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Information Literacy for 21st Century life Sheila Webber, Department of Information Studies: the iSchool University of Sheffield, UK Oeiras a Ler conference May 2010 Pictures and photo copyright Sheila Webber un Pictures & photos copyright Sheila Webber unless otherwise stated

Information Literacy for 21st Century life

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This presentation was given by Sheila Webber at the Oeiras a Ler conference held at Oeiras Municipal Library, Portugal, on 20 May 2010 ( http://oeiras-a-ler.blogspot.com/search/label/Encontro%20Oeiras%20a%20Ler). I identify some of the different ways in which various groups of people experience information and information literacy (IL) in the 21st Century, with reference to 21st Century research. I go on to discuss some of the key aspects of IL that need more attention. I see these elements as evolutionary development of IL as a 21st Century concept, not as something completely new and different.

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Page 1: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Information

Literacy for 21st

Century life

Sheila Webber,

Department of Information Studies: the iSchool

University of Sheffield, UK

Oeiras a Ler conference

May 2010

Pictures and photo copyright Sheila Webber unPictures & photos copyright Sheila Webber unless otherwise stated

Page 2: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information

Literacy for

21st Century

life

Page 3: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information

Literacy for

21st

Century

life

Page 4: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

“Information literacy is the

adoption of appropriate

information behaviour to

identify, through whatever

channel or medium, information

well fitted to information needs,

leading to wise and ethical use

of information in society.”

Definition by:

Johnston &

Webber

International Information

Literacy logo: http://infolitglobal.info/logo/en/home

Page 5: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

information behaviour

whatever

channel or medium

information needs

wise and

ethical use of information

in society

encountering

linking

searching

creating

browsing

people web

journals

sound

pictures

text

education

workfamily

citizen

fun

spiritual

Page 6: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Behaving with information in an

information literate manner….

But what is information?

Page 7: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Information: preteens

Other young

people

Adults

Instant Message

Email

Telephone

Television

Radio

Books

Magazines

Websites

Search engines

Organisations

Meyers, E. Fisher, K. and

Marcoux, E. (2009) “Making

sense of an information

worlds: the everyday life

information behaviour of preteens.” Library Quarterly, 79 (3), 301–341

“a tween might

consult a peer, who

recommends a

Web site, which is

vetted by a parent,

and ultimately they

together consult a

store professional.”

(p317)

“in nineteen of twenty-

five [searches] …

tweens used another

person as the primary

or secondary source of

information” (p317)

school , bus, shopping mall, sports fields, parks, home, churches , libraries , restaurants, shops

Page 8: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Information: ambulancemen

Lloyd, A. (2009) “Informing

practice: information

experiences of ambulance

officers in training and on-

road practice.” Journal of

Documentation, 65 (3),

396-419

• training manuals

• books,

• written rules

• protocols

•Colleagues

•Trainers

Bodies/ people/ environment

• Sound

• Speech

• Touch

• Appearance

• MovementPatientsTe

xt

“you don’t really know what’s happening until you get your hands on the patient and can see breathing, feel a pulse, what’s the blood pressure, are they pale?” (p409)

Pics: Microsoft clip art

Page 9: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

"An information literate person has a deep

awareness, connection, and fluency with the

information environment. Information literate people

are engaged, enabled, enriched and embodied by

social, procedural and physical information that

constitutes an information universe. Information

literacy is a way of knowing that universe."

Lloyd (2004: 223)

Page 10: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Information: SL

Virtual World (Second Life (SL):

My students have researched

people’s information behaviour in SL

• Sound

• Speech

• Appearance

• Movement

See: Webber, 2010

Page 11: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

“a wiki might give an

example of a piece of code,

but a blog may tell us a

story of how the author

came up with it” (Interviewee3 08/09)

“Much of my information came from talking to people, asking questions, finding what they had done” (I3 07/08)

People

Instant Message

Discussion list

Face to face in SL

Face to face outside

Email

Twitter

Facebook

Information: SL

• Books

• Journals

• Websites

• Wikis

• Blogs

• Search

engines in SL

•Search engines

outside SL

• Your own files

• SL Shops

Page 12: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information literacy … and graphic novels

Neill, M. (2008) Graphic

novels: a young man’s

superhero or the library’s

contemporary villain. MA

thesis. Sheffield: UoS.

“The text is a lot easier, simpler, short,

snappy, but you are looking at the

pictures and making sense of them,

applying the language to them. It sets

you thinking a bit more. “ (Interviewee 9)

Another Masters

student (Caddy,

2009) found that

most UK public

libraries arranged

graphic novels and

comics in no

particular order!

Page 13: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information Literacy … and computer games

Gumulak, S. (2009) Video

games: the way to attract

teenagers into the library.

MA thesis. Sheffield: UoS.

“I learned all about

camping, how to

light a fire. “

(Interviewee IIb12)

“ye I go back and

start the level again

to see if I missed

anything then I

read it is it says

anything for help. “

(Interviewee

XIIg12)

• Text boxes

• Game

environment

• Non player

characters

• Game booklet

& box

• Friends and

family

• Walkthru sites

(last resort)

•Review sites

•Search engines

•Forums

•Websites

Players try hard to

work out the

answer without

googling for a

walkthru

Browsing, searching,

evaluating, applying

Page 14: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information literacy … and schoolchildren“The pupils became aware of the

importance of developing effective

research skills and evaluating both

information and their completed

piece of work.

The pupils learned about a world

religion.

They were sensitive to the religious

and moral issues of a religion.

They were also aware of the various

religions within the class and used

their peers as educators.”

Source: Learning and Teaching Scotland. (2009) Craigholme

Primary - Researching world religions. Glasgow.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/informationliteracy/

sharingpractice/index.asp

Page 15: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information literacy … and schoolchildrenInformation literacy for children who

cannot yet read e.g.

• Told they must answer a question

“why is dark necessary”

• Told a story about an owl (which

contains the answer)

• Children draw pictures to answer

the question

• Choose an animal that comes out

at night

• Teacher reads out information

about chosen animal

• Children decide which fact is most

interestingSource: Irving, C. (2010) Begin at the

beginning - Information and Critical Literacy in

Curriculum for Excellence Early & First Level

(Nursery & Primary Schools).

http://www.slideshare.net/cirving/begin-at-the-

beginning-information-and-critical-literacy-in-

curriculum-for-excellence-early-first-level-

nursery-primary-schools

Page 16: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information literacy … and school librarians

• Shahd Salha’s PhD research

• Syrian school librarians’ conceptions of IL

• Life & spiritual conception for some

Page 17: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Information Literacy … with and for other people

• Lay Information Mediary Behavior (LIMB) (Abrahamson , 2008) “those who seek information in a non-professional or lay capacity on behalf or because of others, without necessarily being asked to do so, or engaging in follow-up.”

• People work in teams in their jobs and in education;

+++ therefore +++

• Library patrons need to develop skills for their everyday lives:

– Being good at identifying, and articulating, information needs

– Collaborating without cheating (for school/ university work)

– Managing information flows between themselves and others

– Creating shared documents and shared information spaces

Page 18: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

http://pewresearch.org/

millennials/quiz/intro.php

It appears

that I am

“millennial”

I’m not sure

that all my

“millennial”

students are

millennial …

High use of

facebook,

low use of

blogs, online

gaming

Not just technology

Page 19: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Example 1: Man sacked for

sending tweet saying he

would blow up an airport

(when angry and stranded at

an airport)

Wilson, C. (2010) “Top ten twitter disasters: a lot can go wrong in 140

chaarcters as this lot found out.” Mirror . 10 May.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-10s/2010/05/10/top-10-twitter-disasters-a-

lot-can-go-wrong-in-140-characters-as-this-lot-found-out-115875-22248690/

Example 2: Facebook users

could see the chat sessions of

their friends through a

facebook error.Perez, J. (2010) “Facebook blunder lets friends get too close: IM service taken down

before bug is patched.” Computer world UK. 6 May.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/online/new-

media/news/index.cfm?newsid=20145

But

technology

can grab

people’s

attention

Page 20: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Summary: Key themes

• Importance of people sources: knowing how to be

information literate with people

– When to trust people as information sources

– Good ways to “search” and “browse” different kinds of

people (e.g. teacher, friend, employer, unknown expert)

– Comparing people sources with other sources

– Working with people to share and create information

Page 21: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

• Web 2.0 may be “hook” to attract, but people

need “old-fashioned” face-to-face skills too

• More education for collaborative information

literacy e.g. co-creating documents and

websites; working on

information tasks together;

“family” information literacy

sessions

Page 22: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Key themes

• People are following complex paths to find their answers

– Moving between people, websites, print media, physical spaces (shops or libraries), broadcast media etc.

– Includes using technology to ask questions and contribute opinions

– Are there good paths for particular kinds of information need?

– Path includes steps where people create as well as consume

Pic

s: M

icro

soft

clip

art

Page 23: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Key themes

• Helping people see the information literacy in everyday situations

• Drawing out and developing skills in gaming & in reading “visual” texts

• “Learners do not separate out vocational learning from personal social development” (Scottish public library study, Crawford 2010)

• Learning to “read” information through all the senses (like an ambulance worker, or a person in a virtual world, or a child who cannot read …)

Page 24: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Not just employability and literacy

• Information literacy

for having a good life

(whatever that means

to you)

• More than

empowering

people to be “good

citizens”

Quotation from interview for research

by Webber, Boon & Johnston

Page 25: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010Quotation from interview for research by Webber, Boon & Johnston

Page 26: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010Quotation from interview for research by Shahd Salha

Page 27: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

Sheila Webber, May 2010

Sheila Webber

[email protected]

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/

http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/

Sheila Yoshikawa

Page 28: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

References• Abrahamson, J. et al. (2008). “Lay information mediary behavior uncovered: exploring

how nonprofessionals seek health information for themselves and others online.”

Journal of the Medical Library Association, 96(4), 310-323. See also

http://ibec.ischool.washington.edu/limb/

• Caddy, E. (2009) An investigation into the opinions of public library staff on how and

where a graphic, comic, and cartoon collection should be shelved. MA thesis. Sheffield:

University of Sheffield• Crawford, J. (2010) Information literacy in employability training: the experience of

Inverclyde Libraries: evaluating a training programme. Presentation from LILAC conference. http://www.slideshare.net/cirving/information-literacy-in-employability-training-the-experience-of-inverclyde-libraries-evaluating-a-training-programme

• Erdelez, S. (1999) “Information encountering: it's more than just bumping into information.” Bulletin of the American Association for Information Science [Online], 25 (3), 25-29. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/erdelez.html

• Gumulak, S. (2009) Video games: the way to attract teenagers into the library. MA

thesis. Sheffield: University of Sheffield

• Learning and Teaching Scotland. (2009) Information Literacy: sharing practice.

Glasgow. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/informationliteracy/sharingpractice/index.asp

Page 29: Information Literacy for 21st Century life

References• Lloyd, A. (2009) “Informing practice: information experiences of ambulance officers in

training and on-road practice.” Journal of Documentation, 65 (3), 396-419

• Lloyd, A (2004) “Working (in)formation: conceptualizing information literacy in the workplace” In Proceedings of 3rd International Life Long Learning Conference, 13-16 June. Rockhampton: Central Queensland University Press. 218-224.

• Meyers, E. Fisher, K. and Marcoux, E. (2009) “Making sense of an information worlds:

the everyday life information behaviour of preteens.” Library Quarterly, 79 (3), 301–341

• Neill, M. (2008) Graphic novels: a young man’s superhero or the library’s contemporary

villain. MA thesis. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.

• Reddy, M. and Spence, P. (2008) “Collaborative information seeking: A field study of a

multidisciplinary patient care team” Information Processing & Management 44 (1), 242-

255.

• Scottish Information Literacy Project: http://www.gcu.ac.uk/ils/

• Webber, S. (2010) Information literate behaviour in Second Life.

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/information-literate-behaviour-in-second-life-

3469465