Wednesday, November 25, 2015

3 interesting items: Commodification of the information profession; Transliteracy; Information literacy taxonomy

Lawson, S., Sanders, K., & Smith, L. (2015). Commodification of the information profession: A critique of Higher Education under neoliberalism. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(1), eP1182. http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1182
"The structures that govern society’s understanding of information have been reorganised under a neoliberal worldview to allow information to appear and function as a commodity. This has implications for the professional ethics of library and information labour, and the need for critical reflexivity in library and information praxes is not being met. A lack of theoretical understanding of these issues means that the political interests governing decision-making are going unchallenged, for example the UK government’s specific framing of open access to research. We argue that building stronger, community oriented praxes of critical depth can serve as a resilient challenge to the neoliberal politics of the current higher education system in the UK and beyond. Critical information literacy offers a proactive, reflexive and hopeful strategy to challenge hegemonic assumptions about information as a commodity."

Le Deuff, O. (2015, 29 May) Voyage en translittératie. Intercdi, (255), 4-7. http://intercdi.com/post/2015/05/29/Voyage-en-translitt%C3%A9ratie
"La translittératie reste encore apparemment obscure, malgré une première publication sur le sujet qui tentait de faire le point il y a quelques années. Visiblement, la transe littéracique reste encore l’apanage d’initiés. Et pourtant, nous pratiquons la translittératie au quotidien, tel M. Jourdain faisant de la prose. Je vous propose donc de vous emmener dans un périple dans des mondes qui vous semblent inconnus et éloignés, mais qui vous sont bien plus proches."
The author proposes that although transliteracy still seems to be the province of specialists, in fact transliteracy is something that people are practicing already (like M. Jourdain in Molière's play who, on being told the difference between prose and verse observes "For forty years I've been speaking prose without realising it".) The author outlines the nature of transliteracy, linking it with Paul Otlet's idea of hyperdocumentation, and proposes a route for one's voyage into transliteracy. (In French)

Hamminger, L. (2014) A Taxonomy of Information Literacy. MA thesis, Fakultät der Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg, Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft. https://www.academia.edu/8747671/Master_Thesis_A_Taxonomy_of_Information_Literacy
Just came across this. I haven't read it properly yet, and I think one could debate the final taxonomy, but it is an approach I haven't come across before and it is an interesting way to think about what information literacy is, and what "kinds" of information literacy there are. The thesis is carefully argued and in English. You may have to sign in to Academia.edu to get full access to this.
Photo by Sheila Webber: fan window, view from the apartment, Tallinn, October 2015



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