FestivIL Award
The Leading Light FestivIL 2021 Award
This award, sponsored by the University of Sheffield Information School, is for a member of the IL community who has been a local hero supporting, leading or inspiring colleagues or library users in information literacy during the last 12 months.
The Leading Light Award — Winner announced!
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Leading Light Award is…
Hazel Roome (University of Derby).
Here are a few words from our winner;
“Thank you so much for this award and to those who voted for me — it was very unexpected! The Night of the Hungry Hungry Robot was a collaborative effort between the library and our University of Derby Online (UDOL) department and the result is a great resource which impacts the student experience at the University of Derby. More importantly, it helps facilitate information literacy development and usage of our online resources. I am very proud to receive this award and be part of such an amazing project.”
Hazel donated her prize to Cancer Research UK.
Congratulations Hazel!
The nominees are:
- Hazel Glasse
- Anthony Groves and Bethany Logan
- Dawn Grundy
- Paul Kelly
- Robert Laws
- Nick Murgatroyd
- Paul Newnham
- The Open University Library’s Learning and Teaching Team
- Hannah Rothmann
To find out more, read the full nominations below.
Hazel Glasse
Category: Creating innovative information literacy teaching or services
Hazel Glasse has been the driving force behind one of the most impactful IL projects Derby has undertaken in recent years — the ‘hungry robot’ virtual induction activity.
It started life as a physical zombie-themed escape-room, introducing students to the library and using/finding online resources. Just in time for the pandemic, Hazel began working to convert the escape room into a virtual tool. This involved a huge amount of design and script work, liaison, testing and planning on Hazel’s part. This virtual induction has been accessed thousands of times, and is now one of the primary induction tools, proving a fantastic way to introduce students to both the resources and library, at a time when they could not be onsite themselves.
Hazel frequently diminishes her own achievements but this is definitely something that should be celebrated, as it was all entirely her creation, and the finished product is incredible.
Anthony Groves and Bethany Logan
Category: Creating innovative information literacy teaching or services
Dawn Grundy
Category: Leading or inspiring colleagues or library users or having gone ‘above and beyond’ with information literary initiatives
LEAP Online is the award-winning academic and personal development platform developed by the University of Bolton library. In 2020 a section was developed by Dawn to support raising awareness of Health Literacy. Dawn used her awareness of the work developed by the Health Librarians community and (with permission) adapted it for a University context. The section was launched as part of Health Information Week 2020. It has proved so successful that it will be embedded into the curriculum of Health and Social Care programmes from 2021–22. The section was also central to a Libguide, curated by Dawn, which included other content provided by University academics and Mental Health Advisors, mapping information across to HIW themes. This guide was shared via social media and locally through the BHIP partnership with the vision of driving awareness of Health Literacy and promoting the importance of good quality health resources to local stakeholders.
Paul Kelly
Category: Leading or inspiring colleagues or library users or having gone ‘above and beyond’ with information literary initiatives
Paul supported colleagues when the pandemic struck to look at innovative ways to address information literacy including:
- Setting up peer support groups within Libraries NI to help library colleagues understand issues such as scams, privacy online and to encourage them to actively promote support offered by his team
- established a customer help line to support people who just needed to get a step up onto the ladder of digital literacy with over 1600 requests for support through phone calls and emails
Paul worked with organisations such as Scamwise NI (partnership to address scams and educate those most at risk) and FactCheck NI to promote a wider understanding of the need for information literacy. He established and maintained partnerships in the NI Civil Service (e.g. Digital Transformation Team in Department of Finance) to promote the need for information literacy specifically in an online context and advocated for the role of libraries.
Robert Laws
Category: Creating innovative information literacy teaching or services
In January 2021, Robert Laws taught a new 1-credit course called Introduction to Data Visualization using Tableau. Students learned key data literacy skills on how to find, analyze, and visualize data effectively. Due to COVID-19 the course was taught remotely. In order to help students, Robert developed content tailored for remote learning including a website for the course (https://data-viz-cafe.libtech.georgetown.domains), 24 instructional videos for off-line viewing (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLStP0K9NnC6Ms6chFHu_gjJ7O7buBEPzq), and personalized videos, created to help students with specific problems. What made the information literacy teaching innovative was the use of a variety of technologies to help students in a remote-learning setting. Additionally, the website was designed to teach students about data visualization and provide a real-world example of how data is created and consumed. The website did this through a mock online store for purchasing coffee. Students placed orders and then viewed their transactions become data in real time.
Nick Murgatroyd
Category: Creating innovative information literacy teaching or services
Nick Murgatroyd from the ELTC, The University of Sheffield, has created exciting, interactive information literacy resources, which are designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to information literacy: https://rise.articulate.com/share/qi0h86gUAK-ZMowjngujSwKXnHXh9c8y. The resources are aimed specifically at international students in order to provide inclusive scaffolded workshops that support students to access university resources and develop their information literacy skills. The workshops are standalone and thus can be taken individually or as a programme of study. These workshops include learning about the importance of digital literacy, developing the digital literacy of understanding; and specific skills such as use of referencing tools and using formatting tools. These workshops use a mixture of videos, interactive activities, and examples in an engaging and accessible format. As a result of Nick’s work, students have the opportunity both develop their information literacy and use the workshops as a resource throughout their studies.
Paul Newnham
Category: Leading or inspiring colleagues or library users or having gone ‘above and beyond’ with information literary initiatives
Paul has absolutely shone in the information literacy projects he has led and developed over the past year, despite the challenges of working at home through a pandemic. From studying on the PgC in Academic Practice, he has taken the concept of a Lancaster University information literacy vision model and framework from conception to a worked example, collaborating with front-line library teams to develop IL competencies and working in partnership with academic staff and students across disciplines to embed the framework. Recently awarded an ICE Fellowship at Lancaster to pursue his interest in information literacy and transition to university, a prestigious and valuable role that the University holds in high regard, he is now collaborating on a research project with the library team at a nearby sixth form college in a low-participation area, focusing on information literacy and the transition to University. Paul inspires and enables colleagues across the Library.
The Open University Library’s Learning and Teaching Team
Category: Leading or inspiring colleagues or library users or having gone ‘above and beyond’ with information literary initiatives
When the pandemic hit, OU librarians realised that their expertise and experience of supporting students remotely could be of huge benefit to colleagues in the wider LIS community, who were unexpectedly battling new ways of working. The Learning and Teaching team came together to facilitate the workshop “Doing the Covid-19 Pivot” in June 2020. In an hour-long workshop, OU librarians shared their practical experiences and top tips for teaching library skills online. The event covered the technical, design and accessibility considerations in delivering online training with opportunities for the library community to ask questions and seek support in real-time. The workshop exceeded all expectations in its reach with 1,000 plus live attendees from across the globe, another 1,000 YouTube hits and the #librarypivot trending on Twitter. Feedback from participants about the value of the workshop was overwhelming with hundreds commenting how helpful, supportive, and reassuring they found the session.
Hannah Rothmann
Categories: Leading or inspiring colleagues or library users or having gone ‘above and beyond’ with information literary initiatives and Creating innovative information literacy teaching or services
In a time when many have felt disconnected and powerless, one student went to work and sought to empower staff, student and members of public that they had agency to improve the information freely available online. Hannah is currently finishing studying Classics at the University of Edinburgh. During Summer 2020, she was the Wikimedia Training Intern at the University. Over the course of the internship, she upskilled herself in new digital skills to help to create a host of new training materials for Wikipedia, the world’s go-to site for information and the largest open education resource in human history.. She wanted to make a platform which collated new and existing resources into one place . In the age of Covid-19, she sought to make it easy to understand how Wikipedia worked and how anyone could get started with the sharing of open knowledge for the benefit of all https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy/is-skills/wikimedia https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/wir/final-reflections-on-my-wikimedia-training-internship/
The information literacy community are invited to vote on the winner and this will not be restricted to people attending FestivIL.
The Prize for the Leading Light FestivIL award will be a certificate of achievement and £150 to go to a charity of the winners choosing.
