Information Literacy Award

Award nominations will open on 6 January 2025

The CILIP Information Literacy Group is proud to offer an award for achievement in the field of information literacy (IL). IL “is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully in society”.

 IL applies within a number of contexts, including:

• Everyday – when people find information online
• Citizenship – helping people to understand the world around us
• Education – developing critical thinking skills at all stages of education, from school to higher education
• The workplace - contributing to employability
• Health – finding reliable sources of health information.

(CILIP Definition of Information Literacy 2018).

The award is open to all practitioners, researchers and academics working in the IL field within the United Kingdom. Nominations may be from any sector. We welcome nominations for individuals as well as for groups/teams. The winning individual or team will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity.

The winner of the IL award will be announced at the networking evening of LILAC on Monday 14th April 2025. As we are a non-profit organisation, run entirely by volunteers, any profits that we make from the conference go back into running the conference and providing free training to librarians across the country. This means that unfortunately we don’t have funds to provide free places to the conference for those that have been nominated for the award.

Award categories

Nominations must demonstrate impact, innovation, initiative and originality in one or more of the following areas:

• Raising the profile of IL within an organisation / community or sector
• Initiating or contributing to national, regional or local projects / initiatives which enhance IL skills for an identified client group(s)
• Developing a digital resource (e.g. online course, service, product or app) which develops and enhances IL skills
• Undertaking original research in the field of IL and making a significant contribution to the literature.

There should be evidence that the nominated individual or team is committed to sharing knowledge and expertise and/or disseminating their learning and/or research within their organisation and beyond.

Nominations will be judged upon evidence of impact within the past 3 years only.

To help create your nomination we recommend you familiarise yourself with the award guidelines and marking criteria.

Nominations

Nominations will open on 6 January 2025.

Individuals and teams may self-nominate or be nominated by colleagues. Nominations should take the form of:

Either

A written statement of evidence of the nominee contribution(s) in one or more of the areas above. This should not exceed 1500 words and may include visual elements e.g. images, graphics etc. where appropriate - please provide URLs to these where necessary.

Or

A short video (10 minutes maximum) addressing the nominee contribution(s) in one or more of the areas above. If this option is selected, the video should be uploaded to YouTube as unlisted content and the URL provided on the application form. Unlisted videos won't appear in YouTube's search results nor on your channel homepage. When creating a video submission please avoid using nominee(s) and institution(s) names as these are difficult for us to anonymise. Please contact help@lilacconference.com if you need any clarification.

How to apply
To apply for the award you will need to register as a member, or if you have already registered, just login to your account using the link at the top of the page. Once logged in to your account, scroll down to the awards section and select 'apply now' to complete your application.