Chuukaku.com

I've just heard that I've received a sponsored student place at the LILAC Conference 2009. LILAC is the Librarian's Information Literacy Annual Conference, and this year it's looking at emerging technologies and supporting research, which is right up my street. I enjoyed the first semester module on information literacy but didn't feel the second semester one reflected my particular interests in the area, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to round out my understanding of the topic. Definitely looking forward to it.

On the course, I'm one week into the second semester and starting to find my bearings after a busy week working out my new schedule. This semester we get to pick and choose our own modules, and I'm taking Academic, Research and Special libraries (which pretty much fits perfectly the range of libraries I'm hoping to work in), Electronic Publishing and Educational Informatics.

Although some of the Electronic Publishing and Educational Informatics work overlaps with what I've studied in my PhD (or self-taught skills, such as the creation of xhtml / css websites) I think I can learn a lot from information scientists' perspectives on these areas. For example, Electronic Publishing concentrates on standards and legislation, and the Educational Informatics modules focuses on the use of established technologies for formal education, whereas my own research covered more informal uses of emerging technologies.

Finally, I'm currently discussing working with Sheffield's Information Commons for my dissertation, which promises to be an exciting exploration of evaluating new learning spaces. More on this soon as the details get worked out - I submit a proposal at the start of March.

Note: The picture accompanying this post was taken at the Apple Store in London. It's my website on the largest computer screen I think I've ever seen, which for some reason I found incredibly amusing.

Labels: conferences, information literacy, LILAC Conference, MA, professional development