According to a Google press release that landed in my inbox this morning, not only is 23rd April St George’s day, but also the date that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on in 1616.

Somewhat stretching this tenuous co-incidence, Google announced that in honour of such formidable writers, they were promoting ‘innovative literacy and reading-related projects’ through the Literacy Project initiative. Partners include the World Book Day organisation, Lit Cam and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it before, the Literacy Project is all about using the internet to connect likeminded literacy-promoting organisations to collaborate and communicate with each other. Today they will include some new tools to assist in exactly those kinds of initiatives. For example the project’s Literacy Map has been updated so organisations can update news on what they are working on as well as talk to others through the Literacy Project forum. 

What you might find of interest are the academic papers that explore areas of improving literacy. Within the literacy and technology section there is a whole host of grey literature material in Google Scholar. This mass of potentially valuable (but largely unpublished) information, can originate from anything produced by organisations such as booklets, presentations and reports to name but a few. Information literacy is well served here.

If you will now permit me to insert my own tenuous link, May’s issue of IWR will be examining the possibilities of using grey literature. There will be pointers on where to go and how to get that valuable but obscure information. It’s an underutilised resource and there is an awful lot of information out there ripe for the picking.

In the meantime more of the Literacy Project here.