Thinking Bigger: Information Culture Literacy

James W.Marcum, PhD

Queens College GSLIS, City University of new York

INFORMATION LITERACY: LEGACY AND PROMISE

Achievements: IL lectures and presentations Courses Core requirements Accreditation expectations Adoption as basic human right (UNESCO)

Criticisms Too narrow (academic/library) About ‘information’ and the internet Lack of agreement about its “name” Lack of support administrative; invisible

Amazon: Top (selling) 55 books on IL 13 Teaching and instruction ~ 5 Effectiveness Assessment Student engagement Offering IL Online Improving IL services (and thereby the library)

NOT MUCH ABOUT SUCH LITERACIES AS: Media, Visual, Multi-media, Network, ICT

OR SUCH TOPICS AS: Multi-cultural, Self-knowledge, Career preparation realities,

Knowledge-building,

SELF-IMPOSED LIMITATIONS OF IL Locked in to traditional educational practice

Information search and use Instruction based Content transfer – generic Some skill development – generic Push paradigm: what’s known to those who don’t

yet… When what’s needed is

Learning based Learning and research methods (for “discovery”) Pull the information and knowledge to where it is

needed Contextual skills needed by individual or group

So, where does IL stand? NAME? IL, ITL, ITC, Info Fluency, Media ,

Visual??

BIGGER: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

CHALLENGES: Information Culture Literacy

Libraries, especially those in academe, must be prepared to deal with several major issues already visible today: Networks: not yet utilizing their power The New Knowledge; just Big Data? Media and Visual Literacy 21st Century Skills Open Education Reading and Research Corporate challenge over intellectual content

Each challenge also provides an opportunity for IL practitioners and their sponsoring libraries

CHALLENGES: NETWORKS

Ongoing Transformation: What REALLy characterizes our ‘age’?

-Network(Communication)

-Learning(Developmen

t)

Ongoing Transformation : What characterizes our ‘age’?

-Network(Communication)

-Learning(Developmen

t)

Challenge: New Knowledge

Parallelcomputing

Field Research

Big Bang

Theory

CLOUD COMPUTING

Stem-cell

 

  

 

 

Genomesequencin

g

“A visual culture is taking over the world”

Our literacy and communication skills in decline Not dealing with the visual ecology/telematic

embrace• Factors: (beyond media, MTV, entertainment)

Design replacing planning and freelancing Architecture, fashion, or new initiatives

Slow death of newspaper/print culture John Naisbitt, Mind Set! (2006): 113-155.

Morphing images: How can you trust …?

Visualizing top US population centers

Visua

l

Telecomm

Print

ALL

SEPARATE

21st Century Skills Information, Media, Technology

Information, Media, ICT Literacy Life and Career Skills

Adaptability Initiative Accountability Leadership

Learning and Innovation Skills Creativity and Innovation Crtical Thinking and Problem Solving Communication and Collaboration

(Consultants, Associations over “professors”

CORPORATE / MEDIA POWER

BIG

GAP

ICT / MEDIA

CORPORATE CULTURE

INFORMATION CULTURE (IC)Not yet an established term, concept

Some intenational definitions and approaches Not “information society” (ITL) but “information

culture” encompasses “social, cultural, and economic transformations” * Gendina, Info. Culture in Information Society

From culture of information to “informational culture,” ie from search, use of information to empowerment to participaten today’s IC; empowered to the new “life”

Y. Maury, University of Artois

IC as librarians’ space we “do not own;” blogs and social media a essential today, so IC belongs to the young

O. Le Deuff, Bordeaux

IL socially constructed, trial and error, learn from practice

A. Lloyd, Australia

Getting Beyond Instruction

Authority figure

Passive learning

Faculty-focused

Discipline-

determined

Context-free

Grades as purpose

TO INQUIRY &DISCOVERY

Research

COMMUNITIE

S

OF PRATICE

Inquiry

Identity

LIBRARY ReGENESIS Developing new roles beyond

Information artifacts Study places Community gatherings IL for everyday information (community, jobs,

health) To bigger visions:

Collaborative knowledge creation (Lankes) Experiential Learning Centers of Learning

Literacies, from Reading to Research … to Library College of Inquiry and Discovery

PERSONAL INFORMATION CULTUREIncludes one’s “personal outlook”(motivation, system

of knowledge and skills), autonomous interaction for successful professional engagement.

N. Gendina, Kemerovo Research Insititute, Kuzbas, Russia

Move beyond “search and use” information to Utilizing the power of the Network to create

“systems” identifying expertise, skills, experience available “everywhere” and deliverable “anywhere”

Supporting development of identity and life planning as the foundation of Personal information Culture

Utilizing informal learning as well as formal Open Education (not just Open Access) DIY U

Informatorium

Research and development for a newgeneration space of information culture• Hyperintegrated space for every aspects of information culture• Tools, services, activities, communities• Dissemination, exhibition, incubation, training• Simultaneously working space, demonstrationspace and event venue• Visitors, students, teachers, researchers, decision makers, public servants, businessmen

University of SzegedHungarian IFAP Committee

László Z. KARVALICShttp://www.ifapcom.ru/files/News/Images/2012/mil/

Karvalics.pdf

LIBRARY COLLEGE OF INQUIRY AND DISCOVERY (LCID)

Interface for participation: Local “tutors” (for novices)

Linked to other “expertise” (scholars/academicians) to serve the next level of “literates” needing direction

Utilizing the valuable resources already gathered and made available (increasing the value)

Profession create its own “documenting/ credentialing” program as is common in “professional development”

Formal, for credit AND informal learning

TWO PATHS for LIS DEGREE PATH: Bachelors, Masters, Doctorates

PATH addressing the challenges of INFORMATION CULTURE and not just “access and use” Networks: not yet utilizing their power The New Knowledge; just Big Data? Media and Visual Literacy 21st Century Skills Open Education Reading and Research Corporate challenge over intellectual content

TOO BIG for our traditional practice (Weinberger)

The METHODOLOGY is Available Guided Inquiry:

Rich learning environment Intervention, at critical moment Frequent feedback Assessment Connects learning to students’ “life,” interests,

goals, questions C. Kuhlthau, et al. (2007) Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st

Century.

But don’t have to stop at IL/Learning divide