INFORMATION LITERACY - A LEARNER'S PERSPECTIVE

SUSIE ANDRETTA - SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENTLONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITYS.ANDRETTA@LONDONMET.AC.UK HTTP://WWW.ILIT.ORG/ILRESEARCH/INDEXILRESEARCH.HTM

EDITOR - JOURNAL OF INFORMATION LITERACYHTTP://OJS.LBORO.AC.UK/OJS/INDEX.PHP/JIL/INDEX

OUTLINE OF THE TALK

Information literacy – views from the literature

Information literacy – my research background and findings

‘Ways of experiencing Information literacy: perception and practice amongst Information Management postgraduate students’

Information literacy – a learner’s perspective

INFORMATION LITERACY – VIEWS FROM THE LITERATURE

International - social and individual emancipation1

Higher Education - Standards of Information Literacy for different stages of the investigation2

Facilitation of information literacy - Learners as producers (and communicators) of knowledge not just consumers of information3

BACKGROUND OF RESEARCH Relational/Phenomenographic perspectives4

Learner-information relationship“[..] the phenomenon of information literacy may be described as a series of varying relations between people and information” (Bruce, 1997: 111)

Perception of information literacy and practice through literature review task

Establish categories of description, mapped onto an outcome space, i.e. diagrammatic representation of the hierarchical structure between these categories (Marton and Booth, 1997)

Profile of students examined: Part-time Masters students Full-time librarians/information managers

RESEARCH FINDINGS Experience of information literacy is situational

Four contexts and categories of information literacy based on binary and tertiary information relationships

Contexts Categories and information relationshipsBinary relationship

Personal and social Information Literacy as Functional Literacy

Academic Information Literacy as Lifelong Learning

Tertiary relationship

Information provision Information Literacy as Provision

Information education Information Literacy as Education

BINARY INFORMATION RELATIONSHIP

Personal and academic contexts

TERTIARY INFORMATION RELATIONSHIP

Professional contexts

THE OUTCOME SPACE

INFORMATION LITERACY – A LEARNER’S PERSPECTIVE Functional literacy:

“[..] the ability that everybody should have in order to function effectively in the information society [..]”

“[..] the ability to use information effectively in your life, e.g. finding a house in Morocco; a marriage counsellor; information about Polycystic ovary syndrome”

Lifelong learning

“[..] research is about learning [..], particularly in an academic environment. If you learn how to investigate you become an independent/lifelong learner [..] that's why is so important to get the basics of information literacy”

“It’s mainly about information and it’s changed, it used to be information from books now it’s knowledge that’s coming through the web. [..] you need to learn new ways of accessing knowledge and new ways of learning”

INFORMATION LITERACY – A LEARNER’S PERSPECTIVE Provision

“[..] as an information provider [..] you are trying to make that information available to users. [..] you want every single piece of information to be available [..]”

“[..] the need to detect bias, crosscheck things, look at currency, relevance, authority, who’s published it? So it’s very much in terms of what’s on the web [..] I had to be quite aware that the information was Financial Times standards in terms of quality”

Education

“There is a certain amount of convergence between the library and the learning resource centre, [it] seems to be a growing area [so] I’ve become more interested in information literacy as a form of education”

“[..] in terms of [the] information professional’s viewpoint [information literacy] is becoming more the librarian’s role increasingly. What users really need from librarians (with the access to books becoming less important for libraries with the Internet and Google, Amazon and so on) is training in information literacy”

REFERENCES1. International view The Prague Declaration - "Towards an Information Literate Society”. Prague, the Czech Republic, September 20-

23, 2003. [Online]. Available at: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/19636/11228863531PragueDeclaration.pdf/PragueDeclaration.pdf (Accessed 13 January 2010).

High-Level Colloquium on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt November 6-9, 2005 . [Online]. Available at: http://www.infolit.org/International_Colloquium/alexfinalreport.pdf (Accessed 13 January 2010).

Horton, F.W. (2008) Understanding Information Literacy: A Primer. UNESCO: Paris. [Online]. Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001570/157020E.pdf (Accessed 27 May 2008).

Catts, R. and Lau, J. (2008) Towards Information Literacy Indicators. UNESCO: Paris. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ifla.org/files/information-literacy/publications/towards-information-literacy_2008-en.pdf (Accessed 13 January 2010.

2. Higher Education SCONUL (1998) Information Skills in Higher Education: A SCONUL Position Paper. [Online] Available at:

http://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/papers/Seven_pillars.html (Accessed 13 January 2010). Association of College and Research Libraries, (ACRL, 2000) Information Literacy Competency Standards for

Higher Education. [Online] Available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm (Accessed 13 January 2010).

Bundy, A. (Ed. 2004) Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework principles, standards and practice, Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy (ANZIIL), Adelaide, second edition.

REFERENCES3. Facilitation of information literacy Andretta, S. (2008) 'Information literacy from the learner’s perspective. A UK study.' In Basili, C. (Ed.) Information

Literacy as the crossroad of Education and Information Policies in Europe. CNR: 278-301. Andretta, S. (2009) ‘Facilitating Information Literacy Education (FILE)’ In Brine, A. (Ed.) Handbook of library

training practice and development, Vol. 3, Gower Publishing Ltd: 49-75. Whitworth, A. (2009) Teaching information literacy within a relational frame: the Media and Information Literacy

course at Manchester. Journal of Information Literacy, Vol.3 (2): 25-38. [Online] Available at:

http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/PRA-V3-I2-2009-2/1414 (Accessed: 13 January 2010)

4. Relational and phenomenographic perspectives Bruce, C. (1997) The Seven Faces of Information Literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press. Marton, F. and Booth, S. (1997) Learning and Awareness, Mahwah: New Jersey, LEA.