Update from the Second TeachMeet

The second TeachMeet met at the Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD) on Tuesday, 6th September.
Anne Culhane very kindly organised and hosted the event which focused on 'Mobile Technologies'. Librarians from LSAD, UL, LIT and St. Patrick's College, Thurles were present.

After refreshments, Anne started off the meeting with an interesting presentation on the library's very successful use of Facebook at LSAD. This led on to a most constructive discussion about the pros and cons of Facebook and other social media for libraries; the responsibilities that social media bring for librarians; changes in how students communicate; marketing the library and library blogs.

It was decided that we will have another Teachmeet before Christmas and Pádraig Kirby (LIT) kindly offered to host it. Topics that will be discussed include copyright, plagiarism and referencing.

Sincere thanks to Anne for such an interesting meeting.

Second Teachmeet meeting

The second get-together of Teachmeet will take place in the Limerick School of Art & Design, Clare St., Limerick.  This group looks at the difficulties Library Staff face when delivering Information literacy programmes to students and staff as technologies and  expectations  are changing and  developing rapidly.

The main focus of the meeting will revolve around 'Mobile Technologies'.

If anyone would like to give a talk/demonstration on any aspect of this - can you let Ann Culhane know in advance so that she can organise a schedule and if necessary, have the appropriate technology in place! [Email ann.culhane(at)lit.ie]

The meeting will take place on Tuesday, 6th September. Coffees and teas will be available between 9.30am - 10.00am. It should finish up around 12.30pm.

Becoming Confident Teachers: A Guide for Academic Librarians

Hi All,

Claire McGuinness from UCD has written a book entitled Becoming Confident Teachers: A Guide for Academic Librarians.

I just found out about the book and thought it might be of interest to some of you.

http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=2267&ChandosTitle=1

Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes

The article below presents an interesting discussion of the potential value of using the social web for IL instruction within the context of constructive alignment. Bobish suggests a variety of learning activities using blogs, flickr, wikis and social bookmarking sites which are direcly aligned with the learning outcomes derived from the ACRL IL standards. Some interesting ideas!

Bobish, G. (2011). Participation and Pedagogy: Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37(1), 54-63.

For example, for one of the performance indicators for standard two ("Identifies keywords, synonyms and related terms for the information needed") the following is one of the TLAs suggested:

"Social bookmarking: After students have located a variety of
online resources on their topic, have them organize them in
Delicious by creating their own tags relevant to the project they
are working on. Discuss why they chose these tags rather than
pre-existing ones, or if they prefer the pre-existing ones, why
they prefer them."

I think the way this activity could encourage the individual to reflect on the 'aboutness' of the resource and what it directly means to them (in formulating their own individual tags) as well as where it fits within the broader/external context (pre-existing tags) is interesting, and could link more explicitly into a discussion on the concept of subject headings as well if desired.

The Shallows

Thanks for that, Peter, it's very interesting.
I was reading a book over the weekend that I thought might interest some of you as it's relevant to information literacy and students nowadays. The book is:

Carr, Nicholas (2010) The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. London: Atlantic Books.

Value of becoming a committed sardine

I just wanted to bring to your attention a blog from Canada called committed sardine which is about the 21st Century Fluency Project, focusing on the use and integration of technology in High School education. It has some useful tips which can be applied to our own context.

Information Literacy-related resources

Enclosed are links to a couple of interesting articles related to Information Literacy. They explore the latest Information Literacy developments in US libraries with particular reference to the questions of integrating Library-led IL sessions within the broader University curriculum and the use of modern-day media and visual culture-related resources to better “market” Information Literacy concepts.

Micheal.

UL Library

http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/10/534.full.pdf+html

http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/9/468.full.pdf+html

http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/2/66.full.pdf+html?sid=0a5862c2-3bf4-4e6a-988b-e88f7385a9bd

http://crln.acrl.org/content/65/5/254.full.pdf+html?sid=84710b8b-6847-449b-bb87-92ca06a8a160

Full Bibliographic details for Peacock's paper

Just in case anyone was trying to source the Peacock paper mentioned by Padraig Kirby in his presentation at the inaugural Teach Meet, here are the full bibliographic details.

"Teaching skills for teaching librarians: postcards from the edge of the educational paradigm" contained in the book " Proven Strategies for Building an Information Literacy Program."
Ed. by Susan Carol Curzon and Lynn D.Lampert.
2007. 335p. illus. Neal-Schuman,
( ISBN:9781555706081)

Interesting Article

Here's an interesting article highlighting the need for information literacy education:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/college-students-fail-to-_n_847640.html

May 31st TeachMeet a great success - looking forward to the next one in September

The TeachMeet held at the University of Limerick on May 31st was a great success.

Librarians from the Shannon Consortium member libraries (UL, LIT, ITTralee and Mary I College) were well represented, and the librarian from St Patrick's College Thurles was a welcome addition to a group used to meeting under the Library Network Support Services banner (2008-2010).

Two of the librarians attending gave brief formal presentations - Donna O'Doibhlin (UL) presented on Peer Observation, and Pádraig Kirby (LIT) presented on Judith Peacock's strategies for building an IL programme.

Discussion was lively, and covered:

• Blended Learning
• Teaching methodologies
• Pedagogical skills
• Teaching qualifications
• Embedded IL
• One-person libraries
• Teaching students of varying technical and IL levels
• The new CONUL Information Literacy guide (to be posted here soon ...)

Agreement that the TeachMeet had been beneficial was unanimous, and the librarian from the Limerick College of Art & Design kindly agreed to host the next TeachMeet towards the end of September.

It was also agreed that each future meeting would focus on a particular theme. The theme for September will be Mobile Technologies.