LILAC 2023 conference report

I recently attended the LILAC 2023 conference and wanted to share my experiences of co-delivering a workshop (on using applied comics in information literacy) and as a delegate.

Text and photos/images by Clair Castle, Librarian, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry Library

What is LILAC?

LILAC is an annual conference covering all aspects of information literacy and according to the conference website is “aimed at all professions who are involved with, research or teach literacy skills, or are interested in digital literacies and related educational technologies”. LILAC 2023 was hosted by the University of Cambridge, and took place on 19th-21st April 2023.

What is Information Literacy?

According to CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) Information Literacy is “the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to develop informed views and to engage fully with society.”

Workshop

I co-delivered a workshop with my colleague Clare Trowell, Marshall Librarian at the Marshall Library of Economics, University of Cambridge: Cartooning the Library: Why and How to Use Applied Comics for Information Literacy! Clare has also written her own LILAC 2023 conference report. This was the first time I had attended LILAC but several of my colleagues and many of the delegates I met were regular attendees.

Clare and I have worked together on cartooning projects since 2018, as you can see from the publications listed on my ORCID profile. It all started with a project during my secondment to the Office of Scholarly Communication at the University as Research Data Coordinator: we collaborated on the design of cartoons to use to advocate for the Data Champions Programme that I was managing, see our related blog post to find out much more. We are both Data Champions and Clare is also an artist in her own right.

Our workshop was based on the Data Champions cartoon project and Clare’s paper Cartooning the Cambridge University Libraries which was published in the Journal of Information Literacy in 2021. Applied Comics has emerged as a growing research area investigating the use of comics to impart abstract concepts and serious information; it is often used in STEMM disciplines but there has been less application in Library and Information Science. LILAC seemed a really good opportunity for us to raise the profile of applied comics as a tool for information literacy.

The workshop lasted only one hour and there were 50 participants, with people having to be turned away on the day because they hadn’t booked a place in advance! No prior drawing experience or skills on the part of attendees was expected or necessary.

We divided the participants into groups of 6-7 people. In our initial, 10-minute presentation (our slides are available from the conference archive) we very briefly covered the theory of applied comics, and the stakeholder analysis approach we used in our previous Data Champions project. We then gave participants 10 minutes to choose, as a group, an information literacy subject to cartoon about (we gave them a handout suggesting topics in case they didn’t already have one in mind). Participants then had 30 minutes to draw a comic that could be applied to their chosen information literacy subject. Clare had created a brilliant handout for them including illustrations with helpful tips on storytelling and drawing, and how to use facial expressions.

The comics were drawn onto flipchart sheets and displayed when completed. Here is an example (I tweeted them all on the day):

Finally, participants were asked to completed a feedback card on how effective they thought comics are as a way of communicating information literacy topics, and to let us know if and how they intend to use them in their own work.

Everything felt a bit rushed due to a short amount of time available for set-up during lunch, then clearing up in time for the next workshop presenters, but the attendance and the enthusiasm the participants brought had made it all worthwhile. We also received some good feedback for the workshop delivery and on the use of applied comics, here is a selection:

• They got ideas for applying comics back at work;
• Using cartoons makes you think about how to explain things and communications;
• They liked the stakeholder analysis approach;
• Cartoons use non-verbal communication which is understandable for people around the world;
• Cartoons are a good way of introducing IL concepts in an approachable way.

Next steps for our applied comic and cartoon research

We hope to deliver a similar (but slightly longer) workshop to Cambridge library staff through the Cambridge Librarians In Training programme. We want to establish whether applied comics in information literacy is a good thing, and why. We will collate and analyse the feedback cards we received and we may do some focus groups with students in future too. We have identified a gap in the literature regarding the use of applied comics in information literacy by libraries and we would like to try to fill this!

Conference highlights and takeaways

I will only discuss a few personal highlights here, as you can visit the LILAC Archive for keynote speakers, conference reports, presentations, and to download a copy of the full programme complete with abstracts. You can also have a look at tweets from @LILAC_Conf and mentioning #lilac23, to get a flavour of the topics covered and the general conference atmosphere and delegates’ enthusiasm for information literacy.

Keynotes

Keynote 2: Maria King (Subject Librarian for the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University) Accessibility – what does it mean for libraries and education?

Maria advised being aware of “whataboutery”: it is ok to say that something will be put in place to support a specific group, but not also for X, Y, and Z group as well. I think people in general tend to do this because they feel it gives extra justification for doing something or they want to feel they are being more inclusive, but in fact it is acceptable to provide something for one particular group. Maria also made the valuable point that we also need to be aware that accessibility needs to be made easier for library staff, not just students.

Keynote 3: Regina Everitt (Assistant Chief Operating Officer (ACOO) & Director of Library, Archives and Learning Services at the University of East London). Pivot ponderings: Musings about one library’s role in supporting tech-enhanced learning.

Regina talked about the Office for Students blended learning review report which was published in October 2022. Among its recommendations were equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and digital learning support for students. Regina’s library recruits students via the university temp agency as paid digital assistants which support all students’ use of IT for learning. Regina also mentioned the new JISC report ‘International students’ digital experience phase one: a review of policy, academic literature and views from UK higher education’ and she agrees with its finding that digital systems and tools can be overwhelming for them due to a variety of cultural and educational issues. I think that the undergraduate international student digital experience is important in the EDI context and I agree that their needs are not always considered on their own merit.

Parallel sessions

Think Before You Link, a Fake News Redux: Identifying bias and misinformation within online source evaluation. Workshop by Jessie Long and Jennifer Hicks.

Jessie and Jennifer pointed out that fake news = more clicks = more attention = more money. It is therefore in the financial interest of anyone spreading fake news. This is really important to remember when identifying bias and misinformation online.

We learnt about the ABC factors of fake news (in any order):

Algorithms. We’ve all experienced the “if you like this, you might like this” functionality on the internet. It goes on forever until you think it’s true. It leads you from one topic to another (rabbit holes), seemingly at random but it really isn’t (it works by tagging content).

Bias. This includes confirmation bias (of prejudices or beliefs). We learnt about resources for detecting media bias that are useful tools for teaching media literacy:

• The Ad Fontes Media (interactive or static) media bias chart allows you to enter a source and will tell or show you on a scale how reliable or how politically biased it is from the left to the right. The AllSides Media Bias Chart does something similar.
• YouGov did a survey How left or right-wing are the UK’s newspapers? It asked people for their views on where mainstream national newspapers sit on the left-right political spectrum.

Credibility. It is important to evaluate news sources. You can use the CRAAP test for example (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose) and several other fact checking sites (see the presentation slides on the LILAC Archive).  

As part of the workshop, we were asked to work in groups on ideas for how to counteract fake news. Our group (and others) came up with education at schools; children get mobile phones when they are quite young so it is important to arm them with tools that will help them counteract the ABC factors described above. Overall, the workshop was really great for suggesting ways you can teach students to think before they link.

The Lego® Serious Play® Journal Club: Exploring the future of academic librarianship. Workshop by Coco Nijhoff, Alan Wheeler.

This workshop was based on this article: Leo Appleton (2022) Trendspotting – Looking to the Future in a Post-Pandemic Academic Library Environment, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 28:1, 1-6, DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2022.2058174. Based on the themes in the article we were asked to do some hands-on Lego builds as individuals and present them within small groups, and then as a large group at the end, reflecting on our learning from the article throughout.

One of my builds dealt with the theme of the future of library spaces:

The meaning of a build wasn’t always obvious so it was useful for us to describe them very briefly to others, and it was interesting to see how some people handled the same topic in a very different way. We realised that we had created a kind of ‘corner of doom’ as part of the large group display at the end – hopefully we are actually very hopeful about the future of academic libraries post-pandemic!

Mis-Information and Dis-Information on Social Media: What are we to do? Workshop by Michael Flierl.

Michael reminded us that people died due to misinformation about Covid treatments during the pandemic and also that it takes longer to verify or correct information than it does for it to spread.

ChatGPT can be used to generate disinformation and make up citations which look genuine. You can ask it to write something in the style of a particular newspaper or geographical area; this makes it even more believable. Michael experimented with this in the workshop by demonstrating a search suggested by a delegate for “LILAC conference” and to present the results in the style of a UK tabloid newspaper. The results were initially very amusing but we soon realised how biased the generated results were while seeming so credible.

AI is already present on social media and it is hard to see what is true or not. Michael emphasised that “You are their product, not the consumer”. (This is something I wish my young relatives would appreciate!).

The (even more) fun side

The conference drinks and networking event on the first evening was held at the Museum of Zoology, a place very familiar to me from my time managing the Zoology Library. It was nice to ‘meet’ some of the exhibits again (including my favourite Okapi) and it was great that museum volunteers were on hand to talk about the collections.

It was also great to be able to escape to the nearby Selwyn College gardens for a bit of a break between sessions, especially since the weather was so good.

The conference dinner (and dancing!) at the Graduate hotel was great fun; it is situated by the River Cam and even has a book-lined lobby!

Reflection

I found the keynotes and parallel sessions enlightening and really helpful to get a broader impression of the information literacy developments currently affecting the library profession and our library users across all sectors; in this case AI, EDI, fake news and mis/disinformation (and if you think about it, all of those are actually inter-related).

The conference represented a great opportunity to meet other people who share the same passion for information literacy in general but also for drawing/cartooning as an element of that. I now understand why LILAC is so popular! Thank you so much to the organisers and to my employer for sponsoring my attendance!