IWIL 2006: Day 2

Guests of honor during the opening ceremonies (from L-R):

Rashidah Begum Fazal Mohammad, Prof. Norma Abu Seman, Dato' Hj.

Zahani Tan Sri Ahmad, Dr. Laili Hj. Hashim, Dato' Hj. Yusoff Haron, and

Putri Saniah Megat Abdul Rahman

The second day of the International Workshop on Information Literacy 2006 saw the formal opening ceremonies which began with the praying of the Doa'. It was followed by welcoming speeches from Assoc. Prof. Norma Abu Seman, Chairman of IWIL 2006; Librarians Association of Malaysia president Putri Saniah Megat Abdul Rahman; Director of Educational Technology Division Dato' Hj. Yusoff Haron; IFLA/ALP representative Rashidah Begum Fazal Mohammad; and Dean of the Faculty of Information Management of UiTM Assoc. Prof. Dr. Laili Hj. Hashim. Dato' Hj. Zahani Tan Sri Ahmad, Board Member of the Board of Directors of UiTM formally opened the workshop during his opening speech.

The first of the day's input came from Prof. Russell Bowden. He presented a backgrounder on information literacy including a framework that resulted from two IFLA workshops in 2004 and 2005 held in Colombo and India respectively. Sadly, Filipino librarians were absent in these two workshops. I wondered why when I know a number of our librarians are active in IFLA-sponsored activities. Could it be that they are unaware of what information literacy is or they just refuse to acknowledge its importance or they're simply not interested to learn about information literacy? I bet it's the former.

As a result of these workshops, a South Asian model of an information literacy framework was developed and was labeled Empowering 8 - a problem-solving model for resource-based learning. I will be discussing more on Empowering 8 in another post.

Blanche Woolls presented the development of different concepts and models from various information literacy proponents and discussed the difference between policy, standarda, and guidelines in the promotion of information literacy.

Listening to the two speakers was more than enough for me to really understand what information literacy is all about rather than just reading about it.

We ended the day early and had plenty of time to prepare for dinner which was hosted by the organizers in a restaurant whose name escapes me now but I had a great time having shared the table with my fellow presentors from other countries, Russell, and two other local participants. Believe it or not our dinner conversation centered on the tablecloth that was made of good quality textile. We couldn't help admiring it that it came to a point we had to ask one of the waitresses where they got it.

Speaking of the waitresses and waiters, they were all wearing earphones with mouthpieces. We initially thought they were listening to music while attending to customers. Well, it turned out these were used to radio the orders to the kitchen. Cool, huh.

All in all, it was a day well spent.

IWIL 2006: International participants

Dr. Tahira Haji Muhammad Shariff, Head of Lending and Customer Services Dvision Library, University of Brunei Darussalam










Hanna Latuputty, Senior Librarian of the British International School in Indonesia











Dr. Jagtar Singh from the Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University in India











I certainly don't need any introduction















Rajendra Munoo from the National Library Board of Singapore












Wawta Techataweewan, Lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities, Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok, Thailand

IWIL 2006: Facilitators

Prof. Blanche Woolls, lead facilitator. Her last post was Dean of Information Studies at San Jose University in California. A staunch advocate of information literacy, she now trots the globe spreading the importance of information literacy skills and its integration into the curriculum.







Assoc. Prof. Norma Abu Seman, Organizing Committee Chairman and faculty member of the Universiti Teknologi MARA







Mohd Sharif Mohd Saad, Organizing Commitee Co-Chairman and Treasurer. He is the one responsible for bringing me to Malaysia. Thanks again Sharif.







Dr. Diljit Singh from the University of Malaya








Assoc. Prof. Nor Ezan Nasir and Assoc. Prof. Abrizah Abdullah who also presented their ongoing post-graduate researches on information literacy

Prof. Russell Bowden, IFLA Honorary Member. A former professor in library and information science in Britain, he is now based in Colombo, Sri Lanka trying to help rebuild school libraries devastated by last year's tsunami.

Rashidah Begum Fazal Mohamad, IFLA RASCO representative. Much of what I've learned about Malaysia I got from her during our bus trips where she was my constant seatmate.

IWIL 2006: Day 1

The International Workshop on Information Literacy 2006 was a week-long event organized by the Faculty of Information Management of the Universiti Teknologi Mara, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) / Action for Development Through Libraries Programme (ALP), the Librarians Association of Malaaysia, Malaysia's Ministry of Education's Educational Technology Division, and Selangor State Educational Resource Center.

The workshop held from 7-12 June 2006 aimed to enable professional input from participating South East Asian countries on how to develop and implement information literacy programs, to learn from the experiences of participating countries and develop strategies in designing information literacy modules for primary and secondary schools, and to develop and package information literacy modules as guides for teachers in Malaysian schools.

Malaysian participants were composed of librarians, teachers, and representatives from the different divisions of the Monistry of Education like Curriculum Development Centre, State Educational Resource Centers, and School Training Division. Foreign participants were librarians from Brunei, India, Indonesia, Philippines (that would be me), Singapore, and Thailand.

I missed the Day 1 activities because I arrived at the hotel at 9:30 pm just when the program wrapped up. Halida Yu, a lecturer at the Faculty of Information Management at UiTm who met me at the airport told me that I missed the icebreaker session but assured me that I won't be missing a lot.

The venue of the workshop was at the Shah Village Hotel in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. See shots of the hotel lobby courtesy of Abd. Wahi.

Salamat Malaysia

It has been some time since I last made a post because I was busy preparing for the International Workshop on Information Literacy 2006 where I was invited to present a country report on information literacy efforts and policy in the country and participate in the development of information literacy modules for the elementary and secondary schools in Malaysia.

I will be making several posts on different topics including highlights of the workshop and about Malaysian culture. But meantime I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to the organizers of the workshop - the Faculty of Information Management of the Universiti Teknologi MARA - especially Mohd Sharif for inviting me to participate. Thanks, too, to the facilitators Prof. Blanche Woolls, Prof. Norma Abu Seman, Prof. Zainab Awang Ngah, Prof. Diljit Singh who is no stranger to Filipino librarians, Prof. Nor Ezan Nasir, Prof. Russell Bowden, and Madam Rashida Begum Fazal Mohamad IFLA RASCO representative.

Participants, organizers, facilitators, and presentors of IWIL 2006