This presentation was given at a a round table at the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland http://www.iflasatellitelimerick.com/ on 15 August 2014. Entitled "The Active Citizen in a Changing Information Landscape" it was authored by Sheila Webber (University of Sheffield, UK), Shahd Salha, and Bill Johnston (University of Strathclyde, UK). A few slides have been removed, as noted on teh presentation.

1. The Active Citizen in a
Changing Information
Landscape
Bill Johnston, Sheila Webber, Shahd Salha
Limerick, August 2014

2. Bill Johnston
Active
citizenship
and
Information
Literacy:
setting the
scene
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

3. Session Topics
• What is a good citizen?
• Nature of status quo and change
• Information and power relations
• IL described widely and not restricted to text,
documents, digital communications etc.
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

4. Education for IL activists:
a framework
• Blend of formal, informal, adult and community lifelong
learning
• Experiential and personalized approaches to learning
• Draws on Friere‟s (1970) „pedagogy of the oppressed‟
• Calls for librarians to decide on their degree of
commitment to an „activist‟ approach to IL
• Suggests a community of practice amongst like-minded
librarians, educators and activists.
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

5. Sheila Webber
Active
citizenship in
health literacy
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

6. The good “active citizen” in health?
Will vary between countries; am taking a UK focus
• Government messages
– Use the web, rather than interact with expensive human
beings
– Take whatever medicines and follow whatever lifestyle
currently recommended e.g.
• Statins
• 5 a day (or is it 7)
– Listen to, or read, information and then make a “choice”
– Give up personal data whenever asked

7. So that you .....
• Save the country‟s money by not getting ill
• Boost the profits of the UK pharmaceutical industry, but
• Do not demand the expensive drugs (that might have
fewer side effects...)
• Help the system to work efficiently
• Do not waste healthcare workers time by arguing with
them
n.b. I must put in the caveat that although it has flaws I am still
a fan of a national health service!

8. care-data
(National Health Service patient records database)
“Better information
means better care”
Distributed leaflets
“presumed consent in a
decidedly offhand
fashion” Telegraph View
(2014)
“The approach in your publicity leaflet does not help your claim for trustworthiness. The
reader needs to take a `forensic` approach to read between the lines to try to
understand what it is saying about the release of confidential data.” Comment on the
NHS blog post in which “Dr Geraint Lewis, NHS England‟s Chief Data Officer, explains
why patients can be confident in agreeing to allow their health records to be shared”
http://www.england.nhs.uk/2014/01/15/geraint-lewis/
Issues about
anonymity,
sale to third
parties
Explained in some detail
on website, but leaflets
present simplified, positive
message
Roll out in autumn ....
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

9. Counter-movements
• “e-patients” (“empowered, engaged, equipped and
enabled”)
• Patient engagement and participatory medicine
• Relationship with information a key element
• Reframing roles of healthcare professional and
patient
• But different perspectives on patient engagement ...
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

10. Barello et al., 2014
• “Biomedical research: engagement conceptualized as
an effective tool for health self-management.
• “Nursing and caring research: engagement
conceptualized as patient‟s self-awareness.
• “Mental health research: engagement conceptualized
as clinical alliance
• “Public health and health service management
research: engagement conceptualized as citizens‟
empowerment.
• “Multidisciplinary health research: engagement as
effective disease self-management.”
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

11. Role of information acknowledged
“Consumer health information isn‟t just about leaflets
and printed information. It‟s much broader than that; it
can be hospital signage, appointment letters,
websites, informed consent, personal health records,
patient education programmes, the list goes on. Good
information engages people in their well-being,
improves their experience and enables them and their
families or carers to make choices about their lifestyle,
treatment and the services they use.” (Patient
Information Forum)
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

12. However!
• Thrusting well-designed information at people is not
a total solution!
• “Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their
reflective participation in the act of liberation is to
treat them as objects which must be saved from a
burning building” (Freire, 1970; 47)
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

13. Dr Shahd Salha
Active citizenship- Syria case
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

14. • My experience is linked to training course I ran as
part of my PhD research
• The inspiration started with an email I received from
one of the librarians who attended my programme .
She said …
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

15. Active citizenship- Syria case
“what you taught us was great, I was able to search for
the best way to escape after I checked with my
husband all the ways. She told me that she used the
internet on Google earth to find information about the
pathways and I did the same and I teach other people
to do so as well. I am sorry if I said too much but I
wanted to tell you that you are in our heart and what
you teach us is like a matter of live or death”
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

16. • Motivation: we lost activists, some of them close
friends, because they lacked required skills and
attitudes to deal effectively with information
• Group of three people (including myself ) made a
first stage plan
• Pilot with small group of five close friends who
are activist
• We had to listen to (interview ) their needs first,
and then set another second stage plan
Active citizenship- Syria case
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

17. • We used Facebook, chat, Skype and chat room to conduct
the meetings, instruct and share information
• We need to regularly update the materials to communicate
upcoming needs
• Training involves also psychological support
• Our trainees have different concerns and sometimes they
are very emotional
• We need to upgrade our skills and attitudes regularly
• Many concerns and risks are involved
• The activities experiences are varied
Active citizenship- Syria case

18. • Note that in the original presentation
examples of IL in action in the Syrian context
were given

19. How our current experience is linked to
my PhD research
Information literacy can not be a fixed educational approach
because:
1. People everyday have different information needs;
2. People have different conceptions;
3. People have different experiences;
4. The context where people belong influences their
interaction and understanding of information use and
information need. Hence
Active citizenship in the Syrian context involves acquiring the
skills, attitudes and social intelligence to be able to support
other Syrians with information, information sources,
information advice as needed.
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha,
August 2014

20. Information literacy in the Syrian
context
would mean giving
activists the candle
to give people the light
to survive in the
land of deathSheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

21. Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
Twitter & SL: Sheila Yoshikawa
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519
Bill Johnston
Honorary Research Fellow
University of Strathclyde
b.johnston@strath.ac.uk
Dr Shahd Salha
A researcher
Sheffield University
Information School
drshahdsalha@gmail.com
Photos: Sheila Webber
(including in Second Life,
trademark Linden Lab),
Shahd Salha, Bill Johnston;
Picture by Nagham
Alkhatib

22. References
• Barello, S. et al. (2014) The Challenges of Conceptualizing Patient
Engagement in Health Care: A Lexicographic Literature Review.
Journal of participatory medicine, 6.
http://www.jopm.org/evidence/reviews/2014/06/11/the-challenges-
of-conceptualizing-patient-engagement-in-health-care-a-
lexicographic-literature-review/
• Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin.
• Patient Information Forum: http://www.pifonline.org.uk/
• Salha, S. (2011) The variations and the changes in the school
librarians' perspectives of information literacy. PhD Thesis,
Information School, University of Sheffield.
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1538/2/Salha,_Shahd.pdf
• Telegraph View (2014, 19 February) Data difficulties in the NHS.
The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-
view/10649183/Data-difficulties-in-the-NHS.html
Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014