A presentation given at the Centre for Information Literacy Reserach seminar on 6 August 2009 at Sheffield University Department of Information Studies.

1. A study to determine the
inspirational books, articles or web
resources shaping the learning and
teaching philosophy of attendees at
the 2009 LILAC conference
David Brown and George Davies, 6th August 2009

2. Presentation outline
 Introduction
 Research context
 Relevance of this study
 Methodology
 Results
 Organisation of annotated bibliography
 Conclusions
 Recommendations

3. Introduction
 Project carried out as part of assessment for ‘Information
Literacy Research’ module on MA Librarianship
programme
 Distribution of questionnaires to attendees at 2009
LILAC conference
 Responses categorised and used to create an annotated
bibliography of inspirational items

4. Aim and objectives
 Aim:
 To determine the inspirational books, articles or web
resources for attendees at the 2009 LILAC conference
 Objectives:
 To design and administer a questionnaire at the LILAC
conference
 To synthesise attendees’ responses and collate statistics
 To produce a categorised annotated bibliography

5. Research context
 Annotated bibliographies used to highlight key resources
in given subject area
 Few examples of bibliographies with annotations provided
by respondents
 Annotations generally addition of the author rather than
external contributors
 Most are extended literature reviews
 Tend to focus on professional literature
 This study a useful example of a collaborative
bibliography, reflecting shared experiences and insight

6. The LILAC conference
 The LILAC conference encourages debate and knowledge
exchange across IL practitioners (LILAC, 2007)
 Predominantly attended by UK practitioners (Glass, 2007)
 This year’s conference held in Cardiff
 287 people attended the conference
 1:4 split of men to women
 65 male attendees and 222 female

7. Brier and Lebbin’s study
 Study follows on from a previous project by Brier and
Lebbin (2006)
 Asked attendees at the 2006 LOEX-of-the-West
conference to provide details of two books (fiction or
non-fiction) which influenced their instruction activities,
teaching philosophy or meaning of education

8. Relevance of this study
 Brier and Lebbin’s study asked only for books
 This study looked more widely at inspirational books,
articles and web resources
 Reflects wider knowledge base for information literacy,
highlighting the spectrum of resources available

9. Methodology
 Questionnaire with mixture of closed and open questions
 Distributed in person at LILAC, during morning break and
lunch on the middle day
 Respondents given introduction to the topic and
information sheet
 Participants represented convenience sample
 As many attendees as possible approached within project’s
time constraints
 Some respondents preferred to reply via email after
considering their response
 Email addresses noted and follow-up emails sent

10. Instrument design
 Questionnaire designed to be easy for respondents to
complete quickly, during conference breaks
 Especially important in the narrow window available for this
research
 Questionnaire format chosen for ease of distribution,
both at the conference and in subsequent email
communication
 Reflected original study by Brier and Lebbin (2006)

11. Choice of questions
 Questions chosen to gather information about
respondents and resources
 Useful to contextualise resources chosen by participants
 Gender of respondents included to compare results with
overall gender balance at LILAC
 Sector spread of attendees also observed
 LILAC predominantly aimed at HE practitioners (Glass, 2008)
 Useful to reflect background of other respondents

12. Research question
 What book, article or web resource do you think
has been the most inspirational on your learning
and teaching philosophy?
 Designed to reflect personal and professional interests
 Important to remove focus from the word ‘instruction’
(used in Brier and Lebbin’s study)
 Not widely used within UK education
 Respondents asked to explain reasons for choosing
particular items
 Richer responses could be more easily categorised

13. Limitations of a questionnaire approach
 Difficulty posed by the question
 Many respondents found difficult to answer on the spot
 Opportunity to leave contact details, followed up with
electronic questionnaire
 Choice of categories for resources potentially too
narrow
 Some items (reports, models etc.) neither books nor articles
 Labelled as web resources, but might be more beneficial to
expand categories
 Difficult to categorise some items – would have facilitated
final data analysis

14. Participation
 30 responses received
 25 questionnaires completed in person, a further five
received via email
 Limited email response
 23 emails sent
 Only four followed by questionnaire responses
 Also received one unexpected email response
 Another three emails received
 These individuals unable to select one particular item which
they found inspirational
 Expressed interest in final results of the project

15. Data analysis
 Responses tabulated and statistics created to highlight
distribution and characteristics of population sample
 Annotations categorised in a similar fashion to the
themes created by Brier and Lebbin (2006)
 Two bibliographies, one organised by theme and the other by
reason for selection
 Statistics formulated to show frequency of items in each
category

16. Results – gender mix of participants
 30 responses: 6 male participants, 24 female
Male
Female

17. Results – sector split of participants
 22 responses received from HE practitioners
 2 from FE, 1 from the public sector, 5 students
25
20
15
10
5
0
Higher Further School library Health library Public sector Private sector Student
education education
Sector

18. Results – type of resource
 13 books, 5 articles and 12 web resources
Book
Article
Web resource

19. Organisation of annotated bibliography
 Main bibliography organised by themed sections, within
which items are organised alphabetically
 Follows methodology used by Brier and Lebbin (2006)
 Used “seven genres of instruction inspiration” (Brier and
Lebbin, 2006: 608) to categorise items

20. Choice of bibliography themes
 Categories designed and attributed to each item in
alphabetical list to reflect the important themes
 Particular categories highlight purpose and topic coverage
of each item – chosen to structure bibliography’s content
 Approaches to education
 Databases / resource directories
 Fiction
 Information skills
 Library contexts
 Personal philosophy
 Teaching design

21. Frequency of bibliography themes
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Approaches to Databases / Fiction Information skills Library contexts Personal philosophy Teaching design
education directories
Bibliography theme

22. Analysis of bibliography themes (1)
 ‘Information skills’ most frequent theme
 Almost one-third of responses
 Close correlation between information literacy and
information skills training
 Other categories (fiction and library contexts) not cited
as highly
 Trend might reflect original research question, which
encouraged more professional literature
 Most frequently cited items generally relate to learning
and teaching strategies

23. Analysis of bibliography themes (2)
 Results match Brier and Lebbin’s (2006) survey fairly well
 280 responses – ‘Learning potential’ (78 items), ‘Teaching tools’
(56 items)
 Categories reflect most frequent categories in this study, i.e.
‘Information skills’ and ‘Learning design’
 Relative lack of fiction items
 Brier and Lebbin reported 49 items in ‘Fundamental truths’
(third highest category)
 Study asked specifically for choice of books
 This study ranged more widely, many resources did not fit the
‘Fiction’ category

24. Content of annotations
 Bibliography also constructed to highlight reasons why
respondents chose particular items
 Categories reflected content of responses, drawing out
important reasons and motivations
 Current awareness
 Ease of use
 Informative content
 Knowledge
 Personal qualities and success
 Practical advice
 Thought-provoking

25. Frequency of reasons for selection
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Current awareness Ease of use Informative content Knowledge Personal qualities Practical advice Thought-provoking
and success
Reason for selection

26. Analysis of reasons for selection
 ‘Practical advice’ and ‘Knowledge’ most frequent
 Reflects need for practical, insightful resources
 Highlights specific nature of original research question
 Reflects choice of the word ‘inspirational’
 ‘Informative content’ not as heavily cited
 Many respondents highlighted the importance of content, but
often not the most important reason

27. Conclusions
 Respondents prioritised books, although web resources very close
 Lasting importance of printed literature for current practitioners
 Articles not highly cited as inspirational items
 Influenced by ambiguities between articles and web resources
 The most common theme in the bibliography was ‘Information skills’,
followed by ‘Databases and directories’
 Most common reason for selection was ‘Practical advice’
 Profession’s need for current, organised and manageable information
 IL practitioners seek convenient and informative resources, tailored to
specific needs and teaching programmes

28. Recommendations
 Study relatively limited, on one day at a single conference
 Larger timescale and population to enrich future research
 Study focused on HE
 Significant expansion of research into public and health libraries
 Research across different conferences would allow
comparison of results from different areas and sectors
 Differences between the LILAC and LOEX-of-the-West
 Different research question might also offer different
results and conclusions
 Broaden to encourage non-professional literature

29. Future of this research project
 Annotated bibliographies produced for this project will
hopefully be useful for information literacy practitioners
and information science departments
 Useful reading list of materials relating to information
literacy
 Could form part of teaching strategies in this area
 Resources and annotations useful for authors and
teachers in the field as a tool for improving teaching
methods
 Summary and basic bibliography are available online:
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/brown-davies-2009.pdf
 Annotated version possibly to be published as an article

30. References
 Brier, D.J. and Lebbin,V.K. (2006). “Ike loa: a list of influential
books shaping the instructional librarian’s teaching and learning
philosophy”. Reference Services Review, 34 (4), 607-643.
 Glass, B. (2007). “LILAC Conference 2007”. New Library World,
108 (11/12), 565-566.
 Glass, B. (2008). “LILAC 2008 in Liverpool, European Capital of
Culture”. New Library World, 109 (11/12), 587-588.
 LILAC (2007). LILAC – About Us [Online]. London: Librarians’
Information Literacy Conference.
http://www.lilacconference.com/dw/about_us.html [Accessed
31 July 2009]