On April 29, the DePaul University Library and the College of Dupage Library co-hosted the 20th Annual Illinois Information Literacy Summit. This event would not have been possible without generous support from Moraine Valley Community College, the hosts of the Summit for the first 19 years.
The theme of this year’s Summit was “Expanding the Conversation: Digital, Media, and Civic Literacies In and Out of the Library,” reflecting the critical importance of these concepts in our contemporary understanding of information literacy. The keynote speaker was Dr. Miriam Sweeney, Associate Professor in the School of Library & Information Studies at the University of Alabama. Dr. Sweeney’s keynote, “Facing Our Computers: Algorithmic Literacies as Praxis,” set the tone for a day full of thought provoking presentations.
Presenters from across the country shared their perspectives on topics ranging from accounting for bias filters and the hostile media effect when evaluating information to understanding the relationship between propaganda and the attention economy and challenging disinformation about the Black Lives Matter movement. Attendees learned about the critical cataloging project underway in Chicago Public Schools, innovative approaches to voter engagement at Indiana University-Bloomington, a collaborative podcast as a digital media literacy teaching tool at Northeastern Illinois University, and much more.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out the 2022 Information Literacy Summit playlist on Youtube and explore our website for details about past conferences, including recordings of previous keynotes. Next year’s Summit is tentatively scheduled for Friday, April 28, 2023 and will be open to all library workers, students, and faculty members interested in incorporating new approaches to information literacy in their classrooms and beyond. Follow us on Twitter (@ILSummit) and Facebook (@infolitsummit) to get the latest updates about next year’s conference.