Information Illiteracy: Examiningour Assumptionsby Rosemary Green

This paper explores the notion ofinformation illiteracy in relation to

doctoral students' information literacyactivities. Findings from a qualitative study

of the doctoral literature review processportray learners as competent, rather than

information illiterate, even though theymay not have received information

literacy interventions.

Rosemary Green is Graduate Programs Librarian,Shenandoah University, Winchester VA

<rgreen@su.edu>.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 36, Number 4, pages 313–3

INTRODUCTIONIn concept and practice, information literacy is well established.Librarians and the library and information science community viewinformation literacy as the select domain of librarianship and libraries'trademark practice.1 Information literacy is prescribed as an effectivesolution to the difficulties of accumulating, appraising, and managinglarge bodies of information, knowledge, and, in the case of researchstudents, literature. By implication, those who are not informationliterate are “information illiterate,” a condition which informationliteracy educators seek to change. Presumably, information literacyimbues individuals with desirable information management capaci-ties, and the information literate are well-positioned in informationrich academic communities.2 Furthermore, librarians and the LIScommunity maintain that, if information literacy is to be acquiredproperly, librarians should be involved in teaching the skills.3

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, assumptions of informationilliteracy, as they emerged in conversationswith academic librarians andwere mirrored in published literature, are explored. Secondly, the paperturns to findings of a recent studywhich suggest that some learnersmaybe better understood as intentional and competent (rather thandeficient) in their informational engagements, even though they havenot received information literacy instruction, intervention, or evaluation.The information illiteracy assumption is examined and then reconsid-ered through a critical interpretation of doctoral students' narratives.

This paper draws from my study of the doctoral literature reviewprocess, in which I directed one aspect toward information literacy asan associated doctoral research literacy that occurs throughoutliterature reviewing.4 All the librarians interviewed for this studydescribed instructional practices that deliberately centered learners.At the same time, narratives from some librarian respondents pointedto assumptions–implicit at times, openly stated at other times–ofinformation illiteracy among doctoral students. Language describingdoctoral students as information illiterate arose in the study data andserved to articulate a concept familiar to our field. On closerinspection, I discovered that information illiteracy per se lacks aclear definition or appreciable discussion. Arguably, informationilliteracy may be conceived as the other face of information literacy,yet a search of the LIS literature failed to reveal a clear statement of itsmeaning.5 Furthermore, the LIS literature does not demonstrate thatthe notion of information illiteracy has been substantively or criticallyaddressed from learners' perspectives. Thus, I propose recognizing ourassumptions of information illiteracy and reflect on study findingsrevealing that these assumptions may not be uniformly applicable.

THE DOCTORAL LITERATURE REVIEW STUDYThe study which frames this paper investigated the literature reviewprocess as it was experienced by American and Australian doctoralcandidates, academic librarians, and doctoral advisors.6 The research

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was driven by two questions: How is the doctoral literature reviewprocess learned? and, What is learned by doing a doctoral literaturereview? Data were generated from in-depth interviews, conductedwith 42 participants in the disciplines of education, nursing, and thephysical and biological sciences.7 The narratives were organized,analyzed, and thematicized using open and axial coding techniquesderived from constant comparative methods.8

“The research was driven by two questions: Howis the doctoral literature review processlearned? and, What is learned by doing a

doctoral literature review?”

Predictably, information literacy emerged as an essential doctoralliteracy deployed in the literature review process. In particular,responses from doctoral candidates illustrated various methodsthrough which they learned independently to manage and engagewith large bodies of information and literature. More importantly,their narratives revealed that these learners deliberately executedinformation literacy activities without necessarily labeling them assuch and developed information literacy as an early stage doctoralliteracy. Therefore, in order to understand doctoral informationliteracy as it was experienced by the American and Australiandoctoral student participants, it was necessary to consider ways thatinformation literacy was made evident in their terms.

INFORMATION ILLITERACY—OUR ASSUMPTIONS

In theory and practice, information literacy instruction is intended toenhance people's information experiences. Librarian respondents'views were consonant with this focus on benefiting learners'engagements and reinforcing the enterprise of information andknowledge.9 Describing interactions with doctoral candidates, thelibrarians interviewed for the study all related genuine concern formaking information and literature accessible and manageable and forfacilitating a productive information experience. Interviews withAmerican and Australian academic librarians regarding their interac-tions with doctoral candidates across several academic disciplinesindicated an underlying belief that being information literate assuresacademic, intellectual, and socio-cultural success. In select instances,librarian participants did consider what information literacy mightmean to people other than librarians. “Information literacy is afantastic bit of jargon. We always think people knowwhat that meansbut they don't,” said one Australian librarian.10 Another Australianlibrarian observed, “I don't think that they have the sense or idea ofinformation literacy. They have a topic; they have a researchdirection; and they want to do the best job that they can.”11 Theirremarks were exceptional rather than typical.

According to American and Australian information literacy frame-works, an information literate person is onewho achieves informationliteracy, doing so by developing abilities to understand, locate,evaluate, and use information critically and ethically.12 Such infor-mation skills and proficiencies are widely understood to be directlyteachable and ultimately measurable with a range of behaviorallybased information literacy assessments.13 I suggest that this overtattention to instilling information skills as a remediation techniquepromotes an inaccurate dichotomy: a person is either informationliterate or information illiterate. Shanbhag14, too, questions thisdichotomy, drawing attention to the “facile labeling of students intwo extreme categories of information literate—either lazy, deficientusers of information in need of a cure, or tech-savvy personalities whoare already information savvy.”

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Norgaard,15 referring to college students in general, writes,“Mandates for information literacy presume that students are notinformation literate.” He too identifies a duality in which learners arepositioned as information illiterate if they cannot be identified asinformation literate. Green and Macauley16 extend the argument tograduate information literacy.

Under these circumstances, students require intervention from informationspecialists, that is, librarians, in order to acquire information literacy attributesthat will help them succeed in a demanding program of graduate studies.Postgraduates who do not enter the doctorate directly from a research-basedundergraduate or masters program are assumed to lack expertise in dealingwith this complex information environment.

The term “information illiteracy” and its variants are sprinkledthroughout the LIS literature and our speech. At the onset of theinformation literacy era, LOEX (Library Instruction Exchange)convened a conference strategically entitled Coping with Informa-tion Illiteracy: Bibliographic Instruction for the Information Age.17

That event was one of the first to articulate the informationliteracy–information illiteracy dichotomy. Since then, discussionsregarding undergraduate and graduate learners' information defi-ciencies have continued, supporting the need for informationliteracy interventions. In a review of internet usage and learnerbehavior studies, Thompson18 identifies a prevailing finding amongthese studies that college students exhibit information illiteracy,laziness, and procrastination. As the argument goes, many learnersare information illiterate and consequently require informationliteracy remediation.

Green and Macauley19 suggest that the undergraduate informa-tion experience has shaped and dominated the development ofinformation literacy, potentially imposing a uniform set of standards,practices, and assumptions on graduate learners. While many of thepublished interpretations of learners' deficiencies stem from studiesconducted with undergraduates, the tendency to transfer instruc-tional approaches from undergraduate to graduate students conveysthe same presumption of information illiteracy. Literature drawingattention to graduate students' lack of adequate information seekingabilities and information management and synthesizing skills is“fairly typical.” For example, a recent inquiry into the informationneeds of graduate students and academics at an American universityprovides one such diagnosis of information illiteracy. ResearchersKuruppu and Gruber20 conclude that graduate students as well asfaculty researchers overestimate their information skills: “Theinformation finding skills of many scholars are poor, contrary towhat they think. … They frequently fail to ask for help, often becauseof an unwarranted self confidence in their information seekingskills.”

“. . .the American and Australian academiclibrarians I interviewed seemed predisposedtoward the view of doctoral candidates as

information illiterate or lacking informationalskills.”

In salient instances, the American and Australian academiclibrarians I interviewed seemed predisposed toward the view ofdoctoral candidates as information illiterate or lacking informationalskills. It is important to note the socio-cultural influences on theparticipants and their remarks, in that their responses werecontextualized by their professional experiences as well as theirinteractions with graduate students. It is possible, too, that the

librarians were influenced by a professional culture that promotes abinary view of people as literate or illiterate; that inclination could beheard in some of their narratives. Descriptive terms such as“clueless”21 and “intellectual laziness”22 used by some librariansinterviewed for the study signaled that, in their experience, doctoralcandidates exhibited considerable information needs. Someaddressed information deficiencies, rather than competencies, wheninitially meeting with incoming doctoral students. One librarian at alarge Australian university outlined the problem of informationilliteracy among new doctoral students.

They might be very proficient in their own profession but certainly they wouldbe functioning at the level of a first commencing undergraduate student. Sowe would have postgraduate students whose competency levels, whose skillsand ability would be the same as a commencing undergraduate or even lessthan a commencing undergraduate.23

An American librarian questioned doctoral students' academicpreparation for literature searching: “We do get a great number whohave never searched a database, and they've been able to get throughtheir coursework without doing that. How, we don't know.”24 Thetheme was heard again in an Australian librarian's expression ofdoctoral students' information deficiencies.

I think that what is a bit scary is how little they know. I find that a bit scaryand how few databases they're using and that sort of thing. … It seems to turnout that quite often they don't know much, and they're using Google andGoogle Scholar. … I think there is a lot of illiteracy out there.25

The librarians' remarks were situated within longer conversationsregarding their information literacy practices and programs, theinstitutional and library cultures where they worked, and a genuineregard for guiding, instructing, and facilitating productive informa-tional engagements. Librarians interviewed for the study operatedfrom an earnest conviction that their instructional skills and facilitywith information systems are essential to doctoral education and bestdelivered by librarians. At the same time, I was struck by thesubtheme of information illiteracy as a condition that concernedlibrarian respondents but was not prevalent among doctoral studentrespondents.

Macauley contends that discussions regarding the need forpostgraduates to acquire information literacy skills emanate from adeficit model; his research with doctoral candidates indicates that,“Within librarianship in general, and the area of information literacyin particular, librarians speak of the deficiencies that their users, orpotential users possess.”26 The use of “illiteracy” is powerful andpotentially problematic; in short, the term and its implicationsfunction to demarcate groups. Rose charges that the condition ofbeing illiterate is customarily assigned to one group (students), while“the faculty's membership in the society of the literate”27 is affirmed.LIS and librarianship have followed suit by positioning librarians in aself-determined role of authority, affirmed in Yee's paper delivered atthe 1989 LOEX conference: “We are the experts in informationliteracy skills.”28 By inference, those less trained or differently skilledlack such expertise. The assumption of information illiteracy impliesthat some people (learners) require information remediation whileothers (librarians) best understand resources, mechanisms, andaccess to information.

Ascribing lower status to others does not seem to be the intentionof the library and LIS community; even so, that may be the outcomewhen we point to the prevalence of information illiteracy. Criticalscholar Pawley calls for the LIS community “to pay more criticalattention to language use.”29 Within this frame, I suggest a closer lookat the deficient learner view, the assumption of information illiteracy,and associated language—none of which is neutral. Indeed, howmightdoctoral candidates (or any learners for that matter) react to beinglabelled information illiterate?

(RE)CONSIDERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS ASINFORMATION LITERATE

Referring to the position advocated by LIS scholar Christine Bruce, Iinterpreted students' engagements with literature and information“in terms of ways in which people relate to the information”30 and toliterature reviewing. I inspected doctoral students' narratives from thecritical position of valuing their prior knowledge,31 rather thanpresuming information deficiencies. Norgaard notes that learnerspossess inherent competencies that wemay fail to recognize: “Collegestudents have developed fairly complex (if not always effective,appropriate or productive) ways of accessing and using information. Ifinformation literacy initiatives are to succeed in ways we would like,we need to accord more attention to the tacit (if rather incomplete)knowledge that students already bring with them.”32 Tuominen andcolleagues33 conclude that a more empowering form of informationliteracy would encompass an understanding of “people as knowl-edgeable ‘learners’who already possess a huge array of everyday skillsand competencies—acquired through experience in using particulartexts and tools in practical tasks and contexts.”

In several instances, librarian and student participants did reportfavorable and advantageous exchanges, and some research studentsstated that they had met with librarians or used library tutorials andguides. Others indicated that they were capable of learning andmanaging the literature of their fields and locating themselves withindisciplinary domains without instructional tools. Consequently,another understanding of information literacy emerged—an informa-tion literacy that evolvedwith little or no librarian involvement. Thesenarratives exposed a tension between librarians' perceptions ofinformation illiterate students and doctoral students' descriptions oftheir indigenous information literacy practices, regardless of whetherthey had interacted with librarians or received information literacyinstruction.

“. . .several doctoral candidate respondents …indicated confidence and proficiency with

information engagements. They recounted thatthey preferred to execute information literacy

and literature reviewing activitiesindependently, as needed, and

on their own terms.”

Librarian respondents consistently promoted information literacyfor all learners and centralized students in their information literacypractices. However, several doctoral candidate respondents stoppedshort of saying that they used information literacy instruction andtools, although they indicated confidence and proficiency withinformation engagements. They recounted that they preferred toexecute information literacy and literature reviewing activitiesindependently, as needed, and on their own terms. A number ofself-constructed strategies and techniques for engaging with complexbodies of literature emerged from respondents' stories, suggestinginformation literacy skills that may not have been acknowledgedotherwise. In the view of Luke and Kapitzke,34 students readilyconstruct their own interpretations of information literacy; learnersare capable of establishing individualized, targeted navigationstrategies and criteria for deciphering, filtering, and accumulatingneeded materials. Rather than conceive of information literacy as adomain into which students ought to fit, I suggest that studentsexhibit information competencies in their ownways, even though theattributes may be individualized, tacit, unrecognized, or differentlynamed.

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“Rather than conceive of information literacy asa domain into which students ought to fit, Isuggest that students exhibit information

competencies in their own ways, even thoughthe attributes may be individualized, tacit,

unrecognized, or differently named.”

When researcher Lloyd35 investigates manifestations of informa-tion literacy in workplace settings, she finds that individuals becomeinformation literate without necessarily having interacted withlibrarians. Her work offers an alternative perspective on thecustomary practice of librarians imparting information literacy, andshe suggests considering the nature of how information literacy islearned, not necessarily how it is taught. She writes, “We need tounderstand how people experience and use information, the activitieswhich influence the judgements made about information in order tocome to know.”36 In selecting narrative examples for this paper, Ifound opportunities to re-examine and reconfigure understandings ofhow information literacy takes place in the “workplace” wheredoctoral candidates perform.

Hunting and gatheringThe phrase “information literacy” rarely occurred in doctoral

candidates' narratives, yet the construct was present. It appeared thatinformation literacy events were occurring throughout doctoralliterature reviewing as candidates articulated their methods forlocating, accumulating, critiquing, organizing, and synthesizingresearch literature. When they described the initial stages of huntingand gathering literature, student participants used terminology suchas “literature searching, database inquiries, scanning journals ofinterest, and preliminary literature reviews,”37 thereby signalling thatthey carried out literacy activities associated with informationliteracy. Themes of self-reliance and independent learning ranthroughout the candidates' narratives, regardless of whether theywere in early, middle, or advanced stages of candidature. Thesedoctoral students were intentional learners who preferred topersonalize their learning experiences as quickly as possible; formany, that meant developing basic information literacy skills in anearly phase and then continuing to teach themselves. An early-stageAustralian candidate illustrated that inclination.

I just started from getting into databases, and, now I can't remember how Iknew which ones to get into. I think [my university] provided an onlinetoolkit. And [my supervisor38] just suggested looking at that. I got in contactwith [the liaison librarian] as well, and then they suggested exploring thewebsite, getting into the library, having a bit of a swim around there and justworking out how to use it.39

Some research students recalled meeting with a librarian forconsultation in database selection and use, while most indicated apreference to seek literature independently using personalizedtechniques and “owning” the information/literature searching pro-cess. One described the dynamic process of hunting, gathering, andstaying on track.

In many ways it's very much a constructivist learning exercise. … I had apretty good feel for what had been written already before I even applied [tothe doctoral program]. And then as I've been going through the study as wellit's been a very dynamic process. It's not just a one-shot kind of thing becauseobviously new research is being released constantly and so I'm constantlytrying to stay up on what's been released since I began my study.40

Advanced students learn to identify key citations quickly fromreadings, and then they begin tracing footnotes, endnotes andbibliographies to build their own collections. Doctoral learners realize

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that becoming conversant in their research fields requires that theybecome familiar also with the ways that disciplinary conventions aretransmitted through citing practices. Of the participants, scienceresearchers more frequently expressed a tendency to make extensiveuse of the internet for gathering and disseminating research. Despitethe reservations that librarians and academics may have about thetrustworthiness of publications found by Googling, some doctoralresearchers indicated that they made efficient use of the searchengine, as this Australian science candidate explained.

Some authors are doing very similar stuff to myself, so once I've found out one[or] maybe a couple of papers, then I'll have a look at their name or might evenput their name into Google and see where they're based and what otherresearch they've done. … I could actually download all their papers at oncerather than going through the journals and finding them.41

This method of drawing from published researchers' reference listsis one strategy for targeting literature gathering to a specific field andits experts. At this stage, database searching is de-emphasized, andcitation tracing becomes a preferred strategy. Interviewed during thefirst year of candidature, an Australian postgraduate in sciencedescribed the technique of “looking at other references at the backof articles, working out where can I head from here.”42 For mostdoctoral students, footnote tracing or tracking citations backward andforward becomes the most efficient way of quickly building a body ofrelated readings,43 and eventually this technique is used as theprincipal strategy for building bibliographies.44 At the same time,students become more literate with the language and practices oftheir disciplines, in that “tracing footnotes allows student scholars todetermine their discipline's generational scope and to develop anunderstanding of the field and spheres of influence within it.”45

“For most doctoral students, footnote tracing ortracking citations backward and forwardbecomes the most efficient way of quicklybuilding a body of related readings, andeventually this technique is used as the

principal strategy for building bibliographies.”

Citation tracing, described by another student as “following achain,”46 enables doctoral candidates to gain a sense of theirdiscipline's research requirements and relate their projects to thework of senior researchers and others in their fields. Characteristicallyindependent, doctoral candidates from all disciplines indicated thatthey used the strategy of citation tracing to evaluate the quality ofsources and expand their bibliographies. Asked how he went aboutlearning to sort the wheat from the chaff, an American PhD candidateresponded,

Experience, I guess. … I think anytime something is cited in literature that I'vealready found to be useful, then, generally speaking, I'll give more weight tothat piece. That indicates that it may be more targeted to what I'm interestedin.47

It is important to note that, while these narrated reactionsindicated confidence in the cycle of locating, filtering, organizing,reflecting and synthesizing, most doctoral researchers developedtheir skills without direct instruction. By and large, doctoral studentparticipants did not express self doubt or any sense of deficiency inthe abilities to manage literature and the information literacy cycle. AsElmborg48 describes, they used the raw material of information to“create their own understandings.” Without acknowledging them-selves as information literate, student participants demonstrated aninformation literacy foundation derived from prior education and

research experience; developed independently; gained throughinteractions with mentors and peers; and assembled using acombination of such approaches.

I acknowledge that confidence with informational activities doesnot necessarily authenticate competence, a position capably argued,for example, by Buschman and Warner.49 However, if we are toundertake a more comprehensive account of learners' informationexperiences, their self-assurance in this regard merits closer exam-ination. Doctoral candidates' intentionality, their confidence withaccruing, appraising, and managing increasing bodies of literature–attributes requiring information literacy skills–arose in the study data,contradicting a facile presumption of information illiteracy.

Knowing when enough is enoughPerhaps the most telling indication of information literacy

competence can be found at the conclusion of the literature reviewprocess, when student scholars finally decide that they have gatheredenough literature. Establishing boundaries and finding the assuranceto say, “I have enough” demonstrate not only intellectual confidencebut also a mature understanding of disciplinary and methodologicalliteratures. Knowing when sufficient literature has been accumulatedcan be foremost on the minds of many doctoral candidates,particularly in the latter stages of dissertation writing; this decisionis as essential as knowing when to begin gathering resources.50

When asked, “How will you know when you have enoughliterature?” most respondents were perceptively amused. Each gavean individualized, situated answer, apparently having considered theendpoint of literature seeking and synthesizing. Candidates, aca-demics, and librarians consistently responded to this interviewquestion with some variation on “When saturation is reached.”Literature (and information) gathering ceased when the endeavor nolonger led to new information or materials.

An Australian candidate shared her experience of realizing that shewas able to define and declare boundaries on the literature review. Asshe was about to conclude her master's dissertation, she was given apacket of what might have been highly relevant literature. She choseinstead to trust her own judgment and stay the course towardcompletion.

[It's as if] you're never finished. The week I thought I was going to hand mymaster's in, I inherited a second supervisor. … And the second supervisor said,“I've just been to this fabulous conference,” and handed me an envelope ofpapers. I said, “I'm not even going to open that envelope.” She was reallyshocked. I went, “I can't read another thing; I'm not touching it.” I went ahead,and it was fine. … I think you have to say, “Enough is well,” don't you?51

As doctoral students progressively make decisions about thedirections their research and writing will take, they realize legitimateparticipation in their disciplinary, research, and practice communities.Their sense of empowerment increases, as this American sciencecandidate exemplified.

I'd say for me it's rather subjective. Now my advisor and some of the otherguys in my group probably have more focus on numbers [of citations]. But Ithink that … the best, concise writing is when you can be very specific. ... Andwhen you're specific and concise and you're referring to prior work, thenyou're really referring to one specific set of prior work. … I think the fact thatI've gotten some of [my] papers published … is proof at least I'm notcompletely off base.52

Insightful narratives that embed information literacy with litera-ture reviewing can be found in the theme “When do I have enough?”One response in particular stands out. An Australian educationcandidate near completion encapsulated the emotional and intellec-tual challenges inherent in this phase of literature reviewing. Herresponse related that she clearly understood where to establishboundaries and did so capably.

[You reach a] saturation point. … Basically you have to just do your best tocover everything, to have a well rounded, informative literature review thatcritiques, that you're engaged with it, and you just have to say at a certainpoint it's professional enough and be confident in your professional ability tosay, “No, that's enough.” That's a scary process for a lot of people.53

“In the context of my research, American andAustralian doctoral candidates found their own

solutions based on prior knowledge andexperience, self-confidence, and informed

judgment.”

Bruce54 carefully interrogates the graduate literature reviewprocess and concludes that delimiting the scope of the literaturereview “poses a significant dilemma to students, and further it is aproblem to which there are no cut and dried solutions.”55 OneAustralian candidate's response to the dilemma was, “There comes apoint at which you have to accept that you have what you have andmove forward or you're never going to get done.”56 In the context ofmy research, American and Australian doctoral candidates found theirown solutions based on prior knowledge and experience, self-confidence, and informed judgment.

SEEKING LEARNERS’ PERSPECTIVES

The information literacy–information illiteracy dichotomy oversim-plifies and misinterprets learners' apparent absence from sites ofinformation literacy instruction. Consequently, evaluating ourassumptions of who is and who is not information literate may be adifficult, but necessary, task. Doing so requires, as Lloyd57 suggests,rethinking how we identify information literate people and under-standing information literacy in learners' own terms. Elmborgproposes that we consider “new dimensions”58 in our conceptualiza-tions, language, and instructional practices; an initial step might be totake up critical questions of how people become information literateandwhether direct information literacy interventions are necessary inorder to prevent information illiteracy.

Advanced information literacy is achieved through practice andrehearsal, reflection, and the capacity to draw information, literature,and knowledge critically frommultiple sources in order to create newknowledge—the goal of doctoral research. Narrated experiencesgathered in the study illustrated ways in which some doctoralstudents articulated information literacy skills, regardless of whetherdirect interaction with librarians or instructional resources hadoccurred. Stories of seeking and using literature revealed that doctoralstudents used their own devices for situating information skills intoacademic expectations and research practices. Study findings led to anunderstanding of some learners as intentional, autonomous, andcapable of developing information literacy practices on their own.Admittedly, the American and Australian doctoral candidates in thestudy represented a privileged group, and study findings cannot begeneralized elsewhere. Rather, the intention is to offer theseinterpretations and examples in the effort to initiate conversationsaround our assumptions of information illiteracy and to questionwhether doctoral learners who have not received information literacyinstruction need be considered information illiterate.

Some learners deliberately chose or were disposed towardacquiring information literacy attributes independently, throughtrial and error, and with personalized learning tactics. In severalinstances, doctoral candidates interviewed for the study spoke ofcapably employing information literacy principles without namingthem as such. As knowing and strategic learners, they describedsophisticated engagements with information and research literature,

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using “literacy events”59 common to literature reviewing to learnskills of accruing, critiquing, organizing, and synthesizing thepublished research of others. Thus, drawing attention to doctoralcandidates' strategies for engaging with information and literatureencourages another view of students' prior knowledge, theirexperience, and the effect of information attributes that these learnersbring with them.60

If, among all our other charges and duties, we take up a criticalexamination of information literacy from the viewpoint of learners'authentic experiences, we may gain a deeper understanding of howlearners experience the information literacy continuum. And we willdeliberately expose ourselves to challenging–yet potentially rich–areas of practice, theory, and researchwherein wemay reconsider ournotions of information illiteracy.

“If, among all our other charges and duties, wetake up a critical examination of information

literacy from the viewpoint of learners’authentic experiences, we may gain a deeperunderstanding of how learners experience the

information literacy continuum.”

Acknowledgments: The author thanks David F. Kohl, Editor inChief of JAL, for his encouragement and thoughtful suggestions onearlier drafts of this paper.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Cushla Kapitzke, “Information Literacy: A Review and Poststruc-tural Critique,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 26, 1(2003): 53-66; Christine Pawley, “Hegemony's Handmaid? TheLibrary and Information Studies Curriculum from a Class Perspec-tive,” Library Quarterly 68, 2 (1998): 123-144; and ChristinePawley, “Information Literacy: A Contradictory Coupling,” LibraryQuarterly 73, 4 (2003): 422-452.

2. Edward K. Owusu-Ansah, “Information Literacy and the AcademicLibrary: A Critical Look at a Concept and the ControversiesSurrounding It,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 29, 4 (2003):219–230.

3. Rosemary Green and Peter Macauley, “Doctoral Students' Engage-ment with Information: An American-Australian Perspective,”portal: Libraries and the Academy 7, 3 (2007): 317–322.

4. Rosemary Green, “American and Australian Doctoral LiteratureReviewing Practices and Pedagogies,” (PhD dissertation, DeakinUniversity, 2009).

5. David Bawden, “Information and Digital Literacies: A Review ofConcepts,” Journal of Documentation 57, 2 (2001): 218-259; andLoanne Snavely and Natasha Cooper, “The Information LiteracyDebate,” Journal of Academic Librarianship, 23, 1 (1997): 9-20. Theauthors review current debates surrounding the meanings anddefinitions of information literacy; theymention and contextualizethe “opposite of literacy—illiteracy,” Bawden, p. 222.

6. Green.7. Over the course of thirteen months, I conducted interviews withfive American and six Australian librarians, eight American and tenAustralian doctoral candidates, and six American and sevenAustralian doctoral advisors.

8. Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, The Discovery of GroundedTheory; Strategies for Qualitative Research (New York: De Gruyter,1967); Michael Q. Patton, Qualitative Evaluation and ResearchMethods, 3rd ed. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2002).

318 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

9. Owusu-Ansah.10. Green, p. 161.11. Ibid.12. Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Information

Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (Chicago:American Library Association, 2000). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standards.pdf (July 1, 2009);and Alan Bundy, ed., Australian and New Zealand InformationLiteracy Framework: Principles, Standards and Practice (ANZIIL, 2nded. (Adelaide: Australian and New Zealand Institute for Informa-tion Literacy, 2004). Available: http://www.anziil.org/resources/Info%20lit%202nd%20edition.pdf (July 1, 2009).

13. Kapitzke, “Information Literacy: A Review.”14. Shilpa Shanbhag, “Door-in-the-Face: Understandings of Scholar-

ship for Academic Instruction Librarians,” Library Philosophy andPractice 10 (June 2007): Available: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/shanbhag2.pdf (October 20, 2007), para 12.

15. Rolf Norgaard, “Writing Information Literacy: Contributions to aConcept,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 43, 2 (2003): 126.

16. Green and Macauley, p. 320.17. Glenn E. Mensching and Teresa B. Mensching, eds. Coping with

Information Illiteracy: Bibliographic Instruction for the InformationAge,” Papers presented at the Seventeenth National LOEX LibraryInstruction Conference (Ann Arbor MI: Pierian Press, 1989).

18. Christen Thompson, “Information Illiterate or Lazy: How CollegeStudents Use the Web for Research,” portal: Libraries and theAcademy 3, 2 (2003): 259–268.

19. Green and Macauley, p. 320. For examples, see Wendy Abbott andDianne Selzer, “Getting Connected, Getting Ahead: DevelopingResearch Students' Information Skills in an Online LearningEnvironment” (paper presented at the Lifelong Learning Confer-ence, Central Queensland University, Yeppoon, Australia, June 16–19, 2002); and Bruce E. Winston and Dail L. Fields, “DevelopingDissertation Skills of Doctoral Students in an Internet-BasedEducation Curriculum: A Case Study,” American Journal of DistanceEducation 17, 3 (2003): 161–72.

20. Pali U. Kuruppu and Anne Marie Gruber, “Understanding theInformation Needs of Academic Scholars in Agricultural and Bio-logical Sciences,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 32, 6 (2006): 620.

21. Green, p. 167.22. Ibid., p. 168.23. Ibid., p. 166.24. Ibid., p. 167.25. Ibid.26. Peter Macauley, “Menace, Missionary Zeal or Welcome Partner?

Librarian Involvement in the Information Literacy of DoctoralResearchers,” New Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning 2(2001): 58.

27.Mike Rose, “The Language of Exclusion,” College English 47, 4(1985): 354.

28. Sandra G. Yee, “Information Literacy Skills: How Students LearnThem andWhy,” in Coping with Information Illiteracy: BibliographicInstruction for the Information Age. Papers presented at theSeventeenth National LOEX Library Instruction Conference, eds.Glenn E. Mensching & Teresa B. Mensching, 43-48, Ann Arbor:Pierian Press, 1989): 44.

29. Pawley, “Information Literacy,” p. 425.30. Christine Bruce, The Seven Faces of Information Literacy, Adelaide:

Auslib Press, (1997): 158.31. Paolo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the World and

the Word, (South Hadley MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1987); Ira Shor,Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1992).

32. Rolf Norgaard, “Writing Information Literacy: Contributions to aConcept,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 43, 2 (2003): 126.

33. Kimmo Tuominen, Reijo Savolainen, and Sanna Talja, “InformationLiteracy as Sociotechnical Practice,” Library Quarterly 75, 3 (2005):341.

34. Alan Luke and Cushla Kapitzke, “Literacies and Libraries: Archivesand Cybraries,” Pedagogy, Culture & Society 7, 3 (1999): 467–491.

35. Anne Lloyd, “Information Literacy Landscapes: An EmergingPicture,” Journal of Documentation 62, 5 (2006): 570–583.

36. Ibid., p. 580.37. Green, p. 169.38. Australian doctoral advisors are known as “supervisors.”39.Green, p. 170.40. Ibid., p. 171.41. Ibid., p. 171-172.42. Ibid., p. 172.43. Carole George and others, Scholarly Use of Information: Graduate

Students' Information Seeking Behavior (Pittsburg PA: CarnegieMellon University Libraries, 2006). Available: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=carole_george (August 18, 2006).

44. Green and Macauley.45. Ibid., p. 325.46. Green, p. 173.47. Ibid., p. 172-173.48. James Elmborg, “Critical Information Literacy: Implications for

Instructional Practice,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 32, 2(2006): 198.

49. John Buschman and Dorothy A. Warner, “Research and Shaping

Information Literacy Initiatives in Relation to the Web: SomeFramework Problems and Needs,” Library Quarterly 31, 1 (2005):12–18.

50. ACRL Standard Three, outcomes 4.a. and 7.a. state, “Determines iforiginal information need has been satisfied or if additionalinformation is needed,” (p.12). ANZIIL Standard Three, example3.3 makes the same statement.

51. Green, p. 177.52. Ibid.53. Ibid., p. 178.54. Christine Bruce, “When Enough is Enough: Or How Should

Research Students Delimit the Scope of Their Literature Review?”in Challenging the Conventional Wisdom in Higher Education:Selected Contributions presented at the Nineteenth Annual NationalConference and Twenty-First Birthday Celebration of the HigherEducation Research and Development Society of Australasia, eds.Greg Ryan, Penny Little, and Ian Dunn, 435-439 (Sydney:University of New South Wales, 1994); and Christine Bruce,“Interpreting the Scope of Their Literature Reviews: SignificantDifferences in Research Students' Concerns,” New Library World,102, 4 (2001): 158-166.

55. Bruce “When Enough is Enough,” p. 435.56. Green, p. 177.57. Lloyd.58. Elmborg, p. 193.59. Ibid., p. 195.60. Green and Macauley.

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