The Welsh Information Literacy Project comes to an end


I attended the last meeting of the Welsh Information Literacy Project in Wrexham last Thursday, 26th March. The Project is coming to an end after five years of productive work. During this time it has been funded by Cymal, the Welsh agency supporting libraries and museums. Thanks to Cymal funding, it has been one of most successful projects of its kind in the British Isles and was partly inspired by the Scottish Information Literacy Project. The project has undertaken some similar work to the Scottish Information Literacy Project such as its Framework but has also developed IL training units produced by Agored Cymry which have been widely used and perhaps we could use them in Scotland.

The keynote speaker was Nancy Graham, the outgoing chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group, who spoke about the work of the Group and mentioned among other things the research bursaries which ILG offers. Lauren Smith has recently obtained one of these to research the relationship between school libraries and citizenship issues among young people and they are a valuable source of funding to those who do not have access to academic funding.

Andrew Eynon reviewed the work of the project which included school transitions, IL skills development in the workplace including IL training for council staff, IL training for jobseekers, the Information Literacy Handbook and the placing of IL champions in all library sectors.

Anne Lewis from Agored Cymry spoke about the IL training units which cover Levels 1-3. 164 learners have achieved 4,900 hours of learning. Level 2 has been the preferred option. The units include learning outcomes and assessment criteria.

Most of the rest of the day was taken up with case studies and notable how widely the Agored Cymry units have been used. These included IL training for jobseekers in Monmouthshire who received 1-2 hours training a week and a community run library near Port Talbot where the volunteers receive IL training. Wendy Jefferson, a youth worker from Denbighshire explained how she had used the Agored Cymry units to make young learners better prepared for other forms of learning.

Other speakers spoke about essential skills training for learners with life issues, employability skills training for Council staff and working with groups such as Womens’ Aid refuges and youth services.

The day concluded with a discussion about carrying on the work after the conclusion of the Project which included issues of funding and meeting organisation which are familiar in Scotland. As with Scotland the solution seems to be communities of practice but it is likely that there will be several for different library sectors. The Agored Cymry Units will continue to be supported.

John Crawford


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