Evolutionary history is embedded in the deep and imperceptible past with traces left in fossils and in the genetic makeup of living organisms. Deep Evolutionary Time (DET) – the time living organisms have existed – is a demanding topic for students and the general public. Visual communication through various static, dynamic, interactive, and immersive visualisation forms is pivotal for interpreting and learning about DET and its implications. Nevertheless, both challenges and opportunities are associated with the interpretation of visualised DET. This review paper illuminates how visualisation of DET has developed, its integration in biology education and outreach, and potential future research avenues concerning visualised DET. We first show that the communication of DET has developed from views of a very young Earth to scientifically grounded concepts, with visual representations like ladders, timelines, tree diagrams, and palaeoimagery significantly shaping perceptions of evolution. We then synthesise research on interpreting DET visual representations, addressing static, animated and interactive forms, palaeoimagery, currently available digital interfaces, and the benefits of combining multiple representations in biology education and outreach. We close by advocating for integrating a historical perspective, critical visual literacy, and emerging interactive visualisations in communicating DET in formal and informal biology education.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe and explore the current state of internet regulation through content filters in Swedish public libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected through an electronic survey directed to library managers of Sweden’s 290 main municipal libraries. 164 answers were returned, yielding a 57% response rate. The analysis comprises descriptive statistics for quantitative data and an activity theory approach with focus on contradictions for qualitative counterparts.

Findings

In total, 33% of the responding libraries report having content filters; 50% have not; and a surprising 18% do not know. There is a strong correlation between internet misuse and positive attitudes towards filters, and, reversely, between lack of misuse and lack of active stances concerning filters. Rather than seeing this as weakness, the authors suggest that there is strength in a context-bound flexibility open to practical experience and weighting of values, ethics, legislation and local circumstances. More troublesome indications concern the high deferral of decision-making to local authorities (municipalities) whereby libraries are left with limited insight and influence.

Research limitations/implications

The situation calls for professional organisations to address political mandate questions, and educational programs to strengthen future information professionals’ knowledge of IT in general; filter issues in specific; and local authority decision-making. The study highlights the need of adequate information professional competences and mandates to decide on and oversee internet regulation.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first internationally published study on content filters in Swedish public libraries.

Local information (LI) in Thailand covers resources related to Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), and cultural heritage. Thailand’s provincial universities have the national responsibility of digitising LI, enforced through the Provincial University Library Network’s (PULINET’s) Local Information Working Group (LIWG). The aim of this study is to explore how the LIWG’s digitisation activities contribute to the shaping of LI as national concern and resource. Empirical data come from interviews with 23 LIWG professionals in 2016–2017. A qualitative content analysis is performed within an overall activity theory framework with emphasis on overt and unobtrosive manifestations of contradictions through a combination of Engeström’s and Blackler’s typologies. The results show that primary contradictions exist in the form of incompatible conceptions of LI between individual group members and the group’s consensus-oriented LI definition. Secondary contradictions emerge as incongruences between group members’ general conceptions of LI, and specific digitisation activities of the LIWG. In general, LI is conceptualised as dynamic, situated, collective, culture-nature integrated resources with strong applied-use value, in line with international ILK definitions and agendas. The actual LIWG activities, however, circumscribe this conception through a restricted focus on formal regional delimitations; prominent objects; societally desirable expressions; and an academic/research framing. Overall, the findings illustrate that the LIWG’s activities contribute to shape LI as a tool for national social and cultural unity that exclude marginalised groups and societally undesirable LI expressions. In these activities, the primary and secondary types of contradictions are hidden and counteracted, rather than used as constructive opportunities for learning, change, and development. The study provides a unique, internationally framed, perspective on LI and related digitisation activities in Thailand. Methodologically, the study is case specific, limited to a cross-section in time and to data from interview accounts of LIWG members.

Information literacy research is growing in importance but has been critiqued for remaining focused on practical topics of interest and attainment approaches to practice. Prior attempts to conceptualise information literacy have also often taken place without a comprehensive understanding of the ontological or epistemological foundations of theoretical work. The aim of this panel is to critically examine theory development and use within information literacy research through discussing the ways in which understandings of information literacy, including how it happens and how it shapes social life, are both enabled and constrained through critical, sociomaterial and discursive theoretical approaches. Providing a space to discuss and reflect on the impact of theory on information literacy scholarship, this panel creates a focal point for researchers, practitioners and students interested in the constructionand advancement of conceptually rich information literacy research and practice.

The Local Information Working Group (LIWG) of Thailand’s provincial university libraries holds main responsibility for digitising Thai local information (LI), a resource that shares many characteristics with what in other contexts is described as Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK). This study therefore explores how the digitisation activities of the LIWG correlate with claims of culturally responsive and responsible ILK representation, and how this work can be understood through the perspective of Bhabha’s Third Space. The study is based on interviews with 23 LIWG members, collected in 2016–2017. A guided, qualitative content analysis focused on uncovering themes of digitisation tools and methods with Third Space relevance as supporting or hindering essentialism, fixity and hybridity in LI representations. The findings illustrate that whereas the digitisation itself, field studies, language choices and outreach activities offer certain Third Space potential, this is underdeveloped and largely circumstantial. Third Space potentials are further likely to be restricted or hindered by uneven distribution of internet access, digital literacy, standard Thai proficiency and university/academic library accessibility among the Thai public in general and LI holders in particular. Overall, marginalised groups are excluded, and LI holders are positioned as passive contributors and recipients of digitised LI, suggesting a reversed sort of ‘self-essentialism’ on behalf of the dominant culture. In conclusion, two aspects in particular require further attention for libraries engaging with digitisation of ILK types of resources: the inclusion of national, societal level participation into participatory approaches; and the incorporation of functionalities for user interaction, holistic knowledge representation, multiple languages and cultural protocols into ICT for representation and use. The study provides a unique application of Third Space as analytical perspective on library digitisation of LI/ILK types of resources. Methodologically, the study is case specific, limited to a cross-section in time, and to data from interview accounts of LIWG members.

Template for the Swedish national survey questionnaire directed to long-COVID / post-COVID sufferers in Swedish Facebook groups. The survey comprises questions on demographics, background factors, symptoms and changes over time, health impacts, information needs and practices, and validated scales for rating certain symptoms. The survey was produced for the research project CiLC-S - Crowdsourcing Long-COVID Sweden, and conducted in 2021. The survey is designed for anonymous participation and open digital methods distribution through social media and web channels.

We describe in this extended abstract the emergent, multi-disciplinary research project CiLC-S – Crowdsourcing Long COVID Sweden. The information science related part of the project aims to explore i) information needs and strategies of persons afflicted by long term health problems after a COVID-19 infection, and ii) alternative digital methods for inclusive, safe and efficient data collection for research and social response in the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce the project and share some early ethical and methodological experiences as a foundation for discussions of current and future possibilities for information science research to respond to individual and societal information needs in the COVID-19 pandemic and similar large-scale social crises through innovative research questions and data collection methods.