LOEX of the West would like to acknowlege and thank our sponsors:
SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium)
Need information faster than we can provide it here? Feel free to email Jenny Rosenfeld or Raida Gatten, conference co-chairs.
The LOEX of the West 2012 Conference will be held on the campus of Woodbury University in Burbank, CA from June 6-8, 2012.
Our theme is Creative Landscapes: Information Literacy for all Terrains.
We are looking forward to seeing all of you on campus for the conference!
The Final published version of the Conference Program is now available. You can view it on the Conference Program tab.
Our keynote speaker for the conference will be Esther Grassian. Her talk is entitled:
Occupy Their Minds! The Politics of Information Literacy
Occupy protesters: Loud, noisy, in your face, demanding, democratic, and just plain mad! That is advocacy on steroids!
Librarians have tried advocacy for information literacy instruction (ILI) for 35 long years. In 1977, it got us the ACRL Instruction Section, and the ALA Library Instruction Round Table. What has happened since then? Those two organizations and others, like AASL, have done outstanding work in ILI. We have several excellent sets of IL standards that continue to be developed, refined and translated into many languages. We have hundreds of IL journal articles, theoretical and research-based. Librarians worldwide offer conferences, programs and workshops and books, as well as credit courses, one-shot sessions galore, online tutorials, and many other forms of ILI for learners, not to mention an ACRL Information Literacy Immersion Program for librarians.
But, after 35 years of effort, how close are we to having an information literate populace? How many institutions require entry and exit testing for mastery of information literacy skills, including critical thinking? How many employers take steps to screen for employees who exhibit those skills? Where do our colleagues in public and special libraries stand on the topic of information literacy? And, how many library schools/iSchools require or even regularly offer an information literacy instruction course to prepare their MLS/MLIS students for teaching/learning and training?
The answers to these questions can help us determine whether or not it is time for gentle advocacy to be replaced by more proactive, data-driven measures. Let us build an action plan together to occupy many minds regarding the critical nature of information literacy and the librarian's role in promoting and developing it for a lifetime.
Registration is now open for our post-conference Saturday excursion.
We will be departing Woodbury at 10 AM on Saturday on a shuttle bus and going to Pershing Square in downtown LA. Docents from the LA Conservancy will lead us on a 1.5 mile, 2.5-hour walking tour.
Cost is $25 and includes transportation and walking tour.
We will return to Woodbury by 3 PM.
Registration is limited to 20 people. If we do not have at least 10 people sign up, the trip will have to be cancelled.