Tag Archives: school librarians

Don’t close the book on Fife’s school librarians

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During my recent research into how school librarians can help students with mis- and disinformation issues, I learnt that four local authorities (Argyll & Bute, Glasgow, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire) either had, or soon would have, no secondary school librarians. Also, Fife is continuing to cut its school library services. In this case, I’m pleased to learn that the UNISON Union and CILIPS are campaigning against these cuts, and for improvements to school library services.

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‘Tackling misinformation and disinformation for Scottish school librarians’ project report published

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I’m very happy that the project report on ‘Tackling misinformation and disinformation for Scottish school librarians’ is now published on the CILIPS website. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but very worthwhile. In this work, I researched the ‘how, why and what could/should be’ of Scottish school librarians’ work to help pupils become better able to handle mis- and disinformation.

The report now has a digital object identifier, 10.17869/enu.2025.4736738. Hence it is now also available via the Napier repository at https://napier-repository.worktribe.com/output/4736738, and on my official list of publications.

The headline findings and recommendations from this work are below. While the findings may be somewhat depressing, I think this research can be the basis of making things better, and that’s what I’m all about, in both my academic and non-academic lives. Meanwhile I am very grateful to CILIPS for funding this work, and to the school librarians who took part. Many thanks also to my Napier colleagues who commented on drafts of the report.

Readers might also be interested in my presentation to the CILIPS conference in June this year. Video of this presentation, along with my slides and script, along with the conference programme, videos of other presentations and my live reportage on the conference are available in this post.

I will also make a brief presentation on the work at the next Scottish Media and Information Literacy Community of Practice (MILCoP) meeting (online, 2pm to 4pm on Thursday 23 October). You can register for that meeting on Eventbrite. (Attendance, and membership of MILCoP are entirely free.)

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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.