Presentation delivered by Hazel Hall at Workplace Information Literacy workshop, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, 5th December 2017

1. Information literacy in a volunteer
workplace: the case of hyperlocal
government in Scotland
Presentation by Professor Hazel Hall
Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier
University
Workshop on Workplace Information Literacy
Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
5th
December 2017

2. http://hazelhall.org
@hazelh
Slides on SlideShare at
http://slideshare.net/hazelhall

3. Information literacy for democratic
engagement (IL-DEM)
What are the practices of elected,
unpaid community councillors in
Scotland as they exploit information
channels for democratic engagement
with citizens?
What are the practices of elected,
unpaid community councillors in
Scotland as they exploit information
channels for democratic engagement
with citizens?

4. IL-DEM team and funding
Hazel Hall Peter Cruickshank Bruce Ryan

5. Hyperlocal democracy in Scotland
Community councils
1,100 active in Scotland across 32 local authorities
‘employing’ ~10,000 community councillors
Voting members (elected, co-opted)
Non-voting, ex-officio members (e.g. MPs, MSPs)

6. http://www.communitycouncils.scot/community-council-finder.htmlhttp://www.communitycouncils.scot/community-council-finder.html

7. Hyperlocal democracy in Scotland
Limited powers

8. Hyperlocal democracy in Scotland
‘Schemes’ specify roles and responsibilities
Community councils are NOT bodies of government
Community councils DO NOT deliver services
Community councils CANNOT raise taxes or make
regulations/law

9. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file
/1477/scheme_for_community_councils
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file
/1477/scheme_for_community_councils

10. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file
/1477/scheme_for_community_councils
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file
/1477/scheme_for_community_councils

11. http://www.ntbcc.org.uk/about/http://www.ntbcc.org.uk/about/

12. Community councillor known challenges
A volunteer unpaid ‘workforce’
Elections uncontested
Vacancies unfilled
Insufficient members to undertake tasks
Councillor demographics: people with time

13. Information sharing
No/low/outdated information skills
Unmediated and mixed channel information
interactions
Ambiguity over community councillor roles
Citizen opinion  official bodies
Official information  citizens?
Community councillor known challenges

14. Primary research questions 1-3
How do community councillors…
Access and understand information on their duties and
rights?
Keep up to date with local issues and developments of
reference to the communities that they serve?
Disseminate information to their communities?

15. Supplementary research questions 4 & 5
Training
Where do future efforts need to be directed to improve
the information skills and practices of community
councillors?
What is the role of public library staff in the training of
community councillors?

16. Final supplementary research question 6
Impact of community councillors’ information
literacies
How do community councillors’ information literacies
contribute to:
Their communities?
The building of social capital?
Their, or others’, citizenships?

17. Empirical work
Semi-structured interviews
19 participants in 1-hour interviews
5 themes
Information literacy, behaviour and practices
Lifelong learning, everyday life
Libraries
Communities, social capital and citizenship
Becoming information literate
Plus some desk research: audit of public library provision for
community councils

18. SCONUL model to guide data collection
For example, data collected to address RQ1 align
with pillars 3 and 4
How do you go about finding information about your duties
and rights?
What sources do you use?
How did you learn about them?

19. Activity Theory to guide data analysis
https://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/exploring-information-
literacy-through-the-lens-of-activity-theory
https://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/exploring-information-
literacy-through-the-lens-of-activity-theory

20. Main findings: RQs 1 and 2
RQ1
Community councillors learn about their roles primarily
through materials supplied by local authorities
RQ2
The information sharing role is bi-directional
Local authorities are the primary information source –
although not all needs can be met
Patchy use of social media to access information

21. Main findings: RQs 3 and 4
RQ3
High attention to provenance and authority of
information to be disseminated to citizens
Many channels for dissemination - both digital and non-
digital – though impact not evaluated
RQ4
Information skills gaps, particularly around social media

22. Main findings: RQ5
RQ5
Just one local authority specifies means by which the
public library service supports community councils
Lack of awareness of library support amongst
interviewees
‘Libraries don’t do
much for me
[because] everything
is available online.’
‘Libraries don’t do
much for me
[because] everything
is available online.’

23. Main finding: RQ6
RQ6
Community councillors’ information literacies contribute
to building and support of citizenship

24. Key issues and implications
Low social media skills and use
With associated impact on assessing information needs
of citizens
Explained by demographics, emphasis on provenance
and authority, perceptions of time commitment
Low profile of libraries
Not visible as strong supporters of community council
work

25. IL-DEM project recommendations
Training
Lobby, audit, delivery
Perception of information skills
Value to role to be emphasised by local authorities
Public libraries
Extend/make more visible the support role of public
libraries

26. Find out more
Community, knowledge, connections web site
 https://community-knect.net/
Recent papers
 Hall, H., Cruickshank, P. & Ryan, B. (2018 in press). Practices of
community representatives in exploiting information channels for citizen
democratic engagement. Journal of Librarianship and Information
Science.
 Hall, H., Cruickshank, P. & Ryan, B. (2017 in press). Exploring information
literacy through the lens of Activity Theory. In: Proceedings of the 5th
European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL2017). New York:
Springer. [Slides at https://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/exploring-
information-literacy-through-the-lens-of-activity-theory]

27. Information literacy in a volunteer
workplace: the case of hyperlocal
government in Scotland
Presentation by Professor Hazel Hall
Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier
University
Workshop on Workplace Information Literacy
Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
5th
December 2017