I was absolutely delighted to receive a bursary place to attend FestivIL by LILAC. I have just finished my first year of the distance learning Library and Information Services Management course. The module I enjoyed the most was Information Literacy and I was excited to learn more about the best practices from experienced information professionals at FestivIL.
Day One
After a shaky start with Zoom (it had to do an update just before the conference started!), I was able to log into the Welcome session. In order to encourage conversation and networking at a virtual event, it was explained how you could attend two campfire conversations a day. Campfire conversations involved being randomly allocated into a breakout room where you could talk to other delegates. I decided to give it a try and enjoyed my first session so much, I opted to join for each campfire conversation. In each session, I felt that I could reflect on the conference and share my experience.
Emily Drabinski’s Main Stage talk was incredibly thought-provoking. Emily highlighted how exclusionary the classification and organisation of library collections are. There were many fantastic ideas about how to make classification systems more inclusive, but they were not without their problems. Indeed, it is hard to agree on a shared language. Moreover, Emily discussed how we should maintain a balance of teaching students to be mindful that they are navigating collections with exclusionary systems, but still help them to achieve their academic goals.
I decided to attend the Masterclass: “Making online Information Literacy teaching engaging, interactive and accessible” which was presented by Hossam Kasseem, Benjamin Williamson and Greg Leurs. I wanted to learn from information professionals the best ways to teach sessions online. For me, the biggest takeaway from the event is that ensuring students understand why they are doing a session. This is particularly important for engagement levels. Sessions should be linked to a learning objective from the students’ courses. A further important point was that accessibility should be considered from the start when designing a session. Students who have mobility issues cannot use drag and drop activities, so professionals should consider alternatives. Accessibility also extends to international audiences who may not understand western references and idioms and so one should be mindful of this.
My final session of the day was the brilliantly named IL Talk: “Killer cats and flying penguins: developing bespoke and engaging Fake News workshops and webinars that remain relevant”. My interest was instantly piqued when I read about it in the conference programme! The issue of fake news has increased during the pandemic, which has highlighted the importance of workshops and webinars run by librarians. Louise Frith and Sarah Webb reiterated once again the important point that students have to understand why they have been asked to attend an Information Literacy session. Indeed, they adapt their workshops to complement different courses, by changing the fake news stories which they use as examples. Louise and Sarah said that they remind students to be respectful of other’s viewpoints, as the material covered in the workshop is often of a controversial nature.
Day Two
Alison Hicks and a group of UCL students who are studying their MA degrees, took to the Main Stage for their talk. In the pre-recorded video, each student presented a theme that they felt was overlooked or newly important within a post-2020 world. The discussion in the session, centred on the implications for Information Literacy research and practice. A common concern observed by information professionals throughout the conference was that students in Higher Education are feeling isolated. This issue was discussed during the sessions, since some students feel that they cannot reach out to their lecturers for support. Online teaching has resulted in students feeling as if they have not made a connection with their lecturers. Students have missed out on vital practical sessions; one anecdote was that of nursing students learning how to draw blood over a Zoom call. These students do not feel confident in their ability to perform this procedure, believing they will have to learn many practices again when they can be on campus. It was brilliant to see library students take the reins of a Main Stage talk. At this stage in my career, I often feel that I do not know enough to voice my opinions at library events. Watching students present ideas which experienced professionals fully engaged with made me realised that my own knowledge can be valuable.
I used to dismiss Wikipedia as a resource which was inaccurate and biased. When I worked as a school librarian, I used to advise students to avoid using Wikipedia for their homework. I decided to attend the masterclass: “Learning to become an online editor: Wikipedia as a teaching and learning environment”, to see whether I should change my opinion. The session was led by Ewan McAndrew who is Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. During the session, I set up my Wikipedia account and explored the ways in which Wikipedia can be used to generate fun activities for students. Such activities included editathons and citation hunts, which proved to be very addictive for librarians! Whilst I still would not advise students to use Wikipedia for their academic work, I can now appreciate its ability to help students improve their referencing and fact-checking skills.
I was looking forward to attending Frankie Marsh’s IL talk: “Unsettling information literacy: an investigation of academic researchers’ responses to critical information literacy in the context of decolonising the curriculum”. In the session, Frankie discussed the results of a survey she completed as part of her MA dissertation. Using academics’ responses to the survey, Frankie came up with six provocations of how we can unsettle Information Literacy. Discussion points in the session appeared to further explore the ideas expressed in Emily Drabinski’s Main Stage talk. For example, it was highlighted that it was important to show students how the coloniality of libraries have affected the curation of knowledge. Frankie reiterated that we cannot just offer solutions to students, but also encourage information professionals to evaluate how libraries are part of the problem.
Day Three
One theme discussed in the UCL students’ talk was that of dealing with information chaos during the pandemic, including the rise of fake news. Barbara Fister’s Main Stage talk explored this by considering the impact QAnon have had on teaching Information Literacy. Similar to Louise Frith and Sarah Webb, Barbara developed a course on fake news after being prompted to by a history professor. Barbara took Emily’s talk one step further, by highlighting how it is not just library systems which are exclusionary but also Internet algorithms. Barbara discussed how the ways in which Internet search results are presented reveal outdated power structures. It is important that students can learn lifelong Information Literacy skills such as being able to judge whether information is trustworthy.
I attended the IL talk: “Information Literacy and Gen Z” which was presented by Heather Dalal, Art Taylor and Sharon Whitfield. I am just on the cusp of being classed as a millennial, so I was really interested in the study they presented in a pre-recorded video. The study included a survey where students reported their own information-searching behaviours. The results of the study found that Gen Z were more apprehensive about the quality of information sources than millennials. Gender was examined as a variable and it was discovered that women appeared to be more cautious about their information-searching abilities, but were more confident using library resources. Higher GPAs were also more likely to find quality sources. The discussion during the session touched on Barbara’s argument from her Main Stage talk that research skills are still applicable when students graduate.
I am currently a Senior Library Assistant working in Research Engagement at a HE institution. Thus, I assumed that the event would not cover aspects of scholarly communication. That is, until I attended the panel discussion “Copyright, information literacy and criticality”. It was brilliant to see how Information Literacy activities and scholarly communication could intersect. Open Access and Information Literacy are two different movements with similar goals, with the main difference being that OA librarians are advocates and IL librarians are instructors. The ways in which these two movements could intersect were explored by the panel. Ideas included instructing academics regarding the Plan S Rights Retention strategy and developing effective Copyright Literacy sessions. This session showed me how Information Literacy is applicable to all areas of librarianship.
Takeaways
FestivIL was very packed for three half days and I am very sure that my blog post hasn’t covered everything discussed during it! I wish I could have gone to more sessions as most ran at the same time. I think it was a shame that the sessions were not recorded, as I would have loved to have caught up with the ones I had missed. However, I do understand that it enabled delegates to speak more candidly about their experiences.
Whilst I would have loved to have attended in-person, I do think that library events and conferences should consider a blended approach to hosting post-Covid. I have appreciated with virtual library events that I did not have to take copious amounts of time off from my full time job to attend. I also did not have to spend money on transport or accommodation. Being able to attend events from home has increased my CPD opportunities. Internet connectivity can be an issue with this approach, but it will enable more information professionals to attend events.
Chloe Bolsover
MA Library & Information Services Management student
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