INLS 490-121: Collaborative Writing Exercise/Information Literacy & Library 2.0
From Pomerantz
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Contents |
Changing conceptions of literacy
"It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore...Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” - Steve Jobs, on the possibility of Apple creating a device to compete with Amazon's Kindle
Well, not quite, Steve. But, literacy does matter differently now. It is my contention that in these "new times" our conceptualization of literacy, hence information literacy, needs to change. But how do we want to redefine literacy, and what influences do we want to privilege? In what contexts? What is our politics of literacy in Web/Library 2.0?
Literacy studies
For answers, we might turn to the field of literacy studies, specifically the subfield of critical literacy. While critical literacy scholarship has been around for several decades, a few of its essential points seem to be more appropriate than ever before, given our techno-cultural situation.
The return of the subjective
We can use Lankshear and McLaren's (1993) invocation of Stuart Hall’s “new times” to understand the transitional nature of a technologically advanced Post-Fordist society and the new literacies that get produced. Information technology has made us more connected (and more fragmented) than ever before and, as a result, every person's world views are shaped by increasing numbers of personal and cultural factors. As Hall argues, to understand how we understand, there must be a “return of the subjective”.
Rebuilding "literacy"
By exploding the notion of literacy to broaden what it means to “read”, sociocultural literacy theorists “integrat[e] talk, action, interaction, beliefs, and values...specific and diverse ways of being in the world.” To move critical literacy from theory to practice, we need to understand that there are diverse groups of people who have different kinds of literacies. This is a qualitative and sociological endeavor that privileges social interaction, just as Web 2.0 does.
Literacy as social practice, not ability
Traditionally, literacy is seen as a largely psychological ability, something true about our heads. We see literacy as a matter of social practices, something to do with social, institutional, and cultural relationships. Human conduct and “learning” are built on social and symbolic interaction (Blumer, 1969). We are interested in the knowledge and social formations that are products of this “learning.”
By focusing on everyday social and technical contexts, educators can act on the “political” aspect of IL and use the concept of information (and our relation to it) to break down and rebuild literacy curriculum. This is similar to the movement in the humanities to explode the notion of "text."
There are three basic tenets of symbolic interactionism (from Blumer) that can enable such explosions in Library 2.0 information literacy initiatives:
- Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them.
- The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows.
- These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things s/he encounters.
Emerging information literacy standards
ACRL’s Information Literacy Standards are a “way in”...a jumping off point. These generic and accepted standards are already positioned in curriculum. However, we think they must be put in motion to completely rebuild, rather than supplement, curriculum and literacy in a Library 2.0 world.
Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning.
The ACRL standards state that an information literate individual is able to:
- Determine the extent of information needed
- Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
- Evaluate information and its sources critically
- Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base
- Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
- Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally
The standards here give us a vocabulary to build a new information literacy curricula. Curriculum cannot empower students if it is monolithic, and it cannot be meaningful if it does not meet individuals where they are and in the world where they live.

