Thursday, July 06, 2006

Elit 2006 - light bulb

I thought I'd highlight a few of the 'light bulb moments' from Elit 2006 but then I realised that there was really only one key theme that cropped up in several different sessions.

eliteracy is obviously a key concern of librarians but it is not something that librarians alone can address. It does not fall neatly into any one group's remit. It crosses the boundaries of library, IT, learning technologists, study skills tutors, and lecturers. We all have a tendency to concentrate on and so sometimes to over-estimate the importance of the bit of the process that we know best. We need to get over this and learn to work together in a much more joined up fashion, keeping an appropriate balance between IT skills, information retrieval skills, research skills, thinking skills, skills in analysis, argument and presentation. Someone needs to take a strategic overview and connect up the pieces. This really has to be led by academic staff. When I can do a library training session that fits into a structured course that is looking at all aspects of eliteracy, I find it works much better than if I do a session that is just library training in isolation from the rest of the learning process.

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