Exploring information literacy meaning

Tuesday 2 September 2003

I too am delighted to see workplace IL being discussed - having moved from the academic sphere to the health sector in the past 18 months. Thanks AnneMaree, for sharing your work with us, and for raising so many issues.

Like Carmel, I appreciated seeing AnneMaree's comments on KM and the informal or social nature of information sharing. As an aside, this very issue was reflected in one of the keynote speakers at last week's 'Specials Health and Law Librarians conference' - David Snowden spoke about an organic model of KM (rather than the mechanical model) - and the need to focus on strategies to put people together to share information, rather than create databases of information.

My one concern with AnneMaree's evolving definition of IL (sorry AnneMaree), is that once again it is in libraryspeak, or academic-speak. Both AnneMaree and Fiona have referred to the problem of IL not being understood by those in the workplace. It would be lovely to have a IL definition in workspeak - though I suspect we'll never get something that suits us all. Those of us working in the health sector are fortunate to have the evidence-based practice movement, to hang our IL concepts onto.

Rather than re-defining IL it would be nice to have an alternative term for IL itself - that non-librarians understand. Carmel, modestly didn't refer to her own excellent article in Reference Services Review, where she discusses the issue of IL terminology, and the need to find a way of refering to IL in terms that the 'workforce' understands.

I agree with AnneMaree's comments about the fact that IL is not a defined 'process' with a neatly defined start and finish - esp in the workplace. The analogy that I've been using recently (in relation to information seeking and EBP) is that of the 'theme park'. It would be nice for IL to be the ferris wheel - where you follow a nice, sedate structured (and circular) path - where you can stay on as long as you need.

However, in reality it tends more to be like a rollercoaster - lots of bumps and curves, and lots of highs and lows. The highs and lows often reflect your expert/novice status in the area, which directly affects how 'info literate' you are in that particular circumstance. In the ideal workplace setting, it would be good to have an emergency stop on the rollercoaster, that lets you get off when you need to - to follow a divergent path or idea - then let you back on again at whatever stage of the ride you want. Sorry, I'm waffling on.

Thanks again AnneMaree.

Margie

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