Information Literacy: An International State of the Art

E. Training the trainers

1. 
   Courses to train librarians and information professionals
   

As things stand, only a small number of courses have been developed in Spain on the INFOLIT paradigm for information professionals or library staff. Fortunately, despite this initiatives have been implemented such as the following:

1. 
   «Formació d'usuaris en la recerca i ús de la informació» (Training Users in Research and Information Use). Barcelona: Biblioteques de Catalunya. URL: http://bibliotecnica.upc.es/sesfor_2004/
   

1. 
   «De la formación de usuarios a la alfabetización informacional en unidades de información: talleres prácticos» ('From User Training to Information Literacy in Information Units: Practical Workshops'). Course held in April 2006 in Gijón and organized by the Asociación Profesional de Especialistas en Información de Asturias (Professional Association of Information Specialists of Asturias - APEI)
   

2. 
   SEDIC (Sociedad Española de Documentación e Información Científica - the Spanish Society for Documentation and Scientific Information), one of the most important Spanish organizations in the information studies field, has, since its foundation, had as one of its key objectives the training of specialists in information management and documentation. It has thus organized more than twenty specialized courses, held during the academic year and aimed at those involved in the area of the conception, organization and administration of information services and resources: documentalists, librarians, archivists, content managers, and others.
   

3. 
   Aware of the learning potential offered by the new technologies, SEDIC also includes in its training catalog a distance learning program, employing the Internet and audiovisual media. It is, besides, precisely in this area of on-line education that a number of recent training programs in INFOLIT have been established. These include:
   

• 
  The course «Alfabetizar en información desde la biblioteca universitaria en la era del conocimiento y en el marco de la convergencia europea. Diseño de herramientas para el aprendizaje virtual» ('The information literacy process seen from the university library in the knowledge era and in the framework of European convergence: design of tools for virtual learning') - organizer: María Pinto. Tutors: Dora Sales and Pilar Martínez-Osorio. Held by SEDIC, 8-31 March 2006.
  

• 
  The first edition of this course was very warmly received, and as a result there will be five more editions, from September to December 2006. These have been requested by the Universidad del País Vasco, the Universidad de Cádiz, and REBIUN.
  

• 
  The course «Alfabetización múltiple desde la biblioteca pública» ('Multiliteracy seen from the public library') - organizer: María Pinto. Tutors: Dora Sales and Pilar Martínez-Osorio. Associated experts: Gloria Pérez-Salmerón and José Antonio Merlo. Held by SEDIC. 22 November - 22 December 2006.
  

2. 
   Workshops/hands-.on experience (for librarians, educators, library administrators and others)
   

We may note here the seminar held by REBIUN under the title «La biblioteca al servicio de la docencia y la investigación» ('The library in the service of documentation and research'), Barcelona, 28-29 March 2000. This seminar was attended by some 100 professionals in the field of Library Sciences and Documentation, mostly from Spanish university libraries. The papers given at this event of interest to INFOLIT include:

Núria Soler and David Maniega (Virtual Library of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya): «La integración de la Biblioteca en el aula: la Estantería Virtual en las asignaturas de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya». This concerns an interesting facility aimed at giving students access to all the materials need to successfully acquire a given course credit.
Roger Esparó (Librarian of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona): «Biblioteca e innovación docente: la participación de la biblioteca de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra en el proyecto Campus Global». This paper outlined his library's participation in the UPF's Campus Global project (previously mentioned).
Lluïsa Núñez (Library of the Universitat de Barcelona): «Dossieres electrónicos en la Biblioteca de la Universitat de Barcelona». This paper described the content of a web resource designed to facilitate student learning.
José Luis González, Gema Duarte and Mariantònia Aloguin (Library of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia): 'Docencia/investigación, tecnología y biblioteca: la convergencia en la gestión del conocimiento'. Thiis paper proposed a theoretical approach to the important issue of the relationship between libraries and knowledge management.