Maria José Vitorino

Maria José Vitorino, Portuguese School Libraries Network adviser, activist in several associations and institutions, will be contributing to EMMILE programme on Feb. 28th morning with the speech:

” Information Literacy Education : School and Public Libraries Collaboration”

 Abstract:

This presentation aims at telling the real and simple stories of three recent examples of partnership between School and Public Libraries, in Portugal, detailing how Information Literacy Education concerns each one of them, and all, and could help to overpass some traditional gap between institutions and different background professionals. Portuguese School Libraries Network, RBE promotes school and public libraries collaboration since 1996, and publishes IL related contents since its website was created (2000). Many teachers and librarians involved themselves in Information Literacy Education projects, improving their own professional education with cooperation and teamwork , including increasing demand for advanced University courses on literacy, education, and also partnership/cooperation subject, as we can check on several researches, specially those published since 2006, many of them available through E-LIS and, or, OER Portuguese Universities Repository RCAAP. RBE’s coordination and local/regional advisers, school’s teacher librarians and principals, as well as many public libraries leaders, have been realizing information literacy education makes a difference by managing improvement through collaboration. Local networking solutions (redes concelhias), and a diversity of literacy-connected projects involving school and public libraries, are emerging all over the country. At the same time, several Universities are approaching these issues with great interest, both as research units andl as professional’s initial and further education centres.

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Maria José Vitorino is a teacher and also a librarian, and she works as Advisor (Coordenadora Intermunicipal) in Portuguese School Libraries Network, supporting all kind school libraries development, including partnerships between Public and School Libraries. Being one of ENSIL‘s founders, she is member of ENSIL Board. A past member of  the Board of BAD, Portuguese Librarians, Archivists and Documentalists Association (IFLA member), she keeps an active collaboration in BAD’s SL Section. She is involved in teaching literacy education subjects, in University and schools, and through professionals training. Between 2004 and 2008, she coordenated, with Amalia Barrios and Ana Melo, the THEKA Teacher’s Training and School Libraries Developement Gulbenkian Project. Maria José has written and translated numerous articles on libraries, literacy and education: her most recent publications are Portugal : school libraries 2011, in The world of teaching (Municipal Association of School Libraries in Denmark, 2012),  THEKA Formar professores desenvolver bibliotecas escolares, with A. Bárrios e A. Melo Santos (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2011) and A long walk to significant school libraries for all : Government Policies in Portugal, 1986-2010, in Global Perspectives on School Libraries : Projects and Practices  (De Gruyter Saur, IFLA, 2011). Since 2008, she runs a personal blog on literacy, ALFINete – ALFIN is a spanish term for Information Literacy (Alfabetización Informacional); alfinete, in portuguese, means… pin.