Blog for May 2024 Seminar – Promoting public literacy – in which digital literacy is a key facet – during economically challenging times
Key speakers – Edward Jewell, Leader of Jersey’s Library Service and President Elect of Libraries Connected and Sarah Mears, Programme Manager for Libraries Connected and Interim Chief Executive of ASCEL (Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians).
Edward works to ensure the delivery of a first class library service relevant to the island’s needs with a population increasingly expecting digital to be the default. A population which is under an ever growing pressure to learn new skills and a population that is changing in structure as communities grow more diverse and older. https://jerseylibrary.gov.je
Sarah works for an organisation that believes in the power of libraries to change people’s lives and seeks through the new Universal Library Offers to connect communities, improve health and wellbeing and promote equality through learning, literacy and cultural activity. Critically important in this is reading, information and digital opportunities. https://www.librariesconnected.org.uk/page/about-us
There were two other speakers, Emma Bahar from HMRC, who spoke on Digital Ambassadors and another from NetIKX, Rob Rosset, who spoke on the impact of the government’s ‘Levelling Up Agenda’ on promoting public literacy in which digital literacy is so significant. From a wider perspective digital literacy is vital right across government to ensure that members of the public can access government services, find gainful employment, exercise their democratic rights and engage with their civic duties.
This Wikipedia article states that there are 11 types of literacy. (Ability to read and write and digital literacy are but two). Key to all types of literacy is the ability to take information apart, engage with it and critically appraise it to make meaningful choices. Most interestingly, in the UK, approximately 16.4% of adults or 7.1 million people can be described as having ‘very poor literacy skills’.
This was a hybrid meeting at the British Dental Association and online via Microsoft Teams
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