Information literacy: The battle we won that we lost?

Portal

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 23-32

  Cowan, Susanna M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84892429990     PISSN: 15312542     EISSN: 15307131     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/pla.2013.0049     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Sharon A. Weiner, "Institutionalizing Information Literacy, " Journal of Academic Librarianship 38, 5 (September 2012), 287-93, accessed March 22, 2013, doi: 10.1016/j. acalib.2012.05.004.
2. Sharon A. Weiner, Weiner's primary source is Robert Birnbaum; for example, How Colleges Work: The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988). Birnbaum's four models of organizational functioning in higher education are (1) the Collegial, (2) the Bureaucratic, (3) the Political, and (4) the Organized Anarchy types, and Weiner's article offers specific strategies for creating information-literacy programs within each of these institutional types.
3. Sharon A. Weiner, Weiner's primary source is Robert Birnbaum; for example, How Colleges Work: The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988). Birnbaum's four models of organizational functioning in higher education are (1) the Collegial, (2) the Bureaucratic, (3) the Political, and (4) the Organized Anarchy types, and Weiner's article offers specific strategies for creating information-literacy programs within each of these institutional types. 287.
4. Sharon A. Weiner, Weiner's primary source is Robert Birnbaum; for example, How Colleges Work: The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988). Birnbaum's four models of organizational functioning in higher education are (1) the Collegial, (2) the Bureaucratic, (3) the Political, and (4) the Organized Anarchy types, and Weiner's article offers specific strategies for creating information-literacy programs within each of these institutional types. 299.
5. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards Review Task Force, "Recommendations of the Information Literacy Competency Standards Review Task Force, " ACRL AC12 Doc 13.1 (June 2, 2012), accessed March 22, 2013, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/ils_recomm. pdf.
6. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards Review Task Force, "Recommendations of the Information Literacy Competency Standards Review Task Force, " ACRL AC12 Doc 13.1 (June 2, 2012), accessed March 22, 2013, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/ils_recomm. pdf.
7. Paul G. Zurkowski and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, The Information Service Environment Relationships and Priorities: Related Paper No. 5 (Washington, DC: National Program for Library and Information Services, 1974). In this paper, Zurkowski codifies the notion of an "information literate" versus an "information illiterate" person. The final page of the report under the subheading "Education" advocates the creation of a national program aimed at achieving a completely information-literate society in ten years: "The top priority of the Commission [the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science] should be directed toward establishing a major national program to achieve universal information literacy by 1984" (27).
8. Paul G. Zurkowski, "Protestations, " American Libraries 4, 5 (1973), 258, accessed April 23, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25619199.
9. There are dozens of smart practitioners of information-literacy practices I could mention, but my focus here is on those who have expanded the idea of information literacy, its theorists. Again I could mention a number-I name here only three by way of illustration. William Badke has been prolific in his writings in the past twenty or more years. Almost any of his writings are exemplary of his persuasive and often eloquent articulation of, and sometimes defense of, information literacy. Seminal, perhaps, is his early book The Survivor's Guide to Library Research (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990).
10. Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog (San Jose, CA: Writers Club Press, 2000).
11. Carol Kuhlthau aims her writing at the information professional and focuses on the rigorous intellectual work of searching. See, for example, Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993).
12. Leslie K. Maniotes and Ann K. Caspari, Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2007).
13. Carol Collier Kuhlthau, "Information Skills for an Information Society: A Review of Research. An ERIC Information Analysis Product, " (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 2012), http://www. eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED297740.pdf.
14. Edward K. Owusu-Ansah is the most interesting of the scholars to take a lead in defining the concept both as it emerged and as it was institutionalized. Still significant is his 2003 article, "Information Literacy and the Academic Library: A Critical Look at a Concept and the Controversies Surrounding It, " Journal of Academic Librarianship 29, 4 (2003), doi: 10.1016/S0099-1333(03)00040-5.
15. "VALUE: Valid Assessment of Learning Undergraduate Education. Project Description, " http://www.aacu.org/value/project_description.cfm. The VALUE Rubric for Information Literacy is accessible at www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/pdf/InformationLiteracy.pdf.
16. The Society of College, National, and University Libraries (SCONUL) Working Group on Information Literacy published a report in 1999 titled "Information Skills in Higher Education: A SCONUL Position Paper. " The updated report is titled The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy: Core Model for Higher Education (London, UK: Society of College, National, and University Libraries, 2011), http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/ default/files/documents/coremodel.pdf.
17. See VALUE: Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education, Information Literacy Rubric Development Team, http://www.aacu.org/value/informationliteracy.cfm.
18. Sugata Mitra, "Build a School in the Cloud, " TED Talk presented at TED2013 (Technology, Entertainment, Design 2013), Long Beach, CA, February 26, 2013, http://www.ted.com/ talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html. Mitra's famous "hole in the wall" experiments suggest that education takes place when you provide the means (computers, in the case of his work), sometimes supply a goal (something complex like "explain DNA"), and then get out of the way, stepping in only to offer encouragement (act the part of the "granny" is how Mitra describes it).