What is your role on the committee?
I am one of two school representatives – the other being Rebecca Jones
When did you join and why?
I have attended most of the LILAC conferences over the years and have always enjoyed promoting the need for information literacy in schools through presentations there and networking. I wanted to do something more positive and try to make a real difference and
understand the wider issues of disseminating the principles and importance of information literacy to the general public. I am also on the TeenTech Committee and am involved in marking the Award for Information Literacy. I feel passionately about the need to show people
the need to create their own information ethically and to understand the long term implications of misinformation.
What do you do in your committee role?
I promote the need for keeping information literacy alive in our schools. Sadly this is in decline and in danger of being hijacked by others such as those teaching computing who approach information literacy from a very different viewpoint. Through the ILG committee we can approach stakeholders responsible for education planning to try and restore the cross curricular nature of this life skill. It is also useful to report back to the School Library Group (of which I am also a committee member) how other sectors deal with dilemmas we face and what initiatives can be taken.
What is your day job?
I work for myself as an independent consultant and trainer mostly in education (but anything else people are willing to pay me for too!). This means I have a varied programme of working with school’s senior management on a new library project, delivering training on a variety of topics to librarians and teachers home and abroad, face to face and online, desk research at Kew Archives and the British Library, writing books and articles, writing online courses, inventing educational games and more. Full details are on my website. I use information literacy in my work all the time as I focus on critical thinking and problem solving and teaching others how to develop these vital skills. You can find me on Twitter @Sarahinthelib
What are your interests outside of work?
Not so much outside work as it is really another job but not in the world of libraries. I am also a professional folk musician and play whistles, flute, Scottish smallpipes and other obscure blowy things. I also call for barn dances, ceilidhs etc playing anywhere from the Albert Hall to the village hall, home and abroad. My main bands are The Aqueduct Ceilidh Band and my 4 part acapella singing band Morrigan. I also try to illustrate my presentations with my own drawings where possible to avoid copyright issues and have had some of these published in the past.