Debbi Boden, Jane Secker and Ruth Stubbings on behalf of the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group discuss Information Literacy - terminology, who should teach individuals to be information literate, the role of all library sectors in this area at Umbrella 2005.

1. Lessons learnt from Lilac:
and then from eLit
Debbi Boden, Dr Jane Secker &
Ruth Stubbings
CILIP Umbrella 2005

3. Themes
 Terminology
 Knowledge pool
 Sectoral differences
 Political / social agenda
 LILAC meets eLit
 Are we making the right assumptions?
 The importance of collaboration
 Where do we go from here?

4. Terminology
 Does it matter?
• IL, I-skills, information skills, user education
 What attracts one type of person repels
another
 New term?
• Critical thinking (US)
• Evidence based / problem solving.

5. Knowledge pool
 Are librarians teachers?
• Pedagogy
• Creating online courses
 Where do librarians gain teaching skills?
• Library / information courses?
• Staff development
o Budgets
 What expertise can librarians bring?
• Technical knowledge
o Standard Microsoft office, HTML
• Critical thinking, problem solving and evaluation skills
• Experts in plagiarism

6. Sectoral differences
 Information Literacy - is it just FE & HE
sectors?
• Does it mean the same thing in different sectors?
• Is it important in every sector?
 Fragmentation between sectors
• how to we join it all up?

7. Political / social agenda
 Information literacy can help:
• Life long learning
• Social inclusion
 There is a need for an IL strategy that
crosses sectors - DfES e-strategy may help
here
 Need to influence policy makers – how can
this be done?

8. When LILAC met eLit: lessons
from the education community
 Information literacy is one of several literacies
in the digital world
 This is an issue that concerns the education
sector as a whole
 Collaboration is vital
 Without information literacy you can’t have
lifelong learning

9. Are we making the wrong
assumptions?
 Wilder’s challenge to librarians that
information literacy is not the solution
• Mini-librarians?
• Don’t fight Google, work with it
• Design better library systems
 Wilder made us think and reflection is
important

10. Collaboration in education is the key
 Need to start with the teaching profession
 Ensure they understand what IL is, even if
they call it something else
• Embed IL into staff development for academic
staff in HE and teachers in schools
 Need hooks to get in: plagiarism, e-learning,
Google

11. What lessons have we learnt?
 Information literacy matters as it
• Enhances access to information
• Information leads to knowledge
 Therefore Information literacy
• Is an issue for the whole library profession
• Is a wider social issue in the digital age
• Is a global issue

12. Where do we go from here?
 Collaboration across Library communities
• CILIP, SCONUL, Cilip SIGs, SLA etc
 Collaboration across sectors
• Joint CILIP / Aslib / Ofcom / DCMS / MLA / BL / BC horizon
scanning conference
 Independent IL web site
 Proposal for an international Institute for Information
Literacy: in the UK
 LILAC 2006