Some of the researchers have made their workshop presentations available on the blog:

Jette Hyldegaard, IVA, Denmark

Ola Pilerot, University of Borås, Sweden

Olof Sundin, University of Borås & Lund University, Sweden

Another themed issue (2/3 20011) is found in Danish Library Research which focuses their newest issue on Information literacies. This issue is edited by Trine Schreiber and contains an article by her as well as by other network co-ordinators (Olof Sundin, Helena Francke, Louise Limberg, Johanna Rivano Eckerdal). Most of the articles are in Danish, but a couple are in English. Enjoy!

The collaboration between the two researchers that started in the late 1990’s has continued and developed. As a newly appointed Adjunct Professor at QUT, Louise Limberg spent three months with Professor Christine Bruce’s Information Studies Group during the wet Australian summer (November to January 2010/2011). The visit included collaboration on a research grant application to the Australian Research Council on Smart Information Use; supervision of doctoral students; and two seminars where Professor Limberg presented ongoing research within the programme Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS) at UB and the University of Gothenburg. The seminars were given together with Professor Limberg’s PhD Candidate Anna Lundh, who also had the opportunity to spend three months at QUT.

Photo 1: Professor Louise Limberg & Professor Christine Bruce with doctoral students at QUT. By courtesy of Dr. Ian Stoodley.

During their Australian journey Professor Limberg and Ms Lundh also spent time with Dr Annemaree Lloyd at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga, where Limberg also is an Adjunct Professor. Among the many activities at CSU, Professor Limberg and Ms Lundh gave a seminar on their socioculturally grounded work on Information Literacy.

Back in snowy Sweden Professor Limberg and Ms Lundh look forward to returning the hospitality of their colleagues in Brisbane and Wagga Wagga during 2011 and 2012, when a number of Australian Information Literacy researchers will be visiting UB. The visits will start with Professor Bruce and Dr Lloyd attending an international workshop on Information Literacy and Social Media Research, set up by Professor Olof Sundin at UB.

Photo 2: Professor Louise Limberg and Ms Anna Lundh after their seminar at CSU. By courtesy of Dr. Annemaree Lloyd

Folk gør i dag brug af mange forskellige digitale værktøjer, medier eller metoder for at skaffe sig information. De har hver deres foretrukne veje til den information de behøver i deres arbejds- og/eller hverdagspraksis. Nogle har lært at bruge enkelte søge-værktøjer effektivt, men mangler måske kompetencer til at søge, vurdere og anvende information kvalificeret. Andre igen har udviklet stærke informationskvalifikationer ved brugen af digitale værktøjer og medier i én kontekst, men udfordres når de skal bruge samme værktøjer eller medier i en ny sammenhæng.  Hidtidig forskning inden for in-formationskompetence har især haft fokus på de unges og studerendes informations-kompetencer i forhold til en studiepraksis; men i dag er det i lige så høj grad relevant at undersøge den almindelige borgers informationskompetencer i en hverdagspraksis eller medarbejdernes informationskompetencer i en arbejdspraksis.

Formålet med dette temanummer er at samle dansk og nordisk forskning inden for den brede forståelse af informationskompetence. Hvor begrebet informationskompetencer tidligere var tæt forbundet med biblioteksværktøjer og -ressourcer, er det i dag vanskeligt at adskille begrebet fra andre kompetencer som f.eks. digitale kompetencer, IT-, medie- eller netværkskompetencer. Informationskompetencer er heller ikke længere noget der kun undervises i – det ’praktiseres’. Det skal forstås som en ufor-mel socialiserende oplæring i de informationskompetencer, som konteksten og medierne forudsætter.

I takt med at arbejds- og hverdagslivet inddrages som kontekst for udvikling af informationskompetencer samt at nye medier, teknologier og værktøjer introduceres er der kommet et stigende behov for at udvikle området teoretisk og metodisk. Hvad forstås eksempelvis ved at være informationskompetent? Og hvordan kan det studeres og/eller måles?

Redaktionen for temanummeret inviterer derfor artikler, der udforsker og diskuterer et eller flere af følgende emner (listen er dog ikke udtømmende):

• Informationskompetence i et teoretisk og/eller metodologisk perspektiv, herunder definitioner og modeller.
• Arbejds- eller hverdagskonteksters betydning for informationskompetencer
• Informationskompetencer set i relation til udvalgte digitale medier
• Brugersegmenter og informationskompetencer (fx studerende, borgere, professionelle)
• Værktøjer med henblik på at understøtte og fremme informationskompetencer

Form
En artikel må fylde op til 6.000 ord og må ikke før have været publiceret. Artikler kan være skrevet på dansk, svensk, norsk og engelsk.
Deadline
Redaktionen for tidsskriftet skal senest den 15. marts 2011 have modtaget dit abstract og senest den 1. maj 2011 din artikel.

Yderligere information
Du er velkommen til at kontakte redaktionen for yderligere spørgsmål. Send en mail til Jette Hyldegård (jh@iva.dk) og Trine Schreiber (ts@iva.dk).

Vi henviser i øvrigt til tidsskriftets hjemmeside for mere information om retningslinjer og krav til artikelskrivning og review: http://www.iva.dk/dbf/

*** November Journal club meeting
When: Wednesday November 24th 12 noon SLT (same as US Pacific time, 8pm UK time,
see http://tinyurl.com/2drtzv5 for times elsewhere)
Where: Infolit iSchool

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/126/239/21/

Pancha Enzyme (Edinburgh University) leads a discussion on:
Sundin, O. & Francke, H. (2009). “In search of credibility: pupils’ information practices in learning environments” Information Research, 14(4) paper 418. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/14-4/paper418.html]
Please read the article – to start things off we’d like you to think about the questions:
- What strengths/weaknesses do you see in this study?
- How do you address assessment of authority/credibility in your information literacy teaching?
- What changes, if any, does this study prompt you to think about making to your current practice?

*** December journal club meeting
When: 15 December 2010, 12 noon SL time(see http://tinyurl.com/29uj8pw for times elsewhere)
Where: Venue: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/126/239/21/

In December’s journal club, Maggie Kohime (Sheffield University) will lead discussion on the article:
Hauxwell, H. (2008) Information literacy at the Service Desk: the role of circulations staff in promoting information literacy. Journal of Information Literacy, 2(2),
http://jil.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/ART-V2-I2-2008-2

Info from Sheila Webber, University of Sheffield

Abstracts for long or short papers or posters are due 14th January 2011.

There are also sponsored places for “early career researchers and those in their first professional post who are accepted to submit a full paper for presentation at the 2011 conference”.

i³ is delighted to announce that a full fees paid place at the 2011 conference is available. This includes all conference fees, university accommodation, reasonable travel costs to Aberdeen (up to a maximum of £600 for travel) and access to the social programme.

(See the Registration page on the conference web site for more details.)

Apart from the Information Literacy seminar, the main conference offered a number of interesting and information literacy-related presentations well worth reading more about.

http://informationr.net/ir/15-3/colis7/colis7.html

Together with Professor Limberg’s opening address, six position papers presenting ongoing and future research can be found via the links provided below:

• Francke, Helena, Credibility, Materiality, and Mediated Interaction
• Huvila, Isto, What about Creating and Organizing?
• Limberg, Louise, Information Literacies at the Intersection between Information Seeking and Learning: Contexts and Values
• Mackey, Thomas P. & Jacobson, Trudi E., Re-Conceptualizing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy for Social Media
• Moring, Camilla, Learning Trajectories: Becoming Information Literate across Practices
• Sormunen, Eero, Lehtiö, Leeni & Hongisto, Heidi, Collective Authoring of Wikipedia Articles as a Learning Task in Embedded Information Literacy Instruction
• Talja, Sanna, From Teaching Information Literacy to Teaching Information Management?: An Information Practice Model for Teaching and Learning Information Competences

All related to different aspects of information literacy in a wide range of contexts, the papers created an excellent starting-point for fruitful discussions. Important questions regarding why information literacy research is needed and where and by whom this research can be conducted were raised and thoroughly discussed. A common thread in the discussions was that of contextualisation and the study of information literacy in different physical and virtual environments; the need to talk about information literacies in the plural instead of as a universal, ethnocentric and standardised set of skills was acknowledged. At the same time questions about assessments and connections between environments were raised.

One might perhaps have thought that a seminar with researchers within the field would start from a common understanding of the concept of information literacy – but instead a large part of the discussions was devoted to the question of what our research object might be constituted of. Different views were articulated in the discussions. The seminar could however agree on the need to see not only information seeking, gathering and evaluation as parts of information literacy but also information organisation, management and production.

To sum up, the Information Literacy Research Seminar showed that the field indeed needs this kind of forum where fundamental questions underpinning information literacy research can be raised. The seminar provided a promising start to creating such a forum and we are committed to developing it further in the future. Stay tuned here at the blog and through our newly created Facebook group “International Information Literacies Research Network”.

/Anna Lundh