Welcome!

Welcome to the collaborative site set up for the:New Media and Information Literacy Programme for Librarians in Wales.

 





About this Programme
This was a programme delivered by Sangeet Bhullar (WISE KIDS) on New Media and Information Literacy for Librarians in Wales, and funded by CyMAL and delivered in 3 geographic areas across Wales between September and November 2011.

It was unique in that it was structured to be delivered as a two day face-to-face programme followed by a day three after 6 weeks. In that time, participants had to undertake a 'project' to help their libraries move on in the understanding and use of new digital technologies and information literacy. They were linked up in a collaborative blog (this one!) and during the actual training days and in between days two and three, they also had to document their ideas and progress as well as provide web links/descriptions of their 'projects' once these were developed.

In terms of content, the programme aimed to provide librarians and information professionals with an insight into:

• current web developments and the implications of these developments in terms of how we search, network, keep up with new developments, discover new information and professional networks, learn and socialise online
• new ways of creating and organising content, searching for and distributing content. Examples covered will include blogs, micro-blogs like Twitter, podcasts, etc.
  
• effective use of social media (like Facebook/ Twitter/ YouTube) as well as specific cloud-based collaborative tools to collaborate internally as well as engage and educate, service users.
  
• how to create a customisable and multimedia blogs/wikis/social network with video.
  
• sourcing legal-to-use picture/music/video content.
  
• managing privacy, identity, data and reputation management in a Web 2.0, social and mobile media space.
  
• the 21st Century Information Literacy Skills needed to evaluate the reliability of content on the web, and to manage eSecurity issues like spam, viruses, spyware, phishing, identity theft, online grooming and cyberbullying.
  
• legal issues like copyright, illegal downloads. 

This blog clearly demonstrates the journeys and learning undertaken, and provides a snapshot of where libraries are in their adoption and use of Web 2.0 technologies. It also highlights the participants own understanding of how new web technologies and social media can be used by libraries to offer better services, and to deliver information literacy in new and innovative ways.

Are we CyberSavvy in Flintshire?

Just a brief outline of some of the ways I would like to apply the internet safety guidelines given to us on day three of the WiseKids Cymal 2011 course.

Stay safe and be CyberSavvy at Cardiff Met

More than half our students are school leavers, and are officially adults.  That is not to say that they don't need being made aware of how their behaviour online may affect their reputation and safety.

Although the welfare of students is mainly the responsibility of Student Services, the library can enlighten students through information literacy sessions, covering cybersavvy topics closely connected to successful study, i.e. critical evaluation and thinking skills - or sorting out the cyber good, bad and ugly.

For example, using images - most students don't know that downloading images without copyright permission is illegal.  This can be tied in with some interesting examples, perhaps showing what happens when an image is copied without the owners consent, etc. 

As students are adults, the last thing they need is a lecture.  It has to be done subtly.... We need to find out what other departments are doing to educate students on u and work closely with them to enhance this.

Setting up a collaborative blog or wiki for distance learning students

I'm Catherine Drake and I'm the information advisor for Art & Design at UWIC.  We've just done a round of library inductions, so it has been very busy here.

My job involves teaching information literacy skills to students based at Llandaff, managing the book budget, stock collection, enquiry work and a bit of cataloguing.

For this project, I'm going to look into setting up a wiki or a blog for a group of doctoral students that I will be teaching early in October.  Many of these students live and work abroad, so this will enable them to access the presentation with links to useful sites & information.    I'm focusing on a small group of guinea pigs to assess how useful and successful it will be.  If it's something that students appreciate and want, then we can use this as a case study to show management that we need to embed social media more into overall library policy, particularly relating to how we inform and teach our students.

Social Media - what areas of academia & student life would it be most suited for?

This mind map is looking at where social media would be most useful for students & academics.  I did a very rough map yesterday of the ways that we could use social media to promote our library services.  A couple of hot topics in the academic library at the moment are Information Literacy and Academic liasion.  Wisekids has got me thinking about how social media can be used to spread information and awareness.  But you can't just do the social media for everything.  Much time and effort must be invested in how we invest in social media and where it's most likely to be effective.