FestivIL by LILAC 6th – 8th July 2021 by Terri Kudrath-Charnal
Information literacy has come to the forefront of pedagogy over the last few years, having been counted among the many skills of librarianship for decades.
The last year and a half has seen the gaps widen within students' knowledge of information literacy, due to the lack of tangible, in-person contact with their educational institutions and increased unguided time online. Over the course of the pandemic, this has led to even more diminished information literacy abilities in students.
The last couple of years has also seen increased professionalism and co-ordination in proponents of fake or misleading ideas, further confusing consumers of information. For many attendees of LILAC’s 2021 FestivIL, this has coincided with key crossover points for our students, with an increase in independence in the form of the change from secondary school to college, or college to university.
The landscape in which LILAC’s 2021 festival landed was therefore perfect for an open discussion on how to foster more advanced critical thinking and information literacy skills through our work.
Being Effective
It can sometimes feel as though we are powerless to change core soft skills such as information literacy in students we spend so little (relative) time with. Hearing about the case studies conducted by various presenting teams and having comparison data from before and after their studies (as in the case of Rachel Hunter’s ‘Can You Teach Research in 10 Minutes?’ and the ‘Information Literacy and Gen Z’ talk by Heather Dalal, Art Taylor and Sharon Whitfield) was therefore incredibly insightful in showing how improvements can be achieved within our institutions. In the case of Rachel Hunter’s talk, it was thought that the minimal teaching time library professionals have with students does not hinder the impact we can have on them.
Time to cut the CRAAP?
The collation of existing published research on pedagogy and emerging Information Literacy research by this year’s LILAC speakers was equally useful in showing which strategies are good to use and which ones - many traditionally purported by information professionals - we should start moving away from. I found Barbara Fister’s talk on ‘Information Literacy in the QAnon Era’ to be particularly revolutionary in the way it illustrated how asking students to ‘do their research’ is not helpful advice. Conspiracy theorists and spreaders of misinformation, (perhaps learning from a previous generation of information professionals) have identified the methods employed to guard against false information and manipulated them to convince impressionable information consumers of their validity.
This advice was echoed in ‘Cutting the CRAAP’ and ‘Information Literacy and Gen Z’, where the speakers informed delegates of the harsh reality that, despite investing time and effort into resources based around this idea, traditional tools such as the ‘CRAAP’ method are rapidly losing their effectiveness. As mentioned in many of the talks, actors with insidious aims are becoming more sophisticated in their deception: many misinformation websites keep their information up to date, state the author, show fake career and expertise credentials which look legitimate, and due to the extensive nature of the ‘infodemic', many similar “sources” backing up this false information can readily be found.
Think Tank
LILAC 2021 served as a Think Tank for information professionals, and the networking connections that were advertised provided a further lifeline for colleagues who wish to ensure that their work has an impact, and to carry such work forwards. The hybrid delivery of the conference was a welcome format, due to the erratic nature of moving out of restrictions and having to prepare our places of work for ‘restriction-free’ usage.
As with many things, the discussion around information literacy at LILAC this year, for me at least, raised many more questions than it gave answers. But these questions are to be expected with the dynamic nature of information, disparities between the generations who we are educating, the changing ways we consume that information and the varied ways our students access and interpret that information. These are questions that need to be considered if we are to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous approach to imparting ‘infolit’ wisdom to our students and patrons.
Comments
Post a Comment