Dr Jane Secker, Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group and Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, for her exceptional contribution to advancing the field of information literacy over the past ten years.
Jane is one of the UK’s leading professionals involved in developing and implementing Information and digital literacy strategies for the 21st century at national and international level.
Her approach has emphasised the importance of making links and disseminating beyond the library profession. In 2010-11, Jane led a funded project at LSE, in partnership with the University of Birmingham, which developed a range of open educational resources for teacher training courses. This work led to a further project in 2012 working with the Information Literacy Section of UNESCO.
In 2011, she co-produced ANCIL: A New Curriculum for Information Literacy, a highly regarded approach to developing information literacy in higher education.
Jane was Editor-in-chief of the open access biannual Journal of Information Literacy (JIL) from 2012-15, overseeing the publication of five issues. She has published extensively, is an active blogger and regularly disseminates her work through presentations at conferences within and outside the sector, including education conferences such as the Association of Learning Developers in Higher Education.
Jane was responsible for co-organising the inaugural Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) in 2005, a now established and key event in the calendar for information professionals. She is currently Chair of the Information Literacy Group of CILIP.
Honorary Fellowship of the professional body has been awarded by CILIP and its predecessor the Library Association since 1896. It is the highest recognition given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the library and information world. Recipients of the title join a roll call of important figures, including three-time former Prime Minster Rt. Hon Stanley Baldwin; Scottish philanthropist and library founder Andrew Carnegie; the inventor of the Dewey Decimal system used in library classification, Melvil Dewey; the poet, novelist and librarian Philip Larkin; novelist Dame Catherine Cookson; and children’s illustrator and author Shirley Hughes.