Information Literacy - presentation by Heidi Julien

Heidi Julien gave an excellent talk on Wednesday evening.
The essence (as Tom pointed out) was:
To be information literate, you should do A, B & C. This form of instruction is not good enough. It is better to start with defining “what information do you need?” OR is your only problem email overload.

I am interested in the conflict between the scholars and practitioners as I didn't realise this existed and would welcome your comments on how this could be overcome (if this is possible?)
These are my notes enhanced by Tom's tweets. If in doubt ask us.

Dr. Heidi Julien 4.8. Lianza talk on Information Literacy

These are my notes (with enhancements from Tom’s tweets) from her presentation:
Conceptual challenges:
Information literacy is not learned through experience alone, it needs a set of skills: knowledge and attitudes and it requires lessons.
The question is ‘How to find information effectively, efficiently and ethically?’

Information literacy is complex, it requires life-long learning and there is an information divide.
Government information is difficult to navigate in every country.
Health information is the most searched topic with women searching for themselves and on behalf of others.

Information literacy skills were included in job-applications as early as 1991 in US.
Inefficiency of web search engines is frustrating especially to practitioners.
Information literacy deficiencies exist in workplaces, lack of information literacy has huge costs for organizations, there are enormous inabilities.

There is a conflict between valuating information and its unethical use.
People are generally not information literate, and the context of information can be difficult to understand.
Surf savvy is not search savvy. Young generation are too confident about their web skills. If they find 1000s of results doing a Google search, they think this is marvellous. Overconfidence leads to thinking “everything is on the web”.
There is an ever-widening gap between the scholars and practitioners (librarians) about information literacy. Scholars and practitioners work at cross purposes. What are the implications if scholars and practitioners fail to agree on the conceptual basis for information literacy?
Literacy instruction outcomes are: better citizens, better learners, more informed workers and better information for personal decision making.
Can information literacy be called by another name?
Research skills – is this the same?
Information literacy resources should be based in practitioners’ tools to become implicit. They should not be identified to be in library context but totally in their context.
PKN= personal knowledge management

Can practitioners and scholars work together?
Good things are already happening in public and academic libraries when information literacy instruction is done well.

Best place to teach information literacy?
schools – teachers are not always information literate, information literacy cannot be tested
at home – parents are unlikely to be information literate
tertiary institutions, public libraries and in workplaces – will benefit workers and the organization (as time is no longer wasted in searching for information)