The Great (?) Debate: Is Information Literacy A Fad And A Waste Of Time
One of the most interesting programs at the 2006 ALA Annual Conference promised to be the "great debate" on the resolution “Information Literacy is a Fad and Waste of Librarians’ Time and Talent”. As you can imagine, having devoted as much of my career to information literacy as I have, I felt rather invested in the subject.
I was only able to attend part of the program because I had to leave for the airport. I was, however, impressed by the opening comments by the two speakers who supported the proposition (i.e., the two anti-information-literacy speakers who supported the idea that information literacy was a fad and a waste of time). This may seem wrong-headed given my reasons for being drawn to the debate. Both Stanley Wilder and Jeffrey Rutenbeck, however, had telling things to say on how we have formulated and used the concept of "information literacy" and its relevance to developing information environments. Wilder is, of course, the author of a well-known piece questioning the concept of "information literacy." Rutenbeck, on the other hand, does not seem to have published on the subject.
The most telling point was the simple observation that no other professional organization within academia has endorsed the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Indeed, it appears that no academic discipline outside of library science have even approached information literacy as a topic for serious research.
I was also fascinated by what Rutenbeck had to say about "information literacy" as a culturally bound concept and one approached with missionary like zeal. I guess I should say here that "missionary" is meant in the worse possible sense of the word: "you will be a better person if only you will do precisely what my group believes a better person should do"
The comments crystallized many of my own concerns about "information literacy." I am convinced that the time has come to rethink the concept and to remove it from the parochial concerns of librarianship. I do, however, strongly believe that within "information literacy" there are ideas and concerns that can elicit broad academic support and should be the focus of serious research in a wide range of disciplines.
The link to an article from ACRLog on the debated may be found here:
The Great (?) Debate: Is Information Literacy A Fad And A Waste Of Time
---Paul Beavers
I was only able to attend part of the program because I had to leave for the airport. I was, however, impressed by the opening comments by the two speakers who supported the proposition (i.e., the two anti-information-literacy speakers who supported the idea that information literacy was a fad and a waste of time). This may seem wrong-headed given my reasons for being drawn to the debate. Both Stanley Wilder and Jeffrey Rutenbeck, however, had telling things to say on how we have formulated and used the concept of "information literacy" and its relevance to developing information environments. Wilder is, of course, the author of a well-known piece questioning the concept of "information literacy." Rutenbeck, on the other hand, does not seem to have published on the subject.
The most telling point was the simple observation that no other professional organization within academia has endorsed the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Indeed, it appears that no academic discipline outside of library science have even approached information literacy as a topic for serious research.
I was also fascinated by what Rutenbeck had to say about "information literacy" as a culturally bound concept and one approached with missionary like zeal. I guess I should say here that "missionary" is meant in the worse possible sense of the word: "you will be a better person if only you will do precisely what my group believes a better person should do"
The comments crystallized many of my own concerns about "information literacy." I am convinced that the time has come to rethink the concept and to remove it from the parochial concerns of librarianship. I do, however, strongly believe that within "information literacy" there are ideas and concerns that can elicit broad academic support and should be the focus of serious research in a wide range of disciplines.
The link to an article from ACRLog on the debated may be found here:
The Great (?) Debate: Is Information Literacy A Fad And A Waste Of Time
---Paul Beavers
posted by Anonymous at
9:58 AM
1 Comments:
Great synopsis, Paul!
By
Unknown, at 12:43 PM
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