Informed bodies: Does the corporeal experience matter to information literacy practice?

Bodies are central to the information experience, but are not often accounted for as a source of information, that is central to the information literacy experience. Based on research with emergency services personnel and with nurses, this chapter explores the role of the body as a locus for understanding and meaning-making. Drawing from a sociocultural perspective, the author suggests that the concept of information experience as a stand-alone conception is meaningless. A solution is to acknowledge the referencing of embodied experience against social conditions and ways of knowing that inform peoples’ experience of practice, as located within the body. Key questions for researchers considering an information experience approach are posed

What information-related activities do people with ESKD use?

Background Information practice is an emerging area of research that seeks to reveal how people learn to connect with the complex multimodal information landscapes that informs their ability to make decisions. Previous research has identified that people with end stage kidney disease (ESKD) tend to adopt a ‘received’ or ‘engaged’ view of information but little is known about the activities of information practice. Objectives This research project sought to identify the: i) information-related activities; and ii) how information is used. Methods Using a constructivist qualitative methodology, ten people with ESKD living in a large metropolitan city were purposively selected and interviewed. Data was subject to thematic analysis by researchers from nursing and information science. Saturation of themes was achieved. Results Participants were between 38 and 72 years, had been receiving kidney replacement therapy from 2 weeks to 31 years. Eight participants reported having access to the internet but none participated in chat rooms. The activities were conceptualized into themes as listening, seeking, searching, sharing and observing. These activities enabled people to create, reflect on and evaluate the information needed to inform their decision-making Conclusion/Application to Clinical Practice The information practice research approach will enable a better understanding of the underlying relationship between information, knowledge and experience to be better understood. For renal nurses who are involved in patient education being able to recognise the way people use information will assist in individualizing educational sessions and tailoring teaching strategies to make it more meaningful

Fractured academic space: Digital literacy and the COVID- 19 pandemic

Purpose: The study focussed on information literacy practices, specifically on how higher education staff managed the transition from established and routinised in-person teaching, learning and working practices to institutionally mandated remote or hybrid working patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. / Design/methodology/approach: The qualitative study forms part of a broader research project, examining how information literacy and information practices unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phase Three of this project, which forms the subject of this paper, employed semi-structured interviews to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the workplace and, in particular, the role that technology and digital literacy plays in enabling or constraining information literacy practices necessary for the operationalisation of work. / Findings: The complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a fracturing of workplace information environments and worker information landscapes by disrupting all aspects of academic life. The study recognises that whilst the practice of information literacy is predicated on access to modalities of information, this practice is also shaped by material conditions. This has implications for digital literacy which, in attempting to set itself apart from information literacy practice, has negated the significant role that the body and the corporeal modality play as important sources of information that enable transition to occur. In relation to information resilience, the bridging concept of fracture has enabled the authors to consider the informational impact of crisis and transition on people's information experiences and people's capacity to learn to go on when faced with precarity. The concept of grief is introduced into the analysis. / Originality/value: This study presents original research

Risk, vaccine hesitancy and information literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction. This study seeks to identify how vaccine-hesitant people inform themselves about the Covid-19 vaccine. Prior research has positioned insufficient information or a lack of information skills as linked to vaccine hesitancy but has neglected to account for the role that information literacy plays within processes of becoming informed. Method. 14 semi-structured interviews were held online with vaccine-hesitant people in the UK. Interviews were audio-recorded and professionally transcribed; questions explored the information sources and activities that participants used to become informed about the COVID-19 vaccine. Analysis. Data were coded by each researcher using constant comparative techniques used in constructivist grounded theory methods before being jointly discussed in several online sessions. Results. Initial outcomes of this study suggest that vaccine hesitant and hesitant- influenced action is shaped through the employment of information strategies that bring multiple forms of vaccination risk into being, including social and other health risks. Conclusions. The study has implications for the teaching of information literacy, in particular the conceptualisation that being informed is an affirmative action

It Takes a Community to Build a Framework: Information Literacy within Intercultural Settings

Information literacy practice plays a key role in the transitional processes of individuals within new intercultural settings. While this ability to adjust to new cultural contexts is increasingly important within today’s multicultural societies, campuses and workplaces, typical approaches to information literacy education struggle to scaffold the newcomer’s disrupted information landscapes. In focusing on prescriptive skills, information literacy standards position linguistic and cultural difference as a learning deficiency. Yet, when alternative information literacy frameworks centre upon personal habits of mind, they fail to account for contextual dynamics. In this conceptual paper, the authors use research into the health practices of resettling refugees as an example to argue that a move away from behaviourist approaches to information literacy refocuses our attention on questions of adjustment and engagement with cultural understandings of information, and forms a more inclusive way to consider the diversity of today’s information societies

The road not taken: locating desire lines across information landscapes.

Introduction. - The concept of desire lines is defined, contextualised and explored within the area of information landscapes. The paper problematises the existence of desire lines in relation to research which has been conducted with various refugee groups. Method. - The concept of desire lines is expanded and linked to the library and information science field by drawing from the authors empirical research projects and from the scant literature from geography, urban planning and from a social theory. Conclusion. - The concept of desire lines contributes to the nascent research area of fractured information landscapes and offers a way of understanding how information landscapes are shaped when people are resettling into a new setting. While the work presented in an emerging conceptualisation, the authors also believe there is potential to conceptualise the rebuilding of landscapes as an occurrence within any transitionary environment (e.g. starting a job, moving to a new country, or transitioning from university to work)

Information literacy and literacies of information: a mid-range theory and model

Information literacy (IL) research tends to fall into one of two spaces. In the conceptual space the research concern rests with understanding the experience and core elements of the practice and how it emerges. In the practical space the execution and outcome of the practice as markers of successful teaching and learning are the focus. The division between these spaces and the lack of researcher/practitioner convergence create a conundrum that limits our ability to theorise IL, to adequately situate IL in library and information science research, to champion its benefits outside the library and information science field, or to promote to funding bodies the impact of IL. To address this conundrum a theory and foundational model of IL is described which attempts to reconstruct the IL space and its enactments without privileging research or practice

Trapped between a Rock and a Hard Place: What Counts as Information Literacy in the Workplace and How Is It Conceptualized?

Information literacy has been proclaimed as a foundational literacy of the twenty-first century by many researchers, library practitioners, and international agencies. However, there is still disagreement about how information literacy is conceptualized and what key elements constitute the practice. This disagreement has led to the practice/skills debate that has emerged from workplace research into information literacy. It has also led to claims that research into information literacy lacks theoretical framing from which models can be grounded. While the library and higher education sector concentrate on information skills that are claimed to be generic and transferable, there is little evidence from workplace research to suggest that this is indeed the case. In fact, the opposite appears to be true: that information literacy is enacted as a situated, collective, and embodied practice that engages people with information and knowledge about domains of action that are authorized by the discourses of the setting. Consequently the information skills and competencies that are developed reflect the discursive practices of the setting. Without information literacy, other work-related practices and performances couldn't be accomplished; however, the continued focus on skills limits our ability to understand information literacy as a socially enacted practice, one that is constructed through a range of social activities. The issue therefore is how to represent the social activities that underpin information literacy. This article conceptualizes information literacy from a workplace perspective and presents ongoing work toward a theoretical framework. It advances the view that information literacy appears to be trapped between "a rock and a hard place." The rock is the current conception of information [End Page 277] literacy, which is unsatisfactory, because it is confined by the discursive practices of the education sector and does not account for the complex social processes that inform learning to work. The hard place is the translation of information literacy practice with an understanding of how this practice happens, that is, from the education sector into workplace performance. Drawing from empirical studies, this article will explore the current key issues related to workplace information literacy.published or submitted for publicatio

The remaking of fractured landscapes : supporting refugees in transition (SpiRiT)

Introduction.How refugees learn to reshape their fractured information landscape and re-establish ways of knowing to support their resettlement into a host society is explored. Of particular interest is how refugees access, use and share information to support information needs which emerge during the resettlement process.  Method. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in the language selected by the participant. Photo-voice technique was also employed and culminated in a focus group in which participants discussed the photos. The first phase of the qualitative analysis is reported in this paper.  Analysis. Data from interviews, focus groups and images captured by photo-voice technique were coded thematically, focusing on the similarities and differences in perspective. Results.In the resettlement process refugees strive to regain a sense of place. Information is a critical resource for resettlement, but access to information and trust in that information pose challenges in moving from the liminal zone of marginality towards social integration. The digital environment threads through refugees’ information experiences and represents a significant social ground.  Conclusions. Findings from the first phase of this study have provided us with new concepts and ways of describing the impacts of resettlement from an information perspective. It also affords an opportunity to consider how information resilience is shaped and emerges

Leveraging information literacy : mapping the conceptual influence and appropriation of information literacy in other disciplinary landscapes

Information literacy forms a key concept within Library and Information Science, where it forms the focus of scholarship, conferences, journals, and teaching librarian practice, alike. However, little is known about how other fields and disciplines have employed these outputs within their own research and practice. This paper examines how the concept of information literacy has been leveraged into the discourses of non-Library and Information Science disciplinary landscapes. This is achieved through a qualitative mapping of five different fields and disciplines, including Higher Education, Management and Business, Public Health, Nursing and Psychology, to identify how information literacy terminology, definitions, theories, and frameworks have travelled across scholarly and practice boundaries to become appropriated into other disciplinary landscapes. The aim of this collaborative work is to develop an indicative rather than an exhaustive understanding of what travels within information literacy research and practice and to strengthen the Library and Information Science narrative on the impact of information literacy activities