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?