Baby Evie

Ok, so at this time, my research is on hold! Evie, was born on 27 May 2007. She is 4lbs 1oz and so is being kept in hospital with mother. More photos on my website www.cgwalker.org.uk

First Meeting with Supervisors

Today I had my first official meeting with my two supervisors. Key work areas to continue with are:

• Continue with reading for the literature review
• Expand the reading beyond the specific IL focus
• Look for relevant training opportunities
• Investigate potential ethical considerations of proposed research

Enough is enough!

Today I spent my reading Owusu-Ansah (2005). His article, “Debating definitions of information literacy: enough is enough!” is essentially a plea for a stop to the constant debates about definitions of information literacy. In his article he briefly charts the background to literacy as well as information literacy. The paper provides a good and relatively up-to-date coverage of the debate over definitions. Owusu-Ansah argues that there is enough consensus with the various definitions that a general understanding can be agreed upon. He argues that Doyle, Eisenberg, ALA definition etc have a common thread. He also states that Bruce has a commonality in to the attributes listed in her research.

This is a very good article and one which should be read by any person wishing to delve into the field.

Owusu-Ansah, E. K. (2005). "Debating definitions of information literacy: enough is enough!" Library Review 54(6): 366-374.

Information literacy: a practitioner's guide

Yesterday I said that I would complete the review of the Andretta, S. (2005). Information literacy: a practitioner's guide. To use a well know aphorism, “it does as it says on the tin.” The book provides an idiot proof introduction to the topic. That said, it is very much aimed at the librarian practitioner, who delivers training in a HE setting. The book proved to be illuminating, especially Andretta’s discussions and comparisons of the three information literacy frameworks, ACRL IL Standard, ANZIL IL standards and SCONUL Information skills. My homework is to now look at these frameworks in detail, myself.

Chapter 1 is a general introduction, chapter 2 provides the ubiquitous “setting the scene”, but still very useful as it is written in a very accessible way. Topics covered here include, models of IL, definitions and a very useful national perspective, form a US, Australian and UK view. I must admit, that the rest of the book proved to be less useful for me, as it deals with the delivering of IL training in a HE setting. Here, I have to be disciplined, and concentrate and focus on required reading. Notwithstanding, what I read would undoubtedly be extremely useful for training librarians.

Some reading

Today I set myself the aim of reading. I managed to cover two books (along with everything else).

The titles are:

1. Walton, G. and A. Pope (2006). Information literacy: recognising the need: Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom, 17 May 2006. Oxford, Chandos Publishing.

2. Andretta, S. (2005). Information literacy: a practitioner's guide. Oxford, Chandos.

Starting with the Walton title. This is the conference proceeding of Information Literacy: Recognising the Need, held in Staffordshire university in May 2006. Immediately I found this title interesting because, i) It is relatively new; ii) it is from a British perspective. Of the eight sections, Walton and Pope’s; Andretta’s, and Brauer’s were perhaps the most useful to me in terms of my research.

Walton and Pope starts off with a good overview of IL mentioning Zikowski in 1974, 2003 Prague Declaration linking into the SCONUL 7 pillars. This paper is very much still relating to IL in the HE context, and perhaps it is too much to expect anything else given the setting of the conference. Despite this it is a good, if not brief introduction to the subject.

Andretta’s paper asks the question is IL the new “pedagogy of the question” relating here to Paulo Freire’s theory which proposed a pedagogy that forces learners to think critically and adopt a critical attitude toward the world. Andretta proposes that there are parallels between IL as “a way of emancipating the learner through the development of life long learning” and Freire’s theory of critical pedagogy. Andretta goes on to discuss the contexts with the teaching in an institution and examines its challenges. This is a very thought provoking article which requires substantially more space than I can give here!

Lastly, Brauer asks “information overload and the re-invention of brutality”. This is an extremely thought provoking paper, seeking to distinguish the complexities of reality form data. He argues that we live in such an information rich society, where we can find pictures of great paintings on the on Google but does that help us appreciate them? To quote Brauer, “I came across four young people looking at a street map [in London] and they were wondering where to go. I suggested the National Gallery – One of then replies ‘I did Art Appreciation at West Texas U, so I guess I’ve already seen all that’”

From a practical IL perspective Brauer uses the example of the growth of evidence-based medicine (or evidence-based anything else for that matter) which has become the dominant ideology in Medicine in the past 20 years (I can vouch for this having been a clinical librarian for the past 8 years); here he quotes Clark (1998:1246)

The contextually bound nature of research findings, consequential in the acknowledgment of researcher and theoretical biases, warrants that knowledge deemed to be ‘truthful’ under-positivistic inquiry is not universally generalizable to all cases and all situations.

For Brauer, the point of the story is that all encompassing truth remains elusive as we live in amid paradox and uncertainly. This means that the simplistic and easy results provided by the internet and a search engine can not readily provide us with “practical or esoteric wisdom”. He argues that books, and not search engines, when selected wisely with data which is set into interpretive context can provide us with better understanding. “Internet searching and the reinvention of brutality, the: a future in which people can, for a remarkably low price, locate the facts about anything; but who will uncover the value of nothing: Big on quantity, for cretin, but, it would appear, regrettably low on quality.

Clark, A. M. (1998) The qualitative-quantitative debate: moving from positivism and confrontation to post-positivism and reconciliation, Journal of Advanced Nursing 27:1242:1249

Information needs of parents, part 2

21/5/07

Returning to the work by Marden and Nicholas, I though that I would list their findings:

Specific topics on which parents needed information
Subject	No of parents	% of parents
Health for the child	32	91
Child care	30	86
Child development	28	80
Schools	24	69
Child behaviour	18	51
Careers, education and training	18	51
Finance	15	43

Source: (Nicholas and Marden, 1998: p.39-40)

It is important to remember that my research is not specifically examining parent’s information needs per se; however, it will be important to be identifying the common questions or information requirements of parents in order to be able to draw comparisons between how parents go about obtaining, assessing and using the information.

The paper used her is:

Nicholas, D. and M. Marden (1998). "Parents and their information needs. A case study: parents of children under the age of five." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 30(1): 35-47.

information needs of parents

In 1997 Marden and Nicholas noted that “in the rush to investigate the needs of people at work or study, the information needs of consumers or the general public have been wholly neglected by information researchers.” This statement is certainly still very true for the literature surrounding Information Literacy. Interestingly, Marden and Nicholas were researching the information needs of Parents, I have yet to get hold of their full report, however, this is a priority!

Literacy and Literacies: Texts, Power

I have started reading Literacy and Literacies: Texts, Power, and Identity by Collins and Bolt. I must admit that I have yet to proceed from chapter 2; however, it has been quite refreshing to read. The book deals with the subject of literacy – rather than information literacy per se. A quote form page 2 has really got me thinking about what information literacy actually is, the quote being:

“This impressive diversity of possible literacies – from moral literacy to simulation reading – suggests that “literacy,” as a key word in our culture, has a status in the current era rather like that of “science” in the nineteenth: it refers loosely to any body of systematic useful knowledge. This plurality of sense is, however, countered by a contrary pressure to determine precisely and authoritatively which practices, which ways with text, legitimately fall under the rubric “literacy”; or, more colloquially, to ask what “real literacy “ is. (Collins and Blot, 2003: p.2-3)

A European perspective of IL

I have spent the past two days collating my papers and running some preliminary literature searches. If these early literature searches are any indication, the IL literature base is heavily biased towards IL skills training within the schools (K-12) and academic settings (HE), something I suspected.

This view has been further compounded by my reading the literature review undertaken by Sirje Virkus. The review is a great introduction to the IL literature from a European perspective. The review is now nearly four years old, however, still very useful. The paper is broadly divided into several sections, these being:

1. The concept of information literacy used an discussed by European authors

2. Information literacy in the school and he sectors

3. Organizations and institutions concerned with information literacy in Europe

4. Institutions and organizations at regional and national level

5. Participation in literacy movement at global level

6. Some examples of research on information literacy

7. Conclusions

This paper is very easy to read, and should be the starting point for anyone wanting a overview of subject from European perspective.

Virkus, S. (2003) Information literacy in Europe: a literature review. Information Research 8 (4). Available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/8-4/paper159.html.

Questioning the validity of IL

My aim today is to try and ‘problemitise’ Information Literacy. Assumptions made by many scholars is that IL comprises of skills which can be taught, that when imparted and learnt will make any given individual information literate.

1) Much of the literature deals with HE issues and professionals, who use specific information, for set purposes. As part of their training and experience they learn where to obtain and assess relevant information for their needs. Does this constitute literacy or simply a development of experiences which allows them to complete a task?

2) How far can the taxonomies, skills sets or lists of attributes that are used to define IL information literacy be seen as a general theory, which can be linked into people’s daily lives and existences away from education or professional roles?

3) Is information literacy simply library skills training – dressed up as something else? (a attempt by librarians to justify our [I am a UK Charted Librarian myself] existence)

4) Can individuals develop or display IL skills sets without being formally taught – if so how, and does this mean that IL is not so much a literacy rather a set of coping strategies to help individuals meet a need?

5) Can IL be categorised as simple common sense?

6) Is IL really a literacy?

Is IL a 21st C successor to literacy?

Reading Bruce’s book has been illuminating. Her relational approach has opened up a whole new and much more refreshing view of IL. True, the book is now ten years old, but it has been an excellent starting point, as it cuts through the older IL theory based on skill sets and taxonomies. Certainly, from what cursory survey of the literature I have done so far, at this early stage, there has not been any seminal developments in the IL scholarship. Bruce’s work is focused in the HE sector, and I am eager to see examples of IL in a non-academic/professional work based contexts Is IL really the 21^st century successor to the general literacy (and Education) of the 19^th century, which proved to be one of the enablers for the technological development that powered Industrial Revolution in Victorian Britain?

Reading reading and more reading

Today, I finally sat down and started to make proper reading notes. Until now, it has been a psychological battle, I always managed to find other quite valid things to do, look at, or organise.

I started with Christine Bruce’s Seven faces of information literacy, as it is a tile that I am familiar, and one, which provides a great introduction to IL. This seminal title helped to move IL theory away from the one dimensional mechanistic ‘behavioural’ model to propose a new ‘relational’ model – that is, to view IL from a user, human perspective.

Christine Bruce’s website: http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~bruce/index.php

Taking stock

I finally managed to make myself sit down and spend time collecting my thoughts and putting them down on paper. Why is this beneficial, task so difficult to do? The ‘How to books’ mentioned previously, have been very useful in that they have helped highlighting the kinds of things I should be thinking about in my first 3-6 months. Two such examples: (a) I spent time completeing a training needs analysis (TNA); (b) I drew up an agenda for my next meeting with my director of studies. I then started to think about pulling together in a systematic, and idiot proof way, a bibliography of works that I need to obtain. I am using EndNote, and I am beginning to find out that it can be a little fiddly to use. I should get myself on a training course, something to add to my TNA.

Lets get going...

OK here goes, I am now into the second week of my PhD, and still feel that I am overwhelmed by the amount of basic reading I need to complete – in fact, I seem to be reading “how to complete you PhD” books than actual research! The single gem of wisdom they all seem to give is “that you need to be a tortoise and not a hare”. It is a long process. My aims for this week are: -

· build upon the basic brain storming and planning I did last week;

· make an initial start to my literature review (this will be a symbolic gesture for myself);

· write this blog every working day (5 days a week, excluding holidays) – using it my research journal.

A visit to a library

I had a look around the Civic Quarter library today in the city centre, whilst there I managed to obtained my NUS Card. After my visit to the Civic Quarter, I went over to the Leeds University library to try out my SCONUL library card – success! The downside of this visit was although the library catalogue stated that a particular title I am after is in-stock it seems to have vanished from the shelf. I spent the rest of the afternoon ‘reading’ the Universities Research Regulations. These regulations are referred to by the Research Handbook as essential reading – hmm, ‘how to scare someone silly more like.’

Drowning in PDFs

I spent this morning organising the 324 PDF articles I have collected over the past few months. I seriously need to assess these articles as there is a lot of rubbish here – that said even with the dross removed there is a lot of reading ahead. I finally received my Athens login today. That’s great I can start adding more articles to the 324 I have already got! I also started a ‘quotes’ file looking for useful and interesting quotes or aphorisms that may be useful in later life – this was at the instigation of one of those DIY PhD books that I have borrowed from the library. Apparently the key is to discover useful and original quotes to help set the scene and illustrate your writing.

Day 3

Hallelujah! I have received a library login (still no sign of my Athens username, or proper network login) and can borrow library books. I borrowed a number of DIY ‘idiots guides’ to completing your PhD – useful reading for later, and I hope will tell me in three easy steps what to do! I met a fellow student who is in the process of completing his PhD, he showed me some of the ‘ropes’ and gave me a few tips. I am beginning to feel that things are beginning to slot into place, and fee quite optimistic.

Day 2

A goodnights sleep helps to dispel the nervousness of the previous day. Day two provides and excellent opportunity to visit my desk, and start to meet people and explore the library. Unfortunately, I can’t borrow books yet as my library card has not yet been activated, nor do I have access to Athens electronic resources, nor a proper network access. I spend the day making lists of what I need to find out and about and thinking about the actions I need to complete in the short term.