Information Literacy Education (ILE) & the Culture : a research article

I found this very useful article written by Dorner & Gorman (2011) which appeared in "Information Research", where the researchers focus on how culture must be considered in planning ILE programs in a developing country. Understanding of local cultural norms in the context of the Lao education system is based on Hofstede's five dimensions of culture.

- Power Distance Index (PDI)
- Individualism (IDV)
- Masculinity (MAS)
- Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)
- Long-Term Orientation (LTO)

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

Also the indigenous knowledge and local conditions are studied to demonstrate how these factors affect ILE.

I invite you to go through this case study in Laos and think how it can be relevant to Sri Lankan context!

Title: Contextual factors affecting learning in Laos and the implications for information literacy education

Authors: Dorner, D. & Gorman, G.

Journal: Information Research, 16(2), 1-23

URL: http://informationr.net/ir/16-2/paper479.html

Information Literacy (IL) Workshop held in Colombo

With the aim of training university library professionals in "Information Literacy Education (ILE)", a workshop was organized by the PERii Project of the University of Colombo Library with the financial support of INASP from 18th - 20th October in Colombo. Dr. Dan Dorner from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zeland was the Facilitator of the workshop which was co-facilitated by Dr. (Mrs.) Pradeepa Wijetunga, Librarian of University of Peradeniya.

The objectives of the workshop were to

- Consider different Information Literacy models
- Review existing local content
- Agree a common curriculum
- Include assessment methods

Around 35 library professionals representing almost all the national universities actively participated this workshop with the aim of gaining an insight into ILE and with a keen interest to implement and/or upgrade ILE programs in their respective universities.

Photograph 01: The participants listening to Dr. Dan Dorner;
Photograph 02: Dr. Dan Dorner, the Workshop Facilitator;
Photograph 03: Dr. (Mrs.) Pradeepa Wijetunga (Librarian, University of Peradeniya), the Workshop Co-facilitator, interacts with participants;
Photograph 04: Mrs. M.M. Mashroofa (SAL/SEUSL) is awarded the Ceritificate from Dr. Dan while the Workshop Organizer Dr. Chaminda Jayasundara (SAL/UoC, Country Coordinator for INASP/PERii) is at the Podium

(Photographer: Tharanga Ranasinghe on 20th Oct. 2011)

(Image: IL Logo from http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/information-literacy/Pages/default.aspx)

October 2011 Web Server Survey

Dear All,

October 2011 survey of Netcraft has received responses from 504,082,040 (504 million) websites.

This is an increase of 18 million sites, compared with the last month (485 million websites).

For more information, visit: http://news.netcraft.com/

Regards,

Tharanga Ranasinghe.