Thursday, July 25, 2013

Journal Club meeting: 28 August 8-9pm: A Healthcare Lens for the SCONUL Seven Pillars Model

I was extremely flattered when I was asked if I would be interested in discussing my recent paper in JIL, "Developing an evidence-based practice healthcare lens for the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model", http://dx.doi.org/10.11645/7.1.1813 at the next Information Literacy Journal Club session.

By way of background, the idea for the paper essentially came out of my experience working in a hospital library - a very different context to a research or academic library, and one where the focus is on identifying, using and integrating evidence and information with clinical practice. We often think of information literacy in a purely education context, but recent reports such as Project Information Literacy's "Learning Curve: How College Graduates Solve Information Problems Once They Join the Workplace", highlight it as a very real issue for lifelong learning, the workplace, and everyday life.

Whilst I often refer to and use a number of IL models in my instructional practice (particularly ANCIL), the SCONUL Seven Pillars Model struck me as a useful framework for developing an Evidence Based Practice Model for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the 2011 revision increased the emphasis on skills and behaviours compared with the older version, and so I felt the SCONUL model was a bit more 'up to date' than the ACRL Standards for instance, which are currently being revised. But the primary reason was the lens feature, which allows the original generic core model to be adapted for specific user groups and needs, to increase the context and relevance. There is currently a research lens, a digital literacy lens, and an open educational resource lens. This flexibility was a big attraction, as I felt I could tailor the basic model, to incorporate the specific needs and information problems of clinical staff based on their feedback from interviews. The lens format can potentially be adapted for lots of different user groups, and I would love to see additional lenses developed in the future.

I would love to hear any comments people may have regarding the paper, and the use of the lens in practice. One of the biggest limitations with the study is the small sample size, so I think a larger study may produce even richer data. Or perhaps other groups, such as GPs, could be a useful population to study to compare and contrast information behaviours. I'm looking forward to lots of discussion on the 28th!

For those seeking a shorter version of my paper, I also have a slideshare from a recent pecha kucha presentation on the full paper.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Journal Club meeting: 24 July: Barbara Fister's "outrageous claims" for university librarians

Space to thinkThe next online online blog-comment information literacy Journal Club meeting takes place at 8-9 pm UK time on Wednesday 24th July 2013 (see http://tinyurl.com/ow3kfxz for times elsewhere).

The topic will be Barbara Fister's stimulating keynote paper, aimed at academic librarians, presented at the LOEX (USA information literacy) conference in May. The paper is online at:
Fister, B. (2013) Decode academy. Paper presented at LOEX, 3 May 2013. http://homepages.gac.edu/~fister/loex13.pdf

There is information on Barbara here. Barbara starts by asking what libraries, universities and knowledge are for. She says, for example, that "knowledge will set us free. Knowledge liberates us from the ignorance and prejudice and helps us make sense of the world". She then goes on to make some "outrageous claims", namely
- Research papers should not be part of the first year experience
- We should stop teaching students how to find sources
- Very rarely are citations needed
- We should stop policing plagiarism
- We should stop implying "scholarly" means "good"
- Librarians should spend as much time working with faculty as with students
So - do you agree? Barbara's whole paper is not enormously long, but if you have very little time, home in on the claim you find most interesting/ agree with most/ disagree with most.

As before, the real-time discussion will take place in comments to this blog post during the hour mentioned above, with me helping the discussion along. People are also very welcome to add comments and questions before and after this real-time event. Note that moderation is usually turned on for comments (because otherwise we get spammed!), but we will turn moderation off on the day of the discussion, so that your comments appear immediately.

The picture is one of those which Barbara uses in the paper: it is by juggzy_malone (2007) on Flickr.