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Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines--research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings--museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.

Information Literacy is a transformational process in which the learner needs to find, understand, evaluate, and use information in various forms to create for personal, social or global purposes. Information Literacy shares a fundamental set of core thinking- and problem-solving meta-skills with other disciplines. Authentic cross-disciplinary problems which include observation and inference, analysis of symbols and models, comparison of perspectives, and assessment of the rhetorical context, engage students in developing mastery information literacy over time.

Published by the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), this resource book is a collection of case studies from Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. It documents the experiences of women's participation in these processes leading to laws or policies that enable citizen to enjoy freedom of information, particularly information in the custody of the government. It highlights best practices that have facilitated positive results and the challenges faced by champions of freedom of information campaigns in the five countries.

"As information professionals, we live in very interesting times. Effective search and discovery over open and hidden digital resources on the Internet remains a problematic and challenging task. The difficulties are exacerbated by today's greatly distributed scholarly information landscape. This distributed information environment is populated by silos of: full-text repositories maintained by commercial and professional society publishers; preprint servers and Open Archive Initiative (OAI) provider sites; specialized Abstracting and Indexing (A & I) services; publisher and vendor vertical portals; local, regional, and national online catalogs; Web search and metasearch engines; local e-resource registries and digital content databases; campus institutional repository systems; and learning management systems."

S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a dynamic web-based multimedia resource that includes lesson plans, handouts, presentations, videos and other resources to enhance the teaching of information literacy.

As the internet replaces library databases as students' primary research option, a new discussion is emerging in academic circles: Is the vast amount of information at students' fingertips changing the way they gather and process information for the better--or for worse?

(Thanx Mary for this link) Copyright for Librarians is a joint project with the goal to provide librarians in developing and transitional countries information concerning copyright law. More specifically, it aspires to inform librarians concerning: * copyright law in general * the aspects of copyright law that most affect libraries * how librarians in the future could most effectively participate in the processes by which copyright law is interpreted and shaped.

As the web becomes more and more inundated with blogs, videos, tweets, status updates, news, articles, and countless other forms of content, "information overload" is something we all seem to suffer. It is becoming more difficult to weed through all the "stuff" out there and pluck out the best, most share-worthy tidbits of information, especially if your topic is niche.  Let's face it, Google definitely has its shortcomings when it comes to content curation and the more it tries to cater to all audiences, the less useful it becomes.

As a modern day library student, you're probably excited about discovering and experimenting with the new tools and systems that have changed the way we find, receive and catalog information. But with all of the new technology out there, it can be hard to keep track of everything beyond your own niche field of study. This collection of library and information technology blogs have changed that, and now you'll be able to learn about all of the trends, developments, tools and resources available to librarians in every niche.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about legal rights and responsibilities in the digital era. This is especially disconcerting when it comes to information being shared with youth. Kids and teens are bombarded with messages from a myriad of sources that using new technology is high-risk behavior. Downloading music is compared to stealing a bicycle - even though many downloads are lawful. Making videos using short clips from other sources is treated as probably illegal - even though many such videos are also lawful. This misinformation is harmful, because it discourages kids and teens from following their natural inclination to be innovative and inquisitive. The innovators, artists and voters of tomorrow need to know that copyright law restricts many activities but also permits many others. And they need to know the positive steps they can take to protect themselves in the digital sphere. In short, youth don't need more intimidation - what they need is solid, accurate information. EFF's Teaching Copyright curriculum was created to help teachers present the laws surrounding digital rights in a balanced way.

Technology has dramatically changed the manner in which people share ideas and information. Students now have unprecedented access to information, in all its forms--text, images, sound, and video. This new access, combined with the new ease with which people can publish and broadcast, has added to the complexity of copyright issues. To avoid some of the issues relating to copyright and production,

The Open University library website is a gateway to a wide range of online information resources. It also provides information about the services and resources at the Open University Library building in Milton Keynes.

The use of Weblogs (blogs) by librarians and libraries to disseminate information

"Unlike a printed book, a single copy of an ebook could potentially be read by many users simultaneously, from any location. Thus, a major concern of publishers is that ebook borrowing from libraries will be so easy as to erode sales to readers. To counter this, many publishers insist on terms that replicate aspects of print book lending. Some of these terms may be necessary and tolerable, at least temporarily, to offset perceived risks in selling ebooks to libraries. Others, such as requiring patrons to come to the library to check out ebooks, will be onerous to patrons and damaging to perceptions of library service. With today's rapidly changing business environment for ebooks, the choices that libraries make today can have profound impact on the direction taken by the entire reading ecosystem. It is thus of utmost importance that these choices be made with careful consideration of the needs of both present and future users. Decisions are best made in the context of an informed community and never in isolation."

"This space is for teacher-librarians to share their lesson plans and otherwise collaborate with each other. This space has been set up to follow the chapter headings from "Information Literacy for Life-Long Learning," the K-12 Library Scope and Sequence developed by the teacher-librarians of the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PA). (Please note that we begin here with Chapter 3, as chapters 1 & 2 do not require lesson plans.)"

"This website provides useful reference information on a variety of social topics, including science, medicine, crime, and other social issues."