Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
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Sites of Conversation
Full text linkThrough our lives we sit at many tables, eating, preparing food, playing, making drawings, doing homework, working and more. In other words, the table is a focal point where words and materials meet, cross each-other, collide or come together. The table can take us to a space and time where forgotten memories emerge and embodied actions are found.
The Phenomenology and Imagination Research Group (PIRG) is an independent research group whose aim is to develop research through active fine art collective practice. PIRG’s Table Method (tm) is a process that has grown organically over a period of five years and has been cultivated through a desire to bring words, texts, actions and materials together as it invites participants to respond to a text through conversation, the handling of materials and tools. The work draws from the new materialist turn through the ideas of Gaston Bachelard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karen Barad and Jane Bennett. PIRG has extended its practice of conversation as a research methodology to include the phenomenological and material interaction that has become the tm.
The tm is an unfolding dialogue between materials and phenomenological thinking, which expands the possibilities of what conversation can be and become, it utilises material thinking as a way to open out discourse beyond the constraints of language and other representations
Practicing Presence
Full text linkThis paper takes the experience of drawing within two sites in states of transition, as a starting point to explore the changing nature of place as a catalyst for lived experience. Working from phenomenological perspective, I propose an alignment of manual drawing practice with meditation (mindful awareness), to ask how the act of drawing ‘… the state, or the being that is in question cannot be detached entirely from the sense of gesture, movement or becoming.’ (Nancy 2013). Through a discussion of a non-representational drawing practice and mindful awareness (counting the breath), I will argue that drawing as process enables an experiential and intimate engagement with the world as ‘grounded in availability and access’ enabling ‘presence’ (Noë 2012). One that allows us to experience the physicality of spaces and the living body not as separate realities, but as entities that are thoroughly and deeply entwined, in which there is no separation of self, other and the lived environment. Dwelling (being present) and touch (making present) are key factors in this, as a means of understanding experience of the embodied self in relation to artistic expression and resulting knowledge.  
The Sensing, Knowing Hand:
Full text linkEndorsing the proposition that drawing is phenomenological, this article presents an argument for hand drawing as a creative, communicative activity which contributes significantly to our awareness of being human. I argue that the specialised, trained human hand participates in an intense hand-eye-brain relationship. It intentionally draws signifying graphic marks to communicate information visually. When drawing for intaglio printing artists learn to handle new tools to draw and craft lines and tonal shapes on a rigid plate matrix. They engage in labour intensive technical processes and conscious reflection of the emergent image in order to create meaningful, aesthetic content. The printing processes deliver a limited edition of printed drawings. In modern and contemporary print practice the drawing is the artist’s original work. Specifically drawn to print original multiples rather than to exist as a single, autonomous statement, the drawing is not a printed reproduction of an existing drawing or painting. My examples are drawn from work that is little known in the West, namely intaglio printed drawings made at and published by The Caversham Press in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I analyse the drawing processes of two etchings and a drypoint to explain drawing and printing processes and I discuss the conceptual mind’s eye imaging that intersects with information from the physical eye, both of which contribute to decisions made by the brain informing the hand of required motor actions to create printed drawings
Social living labs for informed learning
Full text linkThis paper proposes social living labs for informed learning as an innovative approach to interprofessional and community education. It presents a new conceptual model and practice framework suited to rapidly changing, information-intensive work and social environments. The proposed approach is theoretically informed and evidence based. It integrates concepts from three complementary fields: Informed learning as information literacy pedagogy that enables using information critically and creatively to learn (information science); interprofessional education as a professional learning model with a cross-disciplinary and community reach (health sciences/medicine); and social living labs as informal learning context and problem-solving process (community development).
After reviewing relevant literature, the paper introduces the concepts and research that underpin social living labs for informed learning. Then it presents a new conceptual model and a practice framework to guide their design and implementation. To illustrate the practical application of this approach, a hypothetical scenario envisages health practitioners, librarians and community members collaborating in a social living lab to address health and social challenges related to child obesity. The paper concludes by discussing anticipated benefits and limitations of the approach and possible wider application.
As a contribution to theory, the paper uncovers a previously unrecognised synergy between the principles of informed learning, social living labs and interprofessional education. Supporting information literacy research and practice, the paper identifies a significant role for informed learning in community and professional education, and a novel strategy for health information literacy development. The paper is of interest to educators, researchers, and practitioners across information literacy, community development, healthcare, and other professional fields
Engaging academic staff with reading lists
Full text linkFollowing the implementation of online reading list software, Library Services at the University of Worcester (UW) encouraged academic staff to consider the reading list as a learning tool. Using an interactive teaching session timetabled as part of the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, lecturers are asked to consider how they can maximise the impact of their reading lists and increase library use. The pedagogy of reading lists and student engagement with reading are examined. Participants also discuss the type of content reading lists typically contain and question whether this accurately reflects what the students should be reading. It draws on best practice from academic colleagues at UW, examining (among other things) the effect of list length, structure and lecturer voice and presence
Mapping the Common Gesture
Full text linkThe Common Gesture collaborative drawings are created through a series of directives that cultivate drawn relationships between body, material, and surface, between visual layers of gestures, signs, and marks, and between individual drawing participants and their collective presence. As an experiment in guided marking, graphic gaming, and shared creative labour, the drawings investigate both the limits and the potential of orchestrated group drawing. In the context of phenomenological discourse, the Common Gesture is a site of intersubjective drawing experience, wherein the image is figured and refigured according to the spatial rhythms produced by the material gestures and design strategies of the makers as enacted within, and emerging from, the drawing itself. This essay charts the evolution of a Common Gesture drawing developed at the TRACEY Conference Drawing || Phenomenology: tracing lived experience through drawing held at Loughborough University in September 2017
First-generation students’ information literacy in everyday contexts
Full text linkHistorically, much of the Library and Information Science (LIS) literature on first-generation students (FGS) framed them using deficit thinking, emphasising what they lacked to be successful in higher education. In contrast, recent scholarship has turned to asset-based pedagogies, shifting the focus onto the strengths that FGS bring to college. Further, LIS research on FGS has examined how students engage with information solely in academic contexts, such as completing research papers or navigating higher education procedures. The current study contributes to the discussion of asset-based pedagogies by using a funds of knowledge approach to explore the ways in which FGS at a mid-sized university in the US engage with information, and it expands the scope of inquiry to several everyday contexts, including students’ households, workplaces, and communities. The findings reveal a variety of funds of knowledge concerning participants’ information literacy (IL) and lay the foundation for IL instruction that meets FGS where they are, thus serving them more equitably
Older Australians’ information literacy experiences using mobile devices
Full text linkThis article presents the findings of a constructivist grounded theory study that explored older Australians’ information literacy (IL) experience using mobile devices in their daily lives. Australians aged 65 years of age or older who use mobile devices took part in an in-depth semi-structured interview. Analysis of data from twelve interviews gave as result a substantive theory consisting of six interconnected categories: ageing; learning to use and manage mobile devices; being entertained; enacting everyday life; learning; and managing relationships. Examination of these categories revealed the different ways in which older adults experience IL using mobile devices through their engagement with information in their daily life. Furthermore, these categories supported that the degree of older adults’ IL exerts a significant impact on the level, and way of use and adoption of mobile devices.
This study provides new knowledge and understanding about how older adults experience IL and how their IL experiences are socially and culturally influenced by their interactions within that community
Re-visioning library support for undergraduate educational programmes in an academic health sciences library
Full text linkMcMaster University’s Health Sciences Library (HSL) began to transition to a new liaison service model in early 2018. One of its librarians sought to understand how an academic health sciences library can optimise its support for academic undergraduate programmes. This scoping review of the literature was pursued with the aim to submit an informed recommendation to HSL’s new Education and Lifelong Learning team, so the library could shift its approach to information literacy instruction in a manner that would optimise its outcomes for students and improve relationships with faculty staff.
The author searched seven databases: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), ProQuest ERIC, OVID Embase, EBSCO CINAHL, OVID Medline, Web of Science and PapersFirst. She developed a robust and comprehensive search strategy that used a combination of subject headings and keywords to describe information literacy, metaliteracy, libraries and health sciences education. The author also hand-searched bibliographies of seminal publications to broaden her search for relevant literature.
The findings in this review indicate that metaliteracy as a concept has not been intentionally implemented into information literacy training at academic health sciences libraries. The review finds that it is preferable to integrate information literacy skills directly into course or programme curricula and align those skills with the evidence-based practice skills undergraduates are already learning. Further, establishing a programme that builds on these skills gradually throughout the duration of the academic programme, rather than one-shot library instruction, is also preferred. To achieve success, libraries must build strong collaborative relationships with faculty staff.
The author provides recommendations for practice that reflect the findings of this review. Other academic health libraries may benefit from this review by taking into consideration its findings and subsequent recommendations
Be Media Smart
Full text link‘Be Media Smart’ is an Irish public awareness campaign calling on people of all ages to ‘Be Media Smart’ and ‘Stop, Think, and Check’ that information they see, read or hear across any media platform is accurate and reliable. This national media literacy campaign was aimed at enhancing people’s understanding of, and engagement with, media, while also empowering them with the skills to evaluate content across all platforms