Author Archives: Bruce Ryan

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About Bruce Ryan

https://about.me/bruce.ryan

Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ published

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With thanks as ever to Hazel for the words and so much else…

Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series is now available in issue 2 of volume 28 of Archives, published last month. I am a co-author of the article alongside Professor Hazel Hall, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor.

In this work we compare audience engagement with a Second World War archive presented digitally in two formats as: (1) images and text in a Blipfoto journal, and (2) sound in an eight-episode podcast series (which starts with episode 1 here). The main findings reveal differences in levels of engagement for each presentation in respect of entertainment value, learning opportunities, and emotional response. Flexibility of access and authenticity of the archived material were also found to be important to audience engagement, with the nature of contextual information provided alongside the core archive key to the latter. Here we further understanding of facets of audience engagement with digitised archives while opening up new thinking on means of encouraging the general public to interact in more meaningful ways with historical records.

This article is the main output of the Platform to platform (P2P) and Heritage organisations and podcasts: scoping study (HOPSS) projects I led in 2022. The archive in question centres on the outputs of Lorna Beatrice Lloyd (1914-1942), principally her Diary of the war.

For those who do not have subscription access to Archives, the accepted version of the manuscript can be freely downloaded from the article’s record in the Edinburgh Napier University repository.

New project for 2025: ‘Tackling misinformation and disinformation for Scottish school librarians’

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I am delighted that CILIPS has awarded me funding to undertake this new project in the first half of 2025. Matching my growing interest in librarianship[1], and growing from my interests in information, digital and media literacy[2], the project will tackle the following research questions:

  • How involved are school librarians in enabling pupils’ handling of mis/disinformation?
  • What would they like to do to help pupils better prepare to handle mis/disinformation?
  • What training/support do they have and wish for?
  • How can they collaborate with teachers?
  • How can this be used to advocate for school librarians/libraries?

I look forward to presenting the findings at CILIPS annual conference in summer 2025, and then contributing to advocacy for school libraries. Later, I will write an academic article, but the practitioner-facing activities are first and foremost.

[1] I am second supervisor of a PhD by published works looking into the impacts of the post-2012 changes to English school curricular. The thesis will centre on the apparent decline of teaching information and and digital literacy skills, and the concomitant sidelining of school libraries.

[2] Latest IL publications: Information Literacy and Society, Information Literacy Impact Framework. See my publications for more. I am also secretary of the Scottish Media and Information Literacy Community of Practice.

Published: ‘Information avoidance by younger adults with Type 1 diabetes: a preliminary empirical study’

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I am really pleased that Information avoidance by younger adults with Type 1 diabetes: a preliminary empirical study has now been published. Here is the full reference:

Ryan, B., & Webster, G. (2024). Information avoidance by younger adults with Type 1 diabetes: a preliminary empirical study. Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 29(3), 56–73. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir293701

The original inspiration for the research in this paper was my attendance of a presentation by Professor Gunilla Widén where she mentioned information avoidance. This struck a couple of chords with me: firstly, as a fledgling information scientist, the idea of avoiding information seemed puzzling. However, the second chord was my realisation that, for my own type 1 diabetes, information avoidance is exactly what I do!

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Everything’s coming up LILACs 

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This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek report on the LILAC 2024 conference, held in Leeds Becket University from Monday 25th to Wednesday 27th March 2024.

The seven rules of LILAC

With apologies to Chuck Palahniuk, and thanks to two anonymous posters

  1. You do talk about LILAC.
  2. You do talk about LILAC!
  3. But when the session-chair says stop, you stop.
  4. As many presenters as you want. And any colour you like, so long as it’s LILAC.
  5. At least two parallel sessions at a time – and you’ll want to go to all of them. Put thyself through a 3-D photocopier.
  6. Present with activities (Padlets, Menti, Slido, post-its, sharpies: all that good stuff)
  7. Revere Queen Jane and her court.
  8. If this is your first time at LILAC (even if it’s not), party until it’s pumpkin-time. LILACers don’t get hangovers.

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LILAC materials

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I presented about the Information Literacy and Society report at LILAC 2024. (The acronym stands for Librarian’s Information Literacy Annual Conference.)

Here are my speaking notes, slides and the padlets with audience responses to discussion questions, as images and PDFs.

How do you define ‘impact’ in your work or practice?
PDF		How do you define ‘impact’ in your work or practice?
PDF		How can we increase the impact of IL?

PDF

I clearly have a lot of thinking to do. Watch this space!

A happy ending!

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Peter Cruickshank (very much lead author) and I are delighted that our paper An information literacy lens on community representation for participatory budgeting in Brazil is now published. Check it out on the Journal of Information Literacy’s website or Edinburgh Napier University’s repository[1]. Also check out Peter’s post on the Social Informatics research group blog.

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Additional role

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My reader will know that I spend half of my working time as a Senior Research Fellow at the Social Informatics Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University. (The other half is spent being minutes secretary and web-weaver for three Edinburgh Community Councils, and being a quite active member of the LeithChooses steering group.)

One of my research interests is information literacy (IL): the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society (CILIP, 2018). My particular foci include IL in hyperlocal democracy, and practical impacts of IL projects.

So I am delighted to have become the new secretary of the Scottish Information Literacy Community of Practice. This is a group of Scottish academics and professionals who have interests in IL from a variety of standpoints. I’m obviously at the very start of this role, trying to find my feet without treading on toes. However, I hope I can help making connections between this Scottish group and other IL-facing bodies. Watch this space!

‘Information Literacy and Society’ final project report published

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Peter Cruickshank, Marina Milosheva and I have just delivered the final report on the impacts of information literacy (IL) research on society. It’s available on the Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA) website. That post contains the executive summary, and a link to the full report. The report will also soon be available on my Napier web-page, and is already available in my publication list on this blog.

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