Progression in information literacy education for music students

Dear colleagues,

I now post question number 5 from the conference in Reykjavik about Bologna related topics.


Group no. 5

The Bologna agreement talks about progression. How do we apply a progressive approach
to information literacy education for our music students?

Our group started the discussion by defining the term “progression” as “kunskapsutveckling”
(development of knowledge). We had an idea that it might be easier to measure progression
in other subject fields than music.

According to the Bologna agreement progression should take place between the three levels
Bachelor, Master and Doctorate as well as within each level. Johan Söderberg,
Musikhögskolan Piteå, the only person in our group, who had experience of “formalized”
teaching meant that the needs of the students at bachelor and master level do not differ.
Therefore his library offers information literacy education only to the bachelor students. The
education includes an introduction to the library catalogue, the library homepage, evaluation
of sources etc. The teaching has the individual degree projects as the reference point. The
library staff meets the students again at the doctoral level. The teaching now focuses on
specific databases, handling reference tools (for example Endnote), the publication process
etc.

Another approach to information literacy education is a more personal contact, based on the
students individual needs and interests during different stages in their education. Inger-Mari
Malm from Tromsö shared her positive experiences of inspiring the students to use the
library for finding information. She mentioned a few examples:

• Collecting groups of instrumentalists with their teachers and showing them relevant
resources, sometimes with themes such as early music, folk music and old
recordings.

• Collecting students from the rock/pop/jazz department (“rytmisk linje”) with the
resource “American Memory”, available at the web site of Library of Congress, as the
theme.

• Exhibitions, with bibliographies and listed subject terms, on themes like jazz, female
vocalists, bluegrass etc.

Finally we all agreed that the conditions for information literacy education for our music
students vary a lot. One important factor is of course the size of the school. An institution like
the Sibelius Academy with 1.700 students probably needs to work in a more formal manner
than many other smaller schools. We also agreed that different programmes need different
approaches. Our experience tells us that the needs, interests and attitudes of the persons
studying classical music versus rock/jazz are quite different. We have to take this into
consideration.

Pia Shekhter