guest speakers

Keynote Address - Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin returned home to Canada, following ten years of university study in the United States, in October, 1970. He has been a writer ever since. His many plays include 1837, on the movement for independence from the British Empire; and Les Canadiens, about the famed hockey team and its relation to the spirit of Quebec nationalism, which received the Chalmers award for best Canadian play in 1977. His TV work includes Maria, about union organizing in the textile industry. He has written biography and history, as well as three novels, one of which, A Man of Little Faith, won the Books in Canada best first novel prize. He received the Toronto Arts Award in writing and publishing in 1991 and the National Newspaper Award for best columnist, for his Globe and Mail column on media, in 1993. He held the Maclean Hunter chair in ethics in communication at Ryerson University from 1993 to 1995 and has taught in the Canadian Studies program of University College, the University of Toronto, since 1978 . He has written columns for Canadian Business, Toronto Life, TV Times, the Globe and Mail Broadcast Week and This Magazine, of which he is a founding editor. He was Globe and Mail media columnist from 1991 to 1999 and is now an op-ed columnist. In spring of 2000, he received an honourary doctorate from the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, B.C. In spring of 2005 he received an honourary doctorate from Mt. Saint Vincent University in Halifax. His most recent book is The Womanizer, a novel.

Rick will be speaking on the topic: Thinking versus knowing: Where does information come in?

Opening Plenary - Patricia Iannuzzi

Patricia Iannuzzi is Dean of Libraries at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. An international leader in information literacy, Patricia chaired the multi-association task force sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) that wrote the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. She also co-chaired the inaugural ACRL/American Association of School Libraries (ACRL/AASL) Task Force on the Educational Role of Libraries, which developed a Blueprint for Collaboration between academic and school libraries. Patricia served on the American Library Association (ALA) President's Special Committee on Information Literacy Community Partnerships and on the ALA Task Force for 21st Century Literacies. She was a member of the Public Policy Roundtable of Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies and served as a consultant to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its information literacy projects. Patricia speaks and consults worldwide on the topics of information literacy and research-based learning, information literacy and faculty development, and information literacy and outcomes assessment. While at UC Berkeley, she led two Mellon funded grant projects on restructuring large enrollment courses to focus on research-based learning. She consults at universities that are implementing information literacy in their undergraduate curriculum. Patricia is the author of several books and articles, including Teaching Information Literacy Skills published by Allyn and Bacon. Her undergraduate degree is from Yale University and her MS in Information Science is from Simmons College. She has worked in libraries at the University of California, Berkeley, Florida International University, Tufts University, and Yale University.

Patricia will be speaking on the topic: Changing Learning, Changing Roles: Collaboration at Every Angle.

The articulation and development of information literacy learning outcomes across the curriculum necessitates major reinvention at the course and curriculum level. Research-based and inquiry learning are proving to hold some keys to helping students develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills required to function successfully in today's complex world of information. Who is responsible for ensuring that the learning outcomes that comprise information literacy are integrated into courses across the curriculum? How are campus experts in pedagogy, assessment, instructional technology, information literacy, and faculty development working together across their administrative silos and with faculty? And most important, how can librarians step into leadership roles for teaching and learning innovations at their colleges and universities? This session addresses strategies for librarians to initiate campus-wide innovation on course and curriculum redesign to improve student success and retention.

Closing Plenary - Fay Durrant

Fay Durrant chairs the Information For All Committee of the Jamaica National Commission for Unesco, and was recently elected as Vice President of the Unesco Intergovernmental Council for the Information For All Programme for the period 2006 - 2008. She assumed the positions of Professor and Head of the University of the West Indies' Department of Library and Information Studies in August 2000. In addition to teaching, she is presently undertaking research on factors influencing access to information in the Caribbean. Previously Prof. Durrant was an elected Director of the Association of Caribbean States for a three-year term from 1997 - 2000, and Senior Programme Specialist at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) 1989 - 1997, and held positions at the University of the West Indies, the CARICOM Secretariat and UNECLAC. She is the Immediate Past President of the Library and Information Association of Jamaica (LIAJA), and member of the boards of the Jamaica Sustainable Development Network (JSDN), the Jamaica Archives Advisory Committee, the National Library of Jamaica and the Board of Management of the Jamaica Library Service. She also served as a member of the Board of the National Library and Information System (NALIS) of Trinidad and Tobago from 1999 to 2000, and the Executive Council of the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) 2001-2004.

Professor Durrant will speaking on the topic: Culture, Context and Content: Vital Issues in Ensuring Information Literacy and Effective e-Citizenship.

The WISIS Declaration of 2003 supports "commitment to building a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life." The Alexandria Proclamation (November 2005) also recognizes that "information literacy empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals". Globally information literacy has been recognized on many levels as being an important vehicle for achieving these objectives. This is however, a tall order as there are several challenges which result from the efforts to implement these lofty objectives at international, national and organizational levels. This 2004 definition by CILIP: "Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner" implies but does not explicitly state that culture, context and content, play important roles in building a "people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society."

Globally the concept of information literacy is increasingly being implemented within the library and information community, although there is obviously overlap among library and bibliographic instruction, user education and information literacy as programmes developed by schools, colleges and universities. Information literacy for the workplace and for e-citizenship are still, however, far less developed. The Draft Information Literacy Life Cycle of the NCLIS (US National Commission on Library and Information Systems) which details eleven stages, resources, tools and methods, contexts and desired outcomes shows complex interactions which are expected to enhance productivity and to result in lifelong learning. Successful implementation of information literacy programmes therefore require policies, standards, strategies and plans of action at the international, national, and organizational levels. The library and information associations have been active in determining standards, but national policies, strategies and plans of action need to be developed to ensure that the professional objectives and standards of information literacy are recognized and integrated into the mainstream of policy making in all sectors. These policies, strategies, and action plans need to recognize the overall objectives of citizen empowerment and democracy, creating a more informed citizenry and generally opening up possibilities for social, cultural and economic participation in democratic societies.

The Information For All Programme (IFAP) of Unesco has recognized the importance of "raising awareness of the importance of information literacy for all people" and agreed at its meeting in March 2006 to support information mediators or infomediaries as these information professionals have a multiplier effect in achieving information literate societies. In this context, my presentation will focus on cultural variations in thinking and learning, the context in which information literacy programmes are needed, and the content which needs to be organized or created - three crucial areas which must influence and guide policies for achieving e-citizenship.