Traditional library practice focuses on print collections and developing collections of materials that have been published, which means the documents have gone through some kind of review or vetting process.This practice leaves a wide swath of potential knowledge out of the collection. For example, indigenous knowledge, beliefs, and experience are different, in that they do not undergo the same review or vetting process; we might refer to these types of content as wisdom. Non-print collections, such as collections of recorded oral histories, represent less traditional forms of knowledge. Human libraries push the boundaries further in the quest to integrate wisdom and lived experience into library collections. This paper delineates the relationship between wisdom and knowledge that arose during a phenomenological study of the everyday information practices of Kenyan university women. The women were asked to photograph everyday events from their life and describe what they saw. One finding was a divergent presentation of wisdom and knowledge. Because the women were describing this in relation to their education, we assert that this demonstrates a need to reconsider positivist assumptions in library science, bringing what the women called wisdom into the stacks. How, though, can wisdom be stored and shared?
This paper reports on Kenyan university women’s relation of two concepts: knowledge and wisdom. Their uses of these terms suggest a need to reconsider traditional knowledge (TK) in librarians’ practice in information literacy programs as a means to reduce the disjuncture between the dominant educational practices and wisdom, or TK.Cette communication porte sur la relation des femmes universitaires kényanes avec deux concepts : la connaissance et la sagesse. Leur utilisation de ces termes suggère un besoin de reconsidérer la connaissance traditionnelle dans les pratiques des bibliothécaires relativement aux programmes de maîtrise de l’information afin de réduire la disjonction entre les pratiques pédagogiques dominantes et la sagesse, ou la connaissance traditionnelle.
A social constructionist methodology was used to explore how Kenyan women university students interact with information in everyday life. Focus was on how participants interpret experiences within the historical, cultural, and material spaces they inhabit. Methods used were linguistics pragmatics, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Conceptual implications for information literacy are discussed.Une méthodologie sociale constructioniste est utilisée pour explorer comment les étudiantes universitaires kenyanes interagissent avec l’information au quotidien. Nous avons insisté sur les façons dont les participantes interprètent leurs expériences dans les espaces historiques, culturels et matériels où elles habitent. Les méthodologies utilisées comprennent la pragmatique linguistique, la phénoménologie et l’herméneutique. Nous discutons finalement de leurs implications sur la maîtrise de l’information.
In the alleged information society, providing access to ICT purportedly will enable people, in all walks of life, to actively participate across multiple realms of social, economic, and political life. However, ICT initiatives in Kenya have not necessarily promoted ideal participation in an information society. Emphasis on ICT in IL policy and initiatives has undermined research about what information people identify as relevant, and how and why people interact with information. The research has explored IL as the counterpart of information practice, or institutionalized information-related activity. Understanding information practices requires an understanding of the sociocultural and historical practices. A combination of content, phenomenological, and hermeneutical methods have been used to explore how Kenyan women university students interact with information in everyday life, including what they identify as relevant, how objects gain meaning in relation to each other, and how discourses emerge to enable meaningful communication. Findings have indicated the importance of people as sources of wisdom, interaction as a relevant process of cultural learning, the importance of physical proximity to a source, the preeminence of the book as knowledge, and the use of ICT in walks of life beyond educational and profession. Overall, findings have suggested the need for IL research and policy in Kenya to consider how a range of information practices enable information to be recognized and shared, in ways that create new ways of knowing.
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