Skip to main content

FestivIL LILAC conference 2021 by Terri Kudrath-Charnal


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. 





Terri was this year's winner of the CILIP North West Member Network LILAC Conference bursary.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Careers Support Conversations Programme: Job Searches and Applications - additional resources

Thank you to everyone who attended our first Careers Conversations event - we hope it is the first of many and welcome any and all feedback on the programme. Please keep an eye on our newsletter , social media and website for upcoming events.  Please find below a summary of the major points discussed during the session. Underneath this summary, please find links to useful resources for the job searching and application process for several library and information sectors; The session began with a discussion about where individuals typically look for job listings and analysis of some of the bigger providers. Along with the resources listed below, possible locations for job listings include noting listings on recruitment agencies and applying directly, looking at organisations that are being refurbished or expanded upon as they may account for new roles, and the information and archiving teams within unions. It was noted that it is worthwhile looking at roles outside of one's chosen ...
Post a Comment
Read more

CILIP North West: Summary of 2021

 As 2021 is coming to an end, let’s reflect on the year and look to what we would like to achieve in the future. The CILIP North West committee would like to thank our member network for your continued support and engagement. We wish you all the best for the new year. Events As we continue to adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, collaboration for many of us continues to take place online. The CILIP North West committee has held a number of online events this year, which has allowed us to reach a wider audience and collaborate with other organisations.  Our Professional Registration Support Officers, Gil Young and Victoria Treadway, have held a number of Revalidate in a Morning events this year: • 2 joint sessions with CILIP North West & Academic Research Libraries Group North West (January and July 2021) • 1 for Health Education England library team (July 2021) • 1 as part of the Professional Registration Support Officer Network (September 2021). As well as these...
Post a Comment
Read more

CILIP Conference 2024

 Blog by Daisy Hogarth CPD is something we all want to do, but conference places are expensive, right? I’d highly recommend reaching out to CILIP NW for support through their bursary scheme. I found myself wanting to attend this year’s CILIP Conference but with no way of funding it. I work for a public library, so support via work financially was out of the question, and I didn’t have the money to fund the entire conference myself. I decided to reach out to CILIP NW and see what support I could be offered, and found the bursary application really simple and not too onerous to complete. I found out pretty quickly that I had been successful in my application to receive some money towards my ticket and the process of then obtaining my ticket with this money was really simple. Now on to the good stuff, the day! The conference was in Birmingham so I got the train from Liverpool. I used the train journey to have some uninterrupted reading time, something I don’t normally get to do on ...
Post a Comment
Read more