Professor from Swedish Library School Visits Faculty of IT

On March 4, academic staff from the Information Management area of the Faculty of IT welcomed a visit by Professor Louise Limberg from the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University College of Borås.  Louise specialises in research on information seeking and use. She is also Co-director of the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society, University of Göteberg. A faculty staff member, Dr Kirsty Williamson, has had a long association with Professor Limberg through the international biennial conference 'Information Seeking in Context'. Dr Williamson's continuing research relationship with Professor Limberg began when she invited Kirsty in late 2006 to be a visiting scholar at a doctoral seminar held by the Nordic Research School in Library and Information Science, of which the Swedish School is a member.

During her visit this year Professor Limberg presented a seminar titled ‘Critical Features of Information Practices for Learning Purposes’, following a lunch in her honour.  The talk drew on findings about the interaction between information seeking and learning in school settings, at all educational levels from elementary to upper secondary. She presented an argument for strengthening the relationship between information seeking and information literacy, given that she sees a “close interaction between the quality of information seeking and learning outcomes”.

The seminar was well attended by Faculty of Information Technology staff as well several interested LIS professionals, including the Manager, Knowledge Facilitation, University of Melbourne Library.