On Tuesday I visited Wolsingham School in Weardale to run my survey with some of the staff. Again, it was a very positive experience, with a lot of interest in and understanding of information literacy issues. There seem to be a lot of opportunities to build stronger links between schools and university libraries and I hope I’ll be working with staff at Wolsingham on this over the next year as they develop their new 6th form library.

Wolsingham School Library

http://www.wolsinghamcollege.durham.sch.uk/

I know some of the schools I’ve been in touch with look at the blog occasionally so hopefully some people will pick up on this. A lot of work on IL and the link between schools and universities is going on in Scotland and there is a very useful website called Learning and Teaching Scotland which has launched a new resource for pupils aged 9-18. The Information Literacy website (see link above) provides a range of interactive materials designed to help pupils improve the ways in which they identify, gather, organise and use information. The website also includes notes for teachers and some files on the pedagogical rationale underlying the materials.

This is my sister’s dog, Toby, who lives in Port Kennedy, W. Australia

http://www.ltscotland.org…eracy/index.asp

As a relatively new blogger, I hadn’t come across blog tagging until Sheila Webber tagged me yesterday. The idea is like a chain letter really, you have to post on your blog 5 things people might not know about you and then ask 5 other bloggers to do the same.
So here goes:
1. I’ve just started to learn to play the electric guitar – my mid life crisis I guess. Maybe I’ll add a picture to the blog later of me “jamming” in my cardigan.
2. Leading on from no 1, I’m a big Mark Knopfler fan (though have realised that my version of Jingle Bells isn’t quite up to Local Hero), but my kids are also keeping me a little more up to date, so after seeing Cold Play last year, I’m off to see Joanna Newsom (tomorrow), Keane and Damien Rice in the next few months.
3. I name my cats after apples – though if you’ve been reading the blog you’ll already have met Bramley and Pippin.
4. My Dad was Bobby Robson’s football teacher, so we’ve watched a few matches at Newcastle from Bobby’s personal box and I think I’ve almost figured out the rules now.
5. I used to live in America and am hoping to go back there this year for the first time in 25 years.

Now I have to choose more bloggers and the lucky winners are :
Angela Newton – another info lit person
Gareth Johnson serves you right for telling me about the goose thing Gareth!
Some friends from Newcastle:
John Williams
Catherine MacDonald – catherine helped me to get started with blogging and designed the sunflower “skin” which I’m using.

When I visited the University of Canterbury at Christchurch, NZ in October last year, Meg Upjohn, the chemistry librarian and I talked about how we might collaborate on my project. Meg plans to use my survey with academic staff and 3rd year chemistry students at UC in the next few months and I shall run a duplicate survey with similar groups here at Newcastle. It will be interesting to see how the results compare.

Rainbow lorikeet, Queensland

This report from Lucy McKeever at Netskills describes the recent workshops on plagiarism which they have been running as a pilot with staff in schools. There has been a lot of interest in the programme, which concludes that we need to be building closer links between schools and universities in order to share ideas and best practice.

Hanging valley, Milford Sound, NZ

http://www.netskills.ac.u…hplagreport.pdf