Monday 17 December 2007

Philosophical Aspects of Information Science

I am still catching-on the classic articles of information science. These are the articles, we should all have read, but often don’t quite have the time. One such article is by the late Bertram Brookes – The foundations of information science. Part I. Philosophical aspects. Brookes, is most ‘famous’ if an information scientist can be famous that is, through his much quoted fundamental equation.

The paper argues for a philosophical basis for Information Science based on Karl Popper’s three worlds ontological scheme. This scheme, which as I understand it, is not without its critics, aims to develop a new objective epistemology, breaking away from many traditional views and constructs of knowledge. Popper postulated schema based on ‘three worlds’; Brooke concentrates on the third world as the one of relevance to information science – the objective knowledge world. This is a very interesting and thought provoking paper and is a must.

Wednesday 12 December 2007

Measuring Knowledge Use

Another paper today, this one very easy to read and understand!! This paper by William Dunn (Measuring Knowledge Use, 1983) is a brief summary (in 1983) of the problem of measuring knowledge in research. I thought that this may prove to be of particular relevance to my research. The paper is a summary or a very brief literature review of main approaches take to measuring knowledge via interview and questionnaire techniques. More importantly, the paper summarises the methods used by researchers in quantifying knowledge by use of different scales. This paper, has some good references, although I suspect is quite old, nevertheless because of its accessibility is a good place to start when looking at the subject.

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Information Science and the Phenomenon of Information

In the run up to Christmas, and the holidays, I have decided to go through my paperwork and the hundreds of unread articles. That said, the library emailed me to let me know that three more inter-library loan requests had arrived. One of these articles was Information Science and the Phenomenon of Information by Belikin and Robertson (1976).

This is a very interesting foundation type article, which examines and tries to define the phenomenon of information. They describe information as that which is capable of transforming structure. Information is seen as being best describe by its context, for which they present seven examples, including: Hereditary (genetics); Uncertainty; perception; Individual concept-forming; Inter-human communication; Social conceptual structures and Formalized knowledge. Needless to say, this is a very interesting paper, that needs your full attention, but is worth reading through as it foes help to set a back-drop to information science and the phenomenon of information.

Monday 10 December 2007

The Ladder of Inference and its use in Information Literacy

Ok, my new resolution is to try again at typing something every day on my blog; we will have to see how long that lasts! Well, part of the reason for my lack of activity on this blog was the preparation for my PhD confirmation process. Thankfully, I passed that, and so I would seem to be a boa fide PhD student. Since my confirmation viva, I have been looking at altering some parts of my methodology – more of this in a future posting.

Whilst preparing for my viva, I came across the ladder of inference. The ladder of inference is a theory, which deals with how people make decisions based on the information they have at hand. This information is sometimes quite incomplete, yet they use what they have and infer a result that is sometimes way off the mark. Although, my understanding is that it was developed for international negotiations, I believe that it has a lot of potential for examining the ‘critical’ aspect of information literacy. I would value any of your thoughts on this subject.

Monday 12 November 2007

Proposal Emailed Off

Yippee – the proposal documentation has finally been emailed off today (1.34pm to be precise). Now all that I have to do is start preparing for my viva confirmation meeting on Friday. I will certainly be glad when this week finishes…

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Meeting with Supervisors

I had a meeting today with my supervisors today to go through my draft proposal document. They came up with some very relevant comments and ‘food-for-thought’. The consequence of this is more work! They need my proposal by Monday, so I better get my skates on.

Friday 26 October 2007

Planning and Finishing Off

I frantically spent the day trying to complete my very short paper on the Digital Divide. My mind has been focused, my ix monthly viva and ‘confirmation’ hearing is approaching in just three weeks. I need to seriously get to grips with defining my and thatching out my proposal in the next week.

Thursday 25 October 2007

DialogClassic Lesson No. 2

I delivered my second lesson today, is section on the MSc course is a comprise of a set of four. After many years of being a student it certainly was strange to see the class from the other side of the fence. This shift or perspective change was hammered home, when we stared to discuss their assignment and I was giving them pointers which allayed their some of their fears.

Wednesday 24 October 2007

Lesson Planning

OK – today I diarised the morning for preparing for tomorrows lecture. As unusual, it took far longer than I pencilled in. By the time I wrote a lesson plan, power point and arranged some additional exercises it took the whole day. I also amended my CV and biography for the University’s webpage’s http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/Christopher_Walker.htm

Lesson Planning

Today I spent my time dusting off my old notes from my PGCE course completed some years ago. Tomorrow the department is letting me loose on a group of real fee paying students. My job for the next four Thursday morning is to teaching the MSc group DialogClassic searching. A command based suite of databases. Well, they can’t say that I am not prepared!

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Day at the Leisure Club

OK – today no work. It is the schools half term and by boy Sam is off. So off we go to the ‘gym’ as a family for swimming and something to eat. By ‘gym’, I should calling by its proper title ‘leisure club’—that sounds a little too fancy for me!

Monday 22 October 2007

Planning Day

Another day finishing off my digit divide paper, it still needs properly checking and re-writing in parts. I think I need to be a lot less critical with my work. In my mind, I have the though that this needs to be at a academic certain level. My next project should be a paper on Web 2.0, I will put this on hold until I have reviewed and firmed up my proposal for my up and coming first six month viva in November. That will be my work for the rest of the week after I have prepared for Thursday lecture.

Thursday 18 October 2007

Teaching - D-day

Arrive at the University campus nice and early, double check the workbooks and notes. Off to the computer room, where I will be running the session. Doh! mental block what is my system login….

The session from my perspective, flew by – I loved it—I hope the class did too. I have forgotten how much I love teaching.

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Digital Divide

More time on this ‘quick summary’ of the digital divide. It is a hugely interesting area of research, which has many links into information literacy. A lot of the research deals with bridging the technological gap between those how can and do afford the technology and those who can’t – aka the haves and the have not’s. This is reflected in different contexts i.e. between nations and also with societies. An interesting reflection is that in countries such as the UK, access to the technology is narrowing (divergence of technology: mobile internet access, internet access through your Xbox etc), this is re-focusing the question away from the technological ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’ towards those who have the skills to use the technology namely … information literacy (or ICT skills).

Here is an interesting quote from the Oxford Internet Survey 2007 :

The 2007 Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) reports that in 2000 only about one third of Britons had access to the internet; by 2007 over two thirds had access to the internet, of who four out of five used a broadband connection. The OxIS also observes that in 2005 internet users were more likely to use a search engine and specific webpage’s they may bookmark to look form information, however, by 2007 they were much more likely to primarily use search engines (p.66).

Friday 12 October 2007

Digital Divide

There are two articles I have just read, as I am trying to get a handle on the ‘Digital Divide.’ These article are:

  • Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) The digital divide as a complex and dynamic phenomenon
  • Yu (2006) Understanding information inequality.

Both of these articles provided a taste of what is a large area of study with many facets and subsets; whether you are looking at the digital divide from an international nation state perspective or from an individual citizens access to local information. It is going to be difficult to write a brief summary paper of only 2000 words on this subject!

Anyone got any other recommendations for articles to read?

Thursday 11 October 2007

Digital Divide

Today I start on another small project – a brief review of the Digital Divide. Wanting to learn from the mistakes of my previous small project on Information Seeking Behaviour I must limit this to 2000 words and not go overboard with references.

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Teaching getting closer

Today I collected the work books I had amended and needed photocopying for the teaching I will be doing of the MSc Information Studies course. I will be teaching Dialog Classic, so need spent the afternoon brushing up on my command based searching. It has been sometime since I used command based searching, but it is coming back to me! I will still need to work through the workbook and course material prior to next Thursday and my first lecture.

Monday 8 October 2007

Beyond a joke

It is getting beyond a joke – this very brief summary of the development of information seeking behaviour has taken far too long. Nevertheless, it has been a very interesting journey, with numerous visits to the British Library following those references. I will finish it today – promise.

Thursday 4 October 2007

No time in the day

Where are the day’s going? This week has vanished before my eyes. I have been very busy putting a piece of work I started in July – a brief historiography of information seeking. It is only three thousand words, but has taken me far too long. Too many visits to the British Library—I also feel that I am such a slow writer, especially when I allow myself to get distracted following up more references!

Tuesday 2 October 2007

DialogClassic Workbook

Today I spent the day looking through and amending the workbook and material I will be teaching in a few weeks time. Essentially, I will be teaching DialogClassic to the Masters Students. As with all of these things, the work book needs updating especially as Dialog have changed the interface. I need to get this book into reprographics – that’s tomorrow’s job!

Monday 1 October 2007

Barriers to information

Harris, R. M., & Dewdney: (1994). Barriers to information: How formal help systems fail battered women. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.

Here is an excellent book that I have been looking reading. The book is very easy to read (that’s always good for me) and concludes with their influential six principles, illustrating way in which citizens can overcome information barriers.

Friday 14 September 2007

Becoming a Writer

Today, I attended a course on Academic Writing as part of the University’s staff development festival. This was an excellent day. The course was thought provoking with a lot of ‘hands on’ practice, especially the critiquing of our wring by the group! The one problem, the day was not long enough apparently they were cramming five hours into a two day workshop!

Wednesday 12 September 2007

Planning Day

Planning day really – I spent the afternoon looking through the Ethics from that has to be submitted prior to my conversion viva (still no date set but, but I don’t feel confident!). I also spent some time reflecting on developing my research questions. Not sure if I have the correct for here because this one looks a little complex!

Friday 7 September 2007

Staff Development Festival (and Dastardly Learning Styles)

The University is organising a whole range of staff development workshops over the next couple of weeks.


Today, I was booked on to two sessions. One entitled Dastardly statistics—the less said about the session the better—a case of sounding relevant at booking.

The second session was a called ‘A Critique of Learning Theory.’ This was an interested discussion based workshop were I managed to get a discussion going on one of my hobby horses—is far too much attention given to so called learning styles? Are learning styles infract just a modern pedagogical fad? I think so!

Thursday 6 September 2007

From the Mind’s Eye of the User

Dervin and her Sense-Making methodology is an area which I am looking into. I first came across Dervin’s work through reading an article by Ross Todd (see posting 28th June). The sense-making approach is a methodology that tries to understand research from the user’s perspective. I will make further postings in the near future when I have manager to get my head into this one!

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Misinformation on the Internet: Applying Evaluation Skills to Online Information

Fitzgerald, M. A. (1997). "Misinformation on the Internet: Applying Evaluation Skills to Online Information." Emergency Librarian 24(3): 9-14.

This is a very readable and accessible article which deals with the practical issues of critically using the internet. The paper is essentially divided into two sections. Section 1, provides a comprehensive (for an article) set of reasons why the internet contains misinformation. Section 2, develops practical methods for assessing web based information.

Tuesday 4 September 2007

Information Needs and Information Sources of Homeless Parents

Hersberger, J. (2001). "Everyday Information Needs and Information Sources of Homeless Parents." The New Review of Information Behaviour Research 2: 119 - 134.

From my perspective, this is a very useful paper; especially with view its design and methodology. It has two research questions:

1) What are the everyday information needs of homeless parents?

2) What are the everyday information sources of homeless parents?

The research is based on works done by Dervin on the information needs of citizens.

Methodology

Interview based on Dervin and sense-making was used, with data analysis from the interview transcripts. The findings were very useful in that there were several areas:

  • Finance
  • Child care and relationships
  • Housing
  • Health
  • Employment
  • Education
  • Transportation
  • Public assistance
  • Shelter

Monday 3 September 2007

Thinking critically about the internet

Martland and Rothbaum – Thinking critically about the internet

Martland, N. and F. Rothbaum (2006). "Thinking Critically About the Internet: Suggestions for Practitioners." Child Welfare 85(5): 837-852.

This is an excellent paper aimed at helping US parents use the internet. It starts off my stating that a majority of US parents use the internet and provides a wide range of sources for this. The paper lists specific skills:

1. Searching

2. Judging and trustworthiness.

Friday 31 August 2007

Backup backup backup

Today is a reminder why it is essential to have a backup of all your data, as I have just replaced my hard disk. My old disk was only 13 months old and thankfully I make regular multiple backups. For the geeks among you, my new disk is 500 GB WD Caviar RE2 (an enterprise class hard drive)—thankfully all that was lost today, was time...

Thursday 30 August 2007

Back from my hols...

Back from Cornwall and my holidays. Cornwall is one of the most beautiful places to visit. I have also just realised how long it has been since I updated this blog—August has simply vanished!

Today I have been reading an excellent article:

Langford, L. (1998). "Information literacy: a clarification." School Libraries Worldwide 4(1): 59-72.

This is a thought provoking and critical review of information literacy from the view of a school librarian. Langford provides a good introduction and background. She provides a short history and discussion of ‘literacy’ and the recent fashion of lexicon inflation through the creation of a myriad of new literacies. After this discussion, Langford turns her attention to clarifying a definition for the term. This is a very good and easy to read article which provides any information literacy student with some of the issues around literacy and information literacy.

Monday 6 August 2007

Coffee and Cake

Today was spent writing (or trying to) – eBay if all truth be known become a distraction as I tried (unsuccessfully) to buy a very cheap portable DVD player for the car so that my four and a half year old can watch DVDs on the long drive down to Cornwall (and back up-again) when we go in a few weeks. Anyway, this afternoon we attended a little soriĂ©e, a sort of end-of-term coffee and cake with the other PhD students in the faculty and their families, this was a really good opportunity to meet people informally – I know Sam, by boy made a new friend.

Friday 3 August 2007

Blasted Printers

Why does printing take so long? It is perhaps the antiquated laser printer in my shared office --never works -- this means that I am relegated to the trusty but slow hp-desk jet on my desk that frankly, Noah would find frustratingly slow. Oh- well the trials and tribulation of a PhD student! Anyway, the good intention today was to print the reams of articles I still consider ‘important’ and need to read of the next few (!) days.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Sheffield Hallam University (and I need a SatNav)

For those of you who, like me live in Yorkshire, and happen to need easy access to the early volumes of Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, from Vol. 1(1966) right through to the mid-eighties, then a trip to the stacks at Sheffield Hallam University Library is a must. This trip took the bulk of the day (although Leeds is only 40-50 miles away – however, I vowed that I would look on E-bay for a SatNav after spending considerably much longer driving than I should!)

Wednesday 1 August 2007

Wonderful British Library

OK – much the same as yesterday, but time to get hold of some of those journal articles. I may have said this before, but I am so lucky to live 8 miles from the British Library Document Supply Centre, in Boston Spa near Leeds. It truly is a great place; the feeling that a large amount of the world’s published academic research is only a 20 minute drive down the road.

Old School Research

I have decided that this week, I will try as best as I can to ‘bottom’ my little history of information seeking study. However, as much of what I need to look at is older material i.e. pre-internet and digitisation, my research is what I have to call ‘old school’, having to go to libraries to look at physical journals, providing that its, they have the it! This is such a slow and cumbersome method—yet strangely enjoyable and satisfactory.

Monday 30 July 2007

Occurrence of the term Information literacy 1969-2006

Out of idle curiosity, I decided sometime ago that I wanted to perform

Year

Information

Literacy

1969-1980

0

1980-1985

6

1985-1987

4

1988

1

1989

4

1990

10

1991

31

1992

18

1993

12

1994

25

1995

60

1996

58

1997

82

1998

108

1999

110

2000

150

2001

167

2002

181

2003

241

2004

239

2005

300

2006

252

a simple search of the Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) similar to the ‘quick and dirty’ search performed by Bawden for his article (see - Thursday, 14 June 2007).

The aim of the search was to look at growth of literature pertaining to ‘information literacy’ over the past 35 years. Bawden states in his article, that his search (which were more comprehensive than mine) were ‘rough and ready’ and that the searches include ‘book reviews as well as original articles’, however, it does give a ‘general idea of the changing significance of concepts.’

I repeated a similar search, initialling using CSA’s LISA database (Bawden uses both LISA and Social SciSearch). My search has initially focused on the term ‘information literacy’, the results are shown below. I hope to increase this table to include synonymous terms such as media literacy etc – this will suffice for now. It is interesting to note that there are no early references indexed in LISA, and this is perhaps a reminder not to rely on a single source for our research. A great overview of the information literacy literature can be obtained from Rader, Information literacy 1973-2002: a selected literature review, Library Trends; 51 (2) Fall 2002, p.242-59

Friday 27 July 2007

A New Paradigm over Black Sheep


Today, I spent the morning doing the usual – writing up notes from the journal articles I read yesterday, updating the bog etc.

Last night, I met up with a friend Clive, who is a Professor at a ‘rival’ University in West Yorkshire and an experienced researcher and PhD supervisor. Clive’s subject is more along the lines of ‘hard science’ and engineering, yet the opportunity to meet with someone who did not know what information literacy was provided great opportunity to bounce ideas off him. The evening finished in a traditional English manner—down the Queens Arms in Chapel Allerton for a pint (or two!) of Black Sheep—a great Northern pint.

Certainly, the evening has provided me with a lot to think about, especial with regards my research design. It always amazes me how people from different disciplines have such a different outlook on the paradigms to you hold as certainty, and even insights which I often overlook.

As a addendum, for those of you who do not know what I mean by a Pint of Black Sheep, the pint of traditionally brewed English beer comes from the village of Masham (http://www.yorkshire-dales.com/masham.html). The village has two principle breweries, one Theakstons (http://www.theakstons.co.uk ) home to my favourite ‘Old Peculier’ and the excellent ‘XP’. The Black Sheep brewery (http://www.blacksheepbrewery.com) was formed by Paul Theakston, in the early 1990s after a bitter family spilt of the direction of the Theakstons brewery.

Thursday 26 July 2007

More Grind and Harry Potter


Ok, today (and this past week), I have being intersecting my reading and work with trying to grab time to read the New Potter book – which despite Will Self’s denigration of it on the Today programme this morning it is great! Anyway back to work: I spent the morning reading three articles (and Harry potter):

For those people interested the articles were:

  • O’Neil, W. (1970), Properly Literate, Harvard Educational Review, 40(2)
  • Levin, K. (1982), Functional Literacy: Fond Illusions and False Economies, Harvard Educational Review, 52(3), p.249
  • Wilson, T. (2000), Human Information behaviour, Informing Science, 3(2): 49-55

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Oxford Internet Surveys


http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oxis/

Here is a very interesting report that was widely covered on Radio 4, at it launch this week. It provides a very thorough survey of internet usage in the UK today. The report opens in its executive summary that two-thirds of the UK population have internet access at home other ‘snippets’ relevant to the information literacy world are:

  • The number of non-users (people who have never used the Internet) has decreased to a quarter of the population in 2007.
  • Ex-users and non-users have different reasons for not using the Internet. Ex-users are more likely to point to a lack of interest and access. Non-users are more likely to point to a lack of skill.
  • The Internet is the first port of call for the great majority of Internet users when trying to learn about something new – more important than family members, colleagues or libraries.
  • Users have changed their information search patterns. In 2007, almost two thirds of users depended primarily on search engines to find information: up from one fifth in 2005.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Historiography Research

These past two days have been spent looking for more articles and background research. My supervisor has asked me to investigate and write historiography of information seeking behaviour and information science; this will hopefully give me a bit of a historical perspective to my work. I have just spent the afternoon at the British library looking through copies of the ARIST as well as 1902 copy of the Library Journal containing an article by Charles Eliot who is often cited as one of the first to develop a system for meeting user needs. I will post more on this fascinating article later…

Friday 20 July 2007

Looking for Information – Case, Donald

A book that I am finding very useful at the moment is:

Case, D (2002), Looking for Information : A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behaviour.

This book provides a very useful overview of many key areas of information behaviour research. Personally, I find that I want ‘more meat’ from the book, nevertheless it is certainly a very handy reference and should be consulted by anyone undertaking study and research in this field.

Thursday 19 July 2007

Meeting with DoS

I had my third meeting with my Director of Studies. This was a last opportunity to meet with him before the August break. The meeting went very well; we discussed and pencilled in October 2007 for my first year confirmation viva (arrrrr!). I was also set the task to research the historiography of information seeking behaviour, so anyone with any knowledge of this subject please let me know….

Wednesday 18 July 2007

British Library

Today I spent much of the time at the British Library at Boston Spa near Leeds. I was able to get hold of a number of ‘shorter’ articles, on literacy as well as a couple I have been meaning to read by Foster and Arp. I will post my thoughts on these later….

Tuesday 17 July 2007

Buch und Lesen: Historical Perspectives on Literacy and Schooling.

Clifford, G., J (1984). "Buch und Lesen: Historical Perspectives on Literacy and Schooling." Review of Educational Research 54(4).

Today I read this paper, I know that I have diarised this week for reading up about research methodologies; however, I have manager to find more interesting papers to read. I ordered this paper some time ago from the British Library and so when tidying up some files I found this to read.

This is a great paper that presents a critical historical overview of literacy (not information literacy!) and its affect on society. It includes arguments made against literacy itself, and examines the literacy creep – from being classed as literate when you could mark X to sign your name through to functional literacies. There are elements of the paper when looking at the developments of literacy that fit very nicely with the development of IL as a theory. This is a must for anyone looking at information literacy as it presents a definition of literacy itself, and is firmly not written form a librarian perspective.

Monday 16 July 2007

Researching Research!

This week I need to finally review and read about basic research methodologies. This is an area that I know I am weak. I need to start thinking about how and what my research is going to look at. So, is my methodology going to be Action Research, Grounded Theory or a case study; or something else? Any suggestions appreciated – please leave a comment.

Sunday 15 July 2007

A rainy July day



Here are two pictures taken in Roundhay Park, Leeds. A typical, very rainy Sunday in July. The boy in the picture is my son, Sam age four and half!

Thursday 12 July 2007

Questions and Reading

I went into college this morning for a meeting with the faculty’s research co-ordinator. I had a few questions which being the eternal ‘mature student’ I just had to ask. The questions revolved around the Research Training Programme that I have to complete- as well as issues around ethical approval for research. That done, I decide to read whilst having a coffee. Bad idea – after spilling much of the coffee (a black Americana) on my white Fred Perry, I decide to head off home to read. From a reading angle it was very productive, the articles read (if not totally understood) were:

Kuhlthau, C. (1991) Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User’s Perspective

This is a complex article which I will need time to digest – but it is an excellent start to examining user searching behaviours or as the authors call it the information search process (ISP) by an academic who has spent a great deal of time researching the subject. This is a must.

Behrens, S. (1994) A Conceptual Analysis and Historical Overview of Information Literacy

Another essential paper for anyone wanting to chart the development of information literacy. Behrens covers the 70s and 80s through to the early 1990s. No review of the subject would be complete without looking at this paper.

Snavely, L. And Cooper, N. (1997) The Information Literacy Debate

This is also, like the previous two, essential reading. This is an oft-quoted paper, giving an overview of information literacy. They discuss and present a range of alternative names for information literacy for those who are unhappy with its current nomenclature. This is an extremely easy paper to digest and well worth a look.

Conference Carnegie Research Practice Conference

The second conference of the week, this time organised by the Carnegie faculty for all PhD and research students at Leeds Met. The venue was the very impressive new ‘facility’ at the Headingly Cricket and Rugby ground (food was excellent too!) This is one of the few occasions were all of the research students get together to network and share. Again, although I am not a natural networker, I managed to find a couple of people who have similar interests to me – so from that angle the day was very useful. The day started with a lecture on critical thought, this was very useful and I need to follow up the on the notes. I then attended a seminar on ‘How to survive your viva’; this is uppermost in my mind as I have a confirmation viva soon. After lunch, Professor Tony Bryant, presented an excellent seminar on Grounded Theory; an area of research method which so far is beyond my understanding. He was excellent! The day ended with a ‘question time’, type ask the panel and then the day was brought to a close by the Vice-chancellor. Overall, a very good day.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

Information Literacy: Fact or Fable?

I called my conference presentation - Information Literacy: Fact or Fable? This was my first opportunity to present my initial reading to date, and in reality my first academic conference. It was just my luck that members of the Universities senior team decided to ‘drop in’ and guess who was about to speak. Honestly, I feel the presentation went well for a first go; it is easy to beat yourself up about what you would change or even do completely differently. Many people (genuinely) said that they enjoyed it and that I had made a potentially boring subject come alive. I spent the day attending all of the presentations; it also proved to be a very useful net working opportunity -- overall a very good day.

Tuesday 10 July 2007

INN Conference

Today I spent half of the day making finishing touches to my presentation for Wednesday (tomorrow); I also took time to attend some of the conference (especially the lunch – those of you thinking about coming to Leeds Met the buffet lunch is excellent – based on my previous NHS experience!)


The key note speaker was Professor Ray Paul, a very distinguished man http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~csstrjp He spoke about the inns and outs of applying for research funding, although not relevant to me now, it certainly reminded me of previous incarnations of applying for money and I am sure that it will prove to be useful in the future. Still very interesting.

Monday 9 July 2007

Writing for Faculty Conference

Today was spent preparing by short (but well formed) paper for Wednesday’s Innovation North Faculty Conference. I have 20 minutes to present my preliminary thoughts on my work todate. I will place the paper on my website (so when it is up please feel free to comment!).

Thursday 5 July 2007

Boyce (2000) Second thoughts about information literacy

Here is another very thought provoking article, one which I recommend. I must admit it took a second read for me to get to grips with the writing; nevertheless, Boyce poses some good probing questions as she tries to grapple with the concept of information literacy for herself.

In her second paragraph she opens by stating that she questions the:

construction of information literacy; as it has an ‘indeterminate quality’, which seems to encompass everything from computer competence, search savvy…right through to a philosophy of learning how to learn…the strongly print, bibliocentric logic of information literacy seems to me to be inappropriate for the anarchic environment of digital information.’

Her article examines the meaning of the terms along with the context. She calls for another look at the theory, worried by the bibliocentric bias to the concept and how this fits in with the anarchic digital world. One does need to remember that that article was written seven years ago and in that time the theory has move on, yet I believe there is still an element of truth in what she says.

Again I feel myself agreeing with Boyce when she forcefully states:

‘I am troubled by the universality and totalising effects of this movement, by the impetus of the phenomenon so vastly understood, yet subject to such uncritical, fervent allegiance. Against the seemingly universal endorsement of information literacy.’

Drawing to a conclusion, the discussion moves on to ask the question is IL simply a pre-occupation of the teacher/librarian? (Is it a product of a profession too close to its subject?). For Boyce its only play a part in the story it simply reflects a sectoral (i.e. library) viewpoint and that this preoccupation with their particular paradigm has distracted profession to coming to terms within a wider and broader overview of literacy in the new communications environment; ‘it has blinded us to the way in which we have been positioned materially, culturally and socially..’

Monday 2 July 2007

Information literacy: a clarification

I decided that I would attend a conference at the University today on pedagogies. My first mistake was not realising that it was in-fact a three day event! Well, I attended the first lecture, and then decided to disappear – not very good I know. Anyway, this allowed me to start reading another article:

Langford, L. (1998). "Information literacy: a clarification." School Libraries Worldwide 4(1): 59-72.

This is another article which I liked very much; in that it set off a whole ream of writing and thoughts -- It is an article which tapped into my consciousness. Where this article is a little different is that it focuses more on literacies in general. Langford is another voice who recognised back in 1998 that there is a gap in the IL literature (Todd and also Boyce etc). Langford questions whether we need to examine ‘new literacies’ as propagated by Ross and Bailey (1994) Wanted new literacies for the information age, NASSP Bulletin 78(563):31-35 . This is another paper to add to my list to read, to see if I agree with Langford.

Friday 29 June 2007

Café Nero

One of the privileges of being a PhD student is that you have the freedom to work where you want. I have found that I seem to get some of my most creative work done at Cafe Nero in Chapel Allerton Leeds. Simply, plonk my laptop on a table, order and Grande CafĂ© Americano for £1.60 and away I type. I think that being away from the distractions of paperwork and articles at home (and also the internet – I’m not paying the Nero change for Wi-Fi access) helps to focus on writing.

Thursday 28 June 2007

Challenging Information Literacy

My aim for the day is to try and read. This is little difficult as I am so tired – little Evie kept Helen and myself up most of the night! Oh well. The two documents read today:

Nicholas and Marden – their full British Library funded report in 1997 on the Information Needs of parents for children under five. I have written about their research before, needless to say this will be a key document for me, both for methodological design and literature review. My one personal beef with the work is- its brevity!

Booker, Di (Ed), Concept, challenge, conundrum: From Library skills to Information Literacy, Proceedings of the fourth national information literacy conference conducted by the University of South Australia, 1999.

There are two very good articles here (not to say the others are not – rather these two are more relevant to me), one by Ross Todd and the other by Susan Boyce. Both of these articles challenge and ask questions of the notion of information literacy. I am struck how many writers seem to simply accept IL and the ALA definition. Todd argues that we need to move away from the simply accepting the behaviourist models of IL and ask deeper questions about the form and substance of what IL actually is. Certainly, I agree with much Todd was writing. My own perception is, that in the 7-8 years since wrote his article for the conference, we have not moved on beyond embedding IL in either HE or school curriculum’s, I fear that there is little in the way of a sound scholarship and there is in fact no systematic theoretical basis for the subject, beyond a glorified approaches to bibliographic instruction. Is modern information literacy a type of ‘Emperors new clothes’ for librarians?

Wednesday 27 June 2007

A great buffet lunch!

Today was an opportunity to meet with other Centenary PhD students over a buffet lunch with the University’s Academic Board. After what was a very good buffet (when compared to the usual NHS fare that I am used to). About five of us students, met for coffee after the lunch. This was an excellent opportunity to share experiences and realise that I am not alone. Let us hope we can build on these small beginnings.

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Meeting No. 2 with supervisor

My second proper meeting with my supervisor; it is always good to ‘touch base’, it is amazing how the days and weeks pass by and one wonders where they vanish. From my perspective, we managed to cover some ground – although my personal preference would be for my supervisors to specify objectives for the next meeting to help focus my mind – but alas that harks back to my old days in NHS management and the workplace. I am coming to appreciate the space given to me over the past two months, simply to read and move into this phase of scholasticism. I do, however, have a focus, that being the faculty conference in a week’s time, where I am supposed to be talking about my preliminary research. Oh well. ..

Monday 25 June 2007

Open Workbench

I have found my solution to planning - Open Workbench. This is a piece of open source project management software (http://www.openworkbench.org). Having used MS project in the past, I have found that such software helps in maintaining a good overview and handle on the project.

Friday 22 June 2007

Reflections on Vannevar Bush

Leading on from the discussion on Zurkowski I have also been looking at the famous article by Vannevar Bush – “As we may think”.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

In 1946 Bush was the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in the US. Bush was concerned about the mass of information and knowledge which was increasingly been developed, he realised that there was a need to better store and disseminate this information for the common good.

There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear.

In his vision he sees the future has holding a solution, albeit based on the emerging technology of the time “photocells” – the microprocessor would not be developed for another 22 years!

Bush’s solution is basically what he calls a “Memex”

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.

In one end is the stored material. The matter of bulk is well taken care of by improved microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter material freely.

Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. Business correspondence takes the same path. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the memex film, dry photography being employed.

Here we have a prototype vision of the digital revolution. Bush sees the future as film-based; nerveless Bush has the foresight to predict (based on the developing technologies of the time), that access to relevant information and knowledge will play an important part of allowing science to grow and develop. One wonders, what he would think of the Web 2.0 based world which we now find ourselves only fifty years after he published these thoughts?

Thursday 21 June 2007

Zurkowski

Today I finally got hold of Zurkowski’s paper “The Information Services Environment: Relationship and Priorities”. To the uninitiated, this paper written by Paul Zurkowski in 1974, is cited my many information literacy scholars as the first mention of citizens being “information literate”. Zurkowski wrote the paper as President of the Information Industry Association (I.I.A), a trade association established in 1968 and comprising of 70 member companies in 1974; involved in the creation and distribution of information products, submitting it to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

Right from the go – Zurkowski heads his prologue “The Goal: Achieving Information Literacy”; he then goes on to state we experience an overabundance of information whenever available information exceeds our capacity to evaluate it. He claims that this is a universal condition and lists three reasons: 1) That information seeking differs according to time and purpose; 2) There is a multiplicity of sources and access routs resulting in a kaleidoscopic approach taken by people; 3) more human experience is being dealt with in information equivalents. Talking about the then commercial shape of publishing, Zurkowski uses the analogy of an information “prism” gathering “light” (ideas and concepts) and then performing a variety of “refracting” functions (editing, encoding, printing, microfilming, arranging etc) to produce a spectrum of products, services and systems to meet the kaleidoscopic needs of the user. People who are trained in the application of information resources to their work can be called information literate (p.6). It is important to remember that Zurkowski is talking about the access and dissemination of information in the workplace as an economic benefit and necessity, calling on the National Commission to commit to a major national education programme to achieve universal information literacy by 1984; presently he estimates that only one-sixth of the US population are information literate.

In many ways this was a very visionary move – be it one vested by commercial interests. I am struck however, how in such a short time the technology and information provision moves and the vision dates; by 1983 you could buy an IBM PC with a 10 MB hard-disk, thus changing and challenging in a business context forever what it meant to access information. This inability to predict technical change in even a relatively short time is one of the key criticisms made against information literacy, and one I hope to explore in a future posting.


Zurkowski, P. G. (1974). The Information Environment: Relationships and Priorities. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Washington DC.

Wednesday 20 June 2007

Evie and Mum Home

Ok, I am having to try and “kick-start” my research plan. I started the week with good intentions, with my wife and baby being allowed home at the weekend, after three very worrying weeks in hospital (various complications with Evie). Now they are home I am more worried than ever - and alas - I forgot about the sleepless nights.


As Evelyn, my little girl is still very small (only 4lb 4oz) she is eating for England. Well, focusing back on my research. Today is very much about reviewing and setting a programme in place to follow. I really need to be much more structured in-light of the new domestic arrangements.

Tuesday 19 June 2007

Research Ethics

I am finally managing to think ahead. Today I met with the lecturer nominated with responsibility with overseeing ethical considerations for research. At this stage of my research I only have a rough idea about the actual practicalities of my research. I know that my proposal (as of the time of writing) will involve interviewing humans (adults). This thankfully, should not pose any real ethical problems, providing “best practice” is observed.

Monday 18 June 2007

Orwell - Politics and the English Language

Although not immediately relevant to my research I read a very interesting essay by George Orwell entitled “Politics and the English Language”. I came across the essay on a Blog, discussing the demise of modern written English. Writing in 1946, Orwell decries what he sees is the demise and “bad habits of Modern English”. This is a thought provoking essay and well worth a read. A copy can be obtained from: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

Friday 15 June 2007

Teaching

I had a meeting to discuss my teaching for the next academic year (starting in October 07). It looks like I will be teaching the MSc students. In the fist instance, I will be limited six hours a week, and will be delivering the Dialog and database searching element of the module.

Thursday 14 June 2007

Bawden - Information and digital literacies: a review of concepts

This paper provides a very comprehensive overview of both information and digital literacies. The author critically reviews “literacy” as a concept as well as exploring related literacies e.g. multimedia, informacy computer etc. The bibliography to the paper was last updated in 2000.

Page


281

Bawden starts by listing other major IL reviews:

Cooper, Mutch, Carbo, Behrens, Doyle, Dess, Ochs et al., Olsen and Coons, Kulthau, McClure and Bruce. This provides a useful starting point for reading. This list is now seven years old and there may be more since then.

Bawden states that he has not being comprehensive, and has not listed every title in the field.

219

Here he looks at the occurrence of the terms under investigation as they appear in the literature. He searched LISA and social science abstracts 1980-1999. He charts the progress of his search terms in a table showing the progression of the field of study. He also provides a list of his synonymous terms used in searching.

220

Provides a discussion of the term literacy using dictionary definitions. He also mentions the United Nations General Assembly of 1990 as ‘international literacy year’.

221

What is literacy – ‘the ability to use graphic symbols to represent spoken language…..’ The discussion develops, that literacy can be seen as relative, to illustrate, the levels if ‘literacy’ needs in Honduras differs to that required in London. [McGarry]

Clifford is quoted suggesting that literacy has a dichotomous nature, revealing a spectrum of skills. Bawden goes on to list several indications or competencies of literacy. [THIS IS A GOOD LIST]

222

The discussion explores functional literacy citing the 1997 UK Office for National that almost a quarter of Britons cannot follow timetables, and the 1999 Sir Claus Moser report which found that 6% had very little literacy skills.

Grey’s 1956 definition of literacy is also listed. The discussion of the problems defining, measuring and assessing literacy is detailed.

223

Covers the history of literacy, also lists other sub concepts such as agricultural, cinematic, geographic literacies etc.

224

Looks at the skills based literacies, with the emphasis on informed decision making or leaning the skills to find information. Starts with looking at library literacy.

225

Media literacy and a term and development, is it a subset of information literacy. Barden supports that it has an obvious ‘overlap with the general concepts of information literacy’.

There are substantial discussions over the term and skills associated with Computer Literacy. One excellent discussion relating to the ECDL skills based is around the element of self reliance i.e. you can learn a computer package but, what if the computer goes wrong, how dependent are you on other for help, when things go wrong with the computer, outside of the set of learned skills? Here we see another spectrum of literacies at play. Also can you learn a new software package, without help, based on your knowledge?

230

Information Literacy

Bawden charts the term from Zurkowski – but notes that is usage of the term has more to do with educational reform in the US. Bawden charts that the term was introduced to the library literature by Taylor, with Doyle twenty-five years later defining the term more succinctly.

Over the next few pages Bawden discusses the intertwining of IL with education, through the ALA 1989 lining that IL and lifelong learning, ‘knowing how to learn’.

234

A discussion of the basis for definitions of IL. Listing what the ALA repost lists, Doyle and Bruce and Radar

238

Ducker and in ‘infoliteracy’, in relation to business and managers. It must not be seen as an IT solution.

239

Dupuis lists a summary of her thirty-five skills necessary for ‘creating and nurturing information literacy’.

241

A discussion on the ‘critical thinking’ element of IL. It can be seen as largely equivalent to ‘critical analysis’. With proper analysis, one does not drown in information. Cheek and Doskatsch and their tem ‘an information overabundant environment’.

243

Information literacy and the information society

Librarian turned congressman Major Owens – ‘information literacy is needed to guarantee the survival of democratic institutions. All men are created equal, but voters with information resources are in a position to make more intelligent decisions than citizens who are information illiterate.

Other authors make similar points with some excellent quotes here!

243

Information Literacy per se

Behrens and Olsen and Coons – Information Literacy is the key factors rather than n add-on set of skills. Quotes from Lantam, Lynch ask, ‘what does it mean to be information literate in an information society?’

244

Information literacy: criticisms of the concept

McCrank is rolled out. Also here is Feinberg asks questions of IL. Foster, Mutch, Miller, Abell all asks questions about IL.

There is a good summary to the main concerns.

246

IL: Conclusions

Bawden sates that

Information literacy . . . is a broader concept than the skills-based literacies described. . . and according [Bawden] subsumes them or lies alongside them.

246

Digital literacies

The reaming pages deal with the concept and definition of ‘digital literacy’. This is a newer concept from the mid 1990s, which refers to the ability to understand hyper-textual and multimedia literacy. Langham, is quoted as treating the term synonymously with ‘multimedia literacy.

248

Lists a set to skills forum in digital literacy. Again we see skills such as critical thinking, etc.

249

Digital literacy and Internet Literacy, Network Literacy etc.

Presents a very interesting discussion about knowledge and skills. Based on McClure’s definition of networked literacy – at the ability to ’identify, access, and use electronic information on a network’.

Of the list of knowledge and skills McClure suggests that they are not ‘add ons’ to traditional literacy rather part of a wider notion of literacy in an electric age.

The discussion continues linking into the web and hyper-txt literacies etc. He quotes Vannevar Bush and his ‘enormous mass of common record’.

Bawden makes the comment based on the discussions, that ‘ In their emphasis on reading and understanding texts, these terms seem to have more in common with literacy per se’.

251

Conclusions

A summary of the conclusions are:

It is very possible to spend all of your time discussing the definitions; it might be better then, to adopt a POPPERIAN position or explaining, rather than defining terms. The labels attached to these terms do matter as do and their significance for practice.

Secondly, Bawden suggests that for some limited purely limited purpose skills and competence may be useful, however, overall he sees them as too restrictive. This does not answer how to assess, monitor and define, then.

To deal with the complexities of the current information environment, a complex and board form of literacy is required. . . Understanding, meaning, and context must be central to it. It matters not whether, you call it digital, information or literacies required for an information age.