Sara Bird is an education officer at Newcastle University Library who runs an outreach program to improve secondary school students' information literacy skills and prepare them for university. The program has worked with over 5,000 students over 3 years. Sessions cover topics like evaluating sources, avoiding plagiarism, and using library resources. Feedback shows the sessions raise awareness of reliable research techniques and help the transition to higher education. The goal is to develop information literacy early and foster collaboration between school and university librarians.

1. Sara Bird
Education Officer
Newcastle University Library

2. Bridging the Gap between
Secondary and Tertiary
Education: the role of
Information Literacy

3. Education Outreach at Newcastle University

4. Why bother?
If I hadn’t decided to come to Uni already this
library would have made the decision for me.
Year 12 student visiting the Robinson Library

5. Background
• http://archivesalive.ncl.ac.uk
– Cholera
– Authors alive
– Mining
– Sustainability
– Science
– ITT
– conferences

6. Background
• Request for research session from one teacher
– Trial of new EPQ
– Awareness of lack of Information Literacy in
Secondary Schools
– Growing problems with transition from Year 13 to
undergraduate
– Newcastle University mission statement

7. Background
• Over 5000 visits in just over 3 years
• Geographically from Berwick, Keswick and
local area
• Predominantly EPQ, History, English and
Geography
• Use traffic light system to ensure resources
not over‐stretched.

8. Advertising: Teachers Talk!
Repeat visit 48.6%
Word of mouth 16.2%
LEA 2.7%
Website 16.2%
(archivesalive.ncl.ac.uk)
Other 16.2%

9. Get them thinking!
• Politely suggest that Google is not the straight
forward answer to everything
– Student response system
• Safe
• Anonymous
• Easy
• Thought provoking…hopefully!

10. Where would you look to
find out about One Direction?
1. Journal
2. Facebook
3. Google
4. Websites
5. Reference book
6. You Tube

11. Where would you look to
find out about penguins?
1. Reference books
2. Journals
3. Wikipedia
4. Websites
5. Google
6. documentaries

12. Where would you look to
find images of Renaissance art?
1. Google
2. Wikipedia
3. Facebook
4. You Tube
5. Reference books
6. Journal

13. Research skills
• Can you trust everything you see
• Consider pro’s and con’s of what is available

14. Reflection through…..
• Thinking skills
– Forced to stop and think
– Have to come to a decision
• Collaborative
• Be able to justify decision
• No right or wrong answer
– Great for debrief

15. Thinking skills

16. Plagiarism
• Highlight what they don’t know as well as
what they do know
“…was surprised
• Keep it light‐hearted about some forms
of plagiarism”
• Emphasise the seriousness A level student
• Interactive

17. Plagiarism

18. Review
• What do they know?
• Re‐inforce learning in fun way “…the whole
session was
• Competition useful at every
point…”
• Pride in school teacher
• Confidence in their abilities
• Enjoyable!

19. Libguides
• Keep up to date
• Easily accessible
• For use in sessions
• Adaptable
• Be careful: youtube, facebook, etc.

21. Feedback
• Bristol Online Survey
– Ask all teachers to fill in online feedback (not all
do)
– Mix of quantitative and qualitative feedback
• Have started to try to capture feedback on the
day

22. Feedback (teachers)
•“An excellent way in which to bridge the
school/university gap.”
•“The chance to use the university library was
extremely useful not only from an EPQ point of
view but also from the experience itself for a group
who are applying to university this year.”

23. Feedback (students)
• “It’s so easy to find things now!”
• “I feel like I’m in heaven”
• “…I now like penguins!! Oh and can reference.”
• “Decent day, actually managed to get some work
done!”

24. Research ‐ EQUATE
“If children know there is someone standing
over them who knows all the answers, they
are less inclined to find the answers for
themselves.”
(Mitra, 2010)

25. Research ‐ EQUATE
• Stage 1 – Year 10 GCSE History (mixed ability)
– Mantle of the expert
– Research Renaissance medicine
– Write and present presentation
– We would research their research techniques
– pre‐questionnaire, snowboard, drawing of a
library, turning point, observation

26. Research – What does a
University Library Offer?
Pre‐visit Post‐visit
Speaks for itself

27. Research: preferred resources to use
for research
• Have to accept that students will always use google….but
• raised awareness of reliability
• raised awareness of other resources and their reliability, e.g.
encyclopaedias

28. Research ‐ EQUATE
• Stage two – Year 12 EPQ students
– Taught information literacy session as described
earlier
– less detailed study to see if their research habits
change through our intervention

29. Research – most used resources for research
Pre‐visit Post‐visit
• Pre‐visit: internet was the most popular, with google being the most favoured, followed
by reputable websites and wikipedia
• The most notable change was the increase in value of the library
• Surprisingly people dropped in popularity – this may be due to the students being more
information literate and not feeling they needed the support of people as much.
• Post‐visit: other than google there appeared to be a general raised awareness of the
usefulness of all the resources

30. Impact: general
• Harder to show
– “This visit is now incorporated into the International
Relations A2 course” (History A level teacher)
– “….Hearing Uni staff reinforcing what we’ve said is
invaluable and forces students to start taking their
research seriously.” (school librarian)
– “It’s always great and we will be back for next year.
It’s essential for our EPQ students.” (teacher)

31. Impact: research
• Treating them as university students introduced
them to a new learning environment, which for
some was aspirational.
• We can never stop them using Google and
Wikipedia, but we can raise awareness of the need
for reliability, cross‐referencing and
trustworthiness.
• It is never too early or too late to intervene in
developing students' research skills.

32. Impact: research
• The visit to our university library had a huge impact
on students' awareness of what resources a
university library can offer
• Students' raised awareness of the need to use
reliable and trustworthy resources when carrying
out research
• Being given the opportunity to do independent
research helped make them into independent
learners (we hope!)

33. INFORMATION THE FORGOTTEN
LITERACY LINK

34. Our Purpose
• Develop Information Literacy skills in school
from an early age.
• Encourage the sharing of good teaching
practice between library staff in the school
and Higher Education sectors.
• Produce an online
teaching toolkit.
Bridging the Divide

35. Shadowing
schemes in the
Online local area to
promote the
surveys differences across
the sector.
User perception of
Focus Information
Groups Literacy through
sessions taught
and observed

36. Contact Detail
• Newcastle University Education Outreach
– sara.bird@ncl.ac.uk
• Bridging the Divide project
– Jackie.dunn@ncl.ac.uk
– aml@pchs.northumberland.sch.uk