which includes short sections about getting the best out of lectures and tutorials and specialist sections, notably "remembering cases"), exams, research, moots, writing and careers.
