Reconnecting Information Literacy Policy with the Core Values of Librarianship

Abstract

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared October of that year to be National Information Literacy Awareness Month and issued a proclamation stating that "an informed and educated citizenry is essential to the functioning of our modern democratic society." The Obama proclamation's emphasis on information literacy's role in education and democracy makes it akin to the 2005 Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. In both of these documents, information literacy is located at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use, and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational, and educational goals. These two documents are powerful and inspiring to many academic librarians because they are reminders of the broader social context and democratic initiatives within their work. Inspiring as these documents are, they can also be intimidating and overwhelming: how can we help create an informed and educated citizenry or help our students meet technological, economic, and social challenges, to redress disadvantage and to advance the well-being of all? This article is not an attempt to provide answers to these questions but a call to move these questions to the fore of our policy and pedagogical discussions. By revisiting seminal documents like the Alexandria Proclamation, the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, and the American Library Association's (ALA) Core Values of Librarianship, we argue that information literacy is full of possibilities to explore rather than problems to be solved. To this end, we summon discussions of Appreciative Inquiry and critical information literacy and foreground the ALA Core Values as ways to reengage with the possibilities and potentials within information literacy to meet larger social goals.

The SEA-change Model in Information Literacy: Assessing Information Literacy Development with Reflective Writing

“…It has enabled a structured approach to dealing with the complexity of information. (Jacobs & Berg, 2011), and has been useful in highlighting the student learning, problem solving and critical reflective thinking (Oakleaf, 2008).…”

“…The ACRL standards themselves have also been criticised for promoting a skills-based conception of information literacy that does not address the complexity of the social use of information. (Jacobs & Berg, 2011). …”

“…Students' reflections have also demonstrated how they have developed their approaches to the research process, an increased understanding of the library resources available to them and an enhanced understanding of the value of information literacy (Lehlafi, Rushton & Stretton, 2012). Jacobs and Berg (2011) recommend that IL educators focus on developing critical consciousness in students about their use of information to support their own learning, and that this enables us to align the pedagogy of IL with both constructivist ideals and also with the ideals espoused by the Alexandria proclamation that place IL at the heart of lifelong learning. The use of reflective assessments aligns closely with these recommendations and ideals.…”

Empowering Students to Make Sense of an Information Saturated World: The Evolution of Information Searching and Analysis

“…His "problematizing" method of education fits perfectly into the course's philosophy, a sentiment found with some frequency in the literature on critical information literacy (Jacobs & Berg, 2011;Elmborg, 2006;Swanson, 2004). As noted earlier, Friere uses the "fish out of water" analogy to get students to question what they know about the world.…”

“…The term "literacy" implies deficit, and I regard this phrase as a poor way to frame the issue for students (Jacobs & Berg, 2011). My idea is to help students become aware of and begin to master the traps of today's digital information environment.…”