Regional News
UNCONFERENCE ON ‘CURRENT PRACTICES IN INFORMATION LITERACY AND SUBJECT LIBRARIANSHIP’ AT UNITEC INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, AUCKLAND
On July 3rd 2019, the Library Knowledge Specialist team at Unitec Institute of Technology hosted over 40 librarians from ITPS and universities nationwide to discuss ‘Current Practices in Information Literacy and Subject Librarianship.’
The day was run as an Unconference. The Unitec Library Resources team had successfully hosted Unconferences in 2017 and 2018, so there was experience to draw on. The nature of an Unconference is that apart from an overall theme, there is no pre-set agenda or speakers. At the start of the day, participants wrote topics they wanted to discuss on Post-it notes and added them to a big whiteboard. These topics were then grouped into themes and set the basic talking points for the day. Even with that framework, participants were able to raise other issues or alter discussion points throughout the day.
The Library Knowledge Specialist team also used the opportunity to introduce other librarians to our new Information Literacy Framework and Rubric. The framework and rubric function as working documents for development of Information Literacy sessions and embedding into courses. These documents are the result of more than two years’ work and provide a guide for Unitec’s academic staff to understand how Library Knowledge Specialists can work with them to embed the important lifelong learning skills of information literacy into their courses.
Feedback from participants at the event was mostly positive, with several saying that they appreciated the Unconference format. It meant that participants could talk about the actual issues and challenges facing them now and glean ideas and suggestions from other academic librarians. Some of the ‘hot topics’ were:
■ Embedding information literacy into programmes and showing academics how important it is that their students, at all levels and in all study areas, learn relevant information literacy skills – both for their current study needs and their future careers
■ New ideas in information literacy teaching
■ Challenges and opportunities in electronic resource provision and working with vendors
■ Challenges of working with less staff
■ The best options (physical and digital) to help students with their information needs
■ Proving our value to our institutions, using statistics, narrative and hard evidence
Other feedback on how another Unconference could be improved related to frustration with the format’s conversational aspect and potential difficulty being heard within a large gathering. When we run another that is something to be considered.
The day ended with a resounding commitment to keep the conversation going, and to try and gather annually for a discussion themed around issues related to tertiary librarianship.
Nora Md Amin, Susan Eady, Sana Saleem, Donna Salmon and Dipti Vora Unitec Library Knowledge Specialist team