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!)

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.

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

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.

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

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.