S. Kurbanoğlu et al. (Eds.): ECIL 2013, CCIS 397, pp. 1–10, 2013. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013

Information Literacy Is Dead… Long Live Information Literacy

Paul G. Zurkowski

Formerly Information Industry Association , Washington D.C., USA zurkowskipaulg@gmail.com

Abstract. This is the keynote remarks of Zurkowski, plenary speaker of European Conference on Information Literacy held 22-25 October, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey. The aim is to make an overall evaluation on evolution of the concept “information literacy” since it is first coined by Zurkowski himself almost four decades ago.

Keywords: Information literacy, lifelong learning, critical thinking, direct democracy, information industry.

1 Introduction

Ladies and Gentlemen! I’m excited and thrilled to be here. When I think of Information Literacy I think about what issues we will face over the next 40-50 years and the role information literacy can play in dealing with them.

It is difficult to predict what will happen around the globe with each country facing different opportunities and problems based on its unique history and circumstances. Yet there are some common threads of hope and inspiration that will help people take advantage of the opportunities the world will provide. What is exciting to think about is what innovations will come from which countries first and how people and governments will respond to future events.

For purposes of this conference I will suggest a new role for Information Literacy to play in this process.

I have a dream about what the future role of Information Literacy will be and I want all of you to think through the possibilities so that we can be that much better prepared to meet the future with enthusiasms and hope. For openers how do we respond to governments reducing their support of library for the public because “everything is on the internet?”

Does the history of libraries raise confidence that the functions of libraries can be remolded to play a key role in addressing the challenges now rearing their heads with consequences as huge worldwide as anything we have ever seen in the past?

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Addressing significant questions like that is what makes conferences stand out in the history of human events. I want to address that question and hopefully together we can come away from this conference with the positive steps we each can take when we get home. By identifying where the world has gotten off track we in this field can work together around the globe actively to find out what exactly has brought the world to this point and to come up with a plan to move the world forward in what is shaping up as a critical moment happening on our watch here in early years of the 21st century.

Here we are five years into a great world-wide recession while the top one percent is enjoying a strong economy. Five years after the 1929 great depression started, it too had become clear we were facing a long term problem in digging out of it. Recent comparisons based on an assessment of the growing disparity in levels of wealth showed that in 1928 and in 1907 the disparity levels in income had twice reached the highest levels just a year prior to the financial disasters of ’29 and ’08.

The mortgage practices of big banks in 2007 and 2008 that any public interest investigation would have revealed the mortgage based investment vehicles to be fraudulent schemes which came close to bankrupting many countries including the United States.

The anti-terrorism efforts including stripping all of us of privacy protections in the name of national security raise big brother threats to almost everyone alive today.

As everyone knows this list could go on and on almost without end and it did on October 1st this year when a rogue group of representative for partisan purposes caused the U S government to close down.

These breaches of the mutual bonds of respect have not been adequately addressed by representative democracy for one simple fact. Special interest money supports cadres of lobbyists protecting the incumbents from the consequences of such activity. The U. S. Supreme Court, too, has enabled private money to flood election campaigns distorting the election process. Ways must be found to enable ordinary every day citizens produce and wield countervailing power to effectively restrain such forces from disrupting the economy.

To suggest that the library community can remodel itself to help correct these ongoing conditions may not on the face of it seem realistic. But history teaches us that librarians and their information knowledge, skills, understanding and wisdom have engaged challenges like this before

A combination of information literacy and a Direct Democracy movement, offer the library community such an opportunity to remodel itself while building, along with what I call The Direct Democracy Coalition for Citizen Rights and Responsibilities, the power to address these issues. We’ll get to that as I talk with you about an expansion of the concept of information literacy in the area of Direct Democracy, a coalition for Citizen’s Rights and Responsibilities, and a plan for implementing an approach to issues we as a civilization will face over the next approximately 40 years.

This may sound revolutionary but it is simply an extension of the role librarians have played over the years. It is relevant to take note that the premier performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Ballet took place 100 years ago this year. Rather than applaud the performance the audience threw things at the stage and raged in protest. The dancers too didn’t like its untraditional flatfooted dancing in flannel costumes.

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The Direct Democracy idea may at first blush sound similarly disruptive of tradition, but remember, so does the whole information revolution and steps need to be taken to avoid corruption of popular movement toward democracy and citizens’ rights and responsibilities.

We are gathered here today near the roots of civilization to proclaim to the world, the Launch of a New Age of Enlightenment in which everyone alive today can participate from elementary school age through lifelong learning. It needs doing as the evidence rolls in that representative democracy is hitting some glitches. Alarms should be going off all over the world over how the U. S. Congress is divided, letting a sub set of its members deny the government the authority to perform all of its functions.

If this Globe is ever going to live in peace citizens need to be involved in exploring remedies such as Direct Democracy to get the government working again. Introducing Information Literacy as a job opportunity to provide ordinary citizens with information (1) on how the process works or should be working and (2) how the underlying crises can be researched with step by step explanations of workable alternatives explained and confidently shared with interested citizens with access to countervailing power.

I will share the details of a program of Direct Democracy designed to create a universal world wide effort leading to a New Age of Enlightenment. It will call forth a coalition of organizations and forces, students and seniors, executives, day laborers and people reduced to homelessness by the recession we continue to experience, the employed, partially employed, underemployed and just out of work, but intelligent and smart, all concerned with Citizen Rights and Responsibilities. This is not a public relations gimmick. It will grow to be a serious program capable of enlisting many volunteers. That is my vision for Information Literacy. And I have a plan which I will share with you. Plant the seeds of the ideas in your communities. Seek local participation. See what appeals, what works. It’s exciting. You won’t be disappointed. How one such Committee of Citizens Rights and Responsibility (CCRR) would work is relatively simple. How a world-wide network of CCRR units will work together will take more time to work out. Your participation on the ground floor in your community will help move this world-wide organization forward. IFLA can share the ideas with its members and provide grassroots feedback. UNESCO can explore CCRR possibilities with its functioning units already in the field working on parallel ideas. The door to participation in this Direct Democracy effort is wide open.

Just as a lot has happened in the roughly 40 years since the words Information Literacy were coined in a communication to the U. S. Commission on Libraries and Information Services in 1973, a lot more is going to happen in the next forty that the people in this room have a special responsibility for. You know information, you are responsible for its use, preservation and ultimately for the enlightenment of the world through its use.

Before addressing my vision for this community let me explain to you what environment gave rise to the words information literacy, and what that environment taught me about vision, careful hard work and how the information age emerged from the first 20 years of the Information Industry Association.

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2 Build It and They Will Come

Let me take you back to November 1968 before most you were born. The Information Industry Association (IIA) sprang to life November 6, 1968 at a meeting in Philadelphia of the 12 founders of this trade group which would engineer and perfect the foundations for the age of the Internet and the World Wide Web, test out its economics, participate in beta testing of technologies, products and services.

At the time I was a legislative assistant to my Wisconsin home Congressman Robert W. Kastenmeier who served as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Copyright Revision. William Tyndale Knox a vice president at McGraw Hill, was elected the first Board Chairman. We had gotten to know each other as he called on me about the Copyright bill and computer usage of copyrighted works. I shared with him my vision for the future of the information business. I was hired in December 1968 and opened IIA’s Washington office in January 1969. No one else was considered to head the IIA, which would become one of the four major trade associations all with a major stake in the business of this industry serving neighboring industries: book publishers, computer manufacturers and data processing services.

Over my 20 years as IIA President I led a team rising to over 30 staff members by 1989. We provided the industry five services or activities that stand out as worthy of note and of future value to the Direct Democracy Coalition of Citizen Rights and Responsibilities. They include the following: 1. Membership. We built a membership from the 12 founding companies to over

950 companies in 20 years time. We found the people engaged in the business and signed them up. I was called “The Johnny Appleseed of the information industry” for sowing the seeds of the business across the United States. The Direct Democracy Movement will need similar membership successes. I have a plan for doing it.

2. Exciting Small Meetings. We designed and implemented meeting plans based on Sociologist Margaret Mead’s book, “The Small Meeting.” It contains a progression of photos of a small meeting with text explaining the participants’ thoughts and interactions. I took her body language instruction in the book to guide me in creating dynamic and interactive meetings unique to IIA. I started with a tiered U-shaped seating arrangement bringing everyone up close and personal with the speakers at the head table and with each other. People could look in the eye 70 to 80% of the attendees. The arrangement of the seating at the head table for speakers and IIA executives was the key to the immediate success of this approach. Meetings can be dull and uneventful unless someone questions a speaker on what sounds like a partially baked idea. We placed 3 or 4 of our key executives at the head table drawn into the open end of the big U of the seating for participants to get the session running like a board meeting. Gloves would come off with the first intervention by one of our executives. The audience quickly got involved followed that opening to press the speakers for answers. These high energy meetings brought companies into the membership not just for the fun of it but for the intelligence and insights to be gleaned at these meetings. Members knew we were competent from the success of these meetings. They knew they

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couldn’t afford to miss a meeting. The Direct Democracy movement will generate similar excitement from its meetings of citizens seeking answers on a lot of public governance questions currently going unanswered.

3. Niche Markets. We were working with the advanced scouts of the Information Revolution, the early geniuses who were pioneers in developing data bases and other services. Surprisingly most of these served niche markets. Most companies already owned a significant historical file of data of high interest mined from industry sources and in most cases were published in print as abstract journals and destined for a well-defined niche market they already served. This fact led to the realization that they could share their marketing and technology problems with other niche publishers because no one else was serving their particular niche. Therefore they were free to talk with other companies in the business without engaging in anti-competitive practices. The IIA discussions were intense and greatly escalated the speed of developments of individual companies, the technologies involved and the marketplace readiness for their new information services.

4. The Information Industry Map. Initially members were relative small companies often working in isolation. IIA developed a map of all the entities engaged in one way or another in the business – book and magazine publishers, libraries and information brokers, data base distributors, and ultimately the giant players, hardware companies, phone companies, computer companies, eager to learn the business from associating with niche market companies. See figure 1. All politics is local. The Direct Democracy movement will start locally, involving citizens in ones and twos to work on hot button issues troubling the general public. That will attract the doubting Thomases who at first will be skeptical that a meaningful coalition of citizens can be mustered to deal with the issues big and small facing society today. The numerically over-whelming middle class up to now was pretty much willing to “Let George do it” within representative democracy. We’re seeing what that approach has done for us.

Start up information companies, members and non-members even in their relative isolation could see where they each fit on this map of most of the players information businesses. They then only had to identify their position on the IIA map to know that by playing their position as one of a limited number of entrants serving a particular niche market they would succeed.

For the Direct Democracy movement to function effectively, it will need something like the IIA map. I suggest the G-nome project and DNA mapping as a parallel approach to a map that shows everyone in the information literacy field how they relate to one another. Information literacy is different from media literacy is different from medical literacy or legal literacy, and so on and so on. Each with a mission and detailed approach to their subject area – niche markets all over again – but each different literacy being different from the others in their approach to and services of their niche. Each is an anti-environment for all the other literacies enabling participants to recognize their position, how it is different and where it is the same.

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Fig. 1. The Information Industry Map (Source: Information Industry Association, p. 216 [1])

Each will gain confidence in their approach from seeing it work in neighboring niches all accelerating the intelligent, thought out growth of a Multitude of Literacies. The programming of this conference gives attendees many opportunities to apply these ideas and benefit from studying the multitudes being discussed in our program.

5. Information Policy Issues. That leaves Information Policy itself as the last, but far from least on the list of IIA actions that have major implications for the approach information literacy can take in the Direct Democracy movement. There is no current watch dog monitoring effort on how policy comes into play with regard to information. The American Civil Liberties Union is well known for being a Civil Liberties watch dog and could serve as a role model for the Coalition on information policy issues. IIA found that it indeed took eternal vigilance to keep up with government information policies. Just as there is no Information Policy watchdog there also is no national effort designing, guiding and

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encouraging citizens interested in participating in the process of participating actively in using critical thinking as a keystone for Direct Democracy. Librarians will find that a structured program of service in this area will be highly rewarding in building their supporting constituent base. Just as members of Congress create lifelong friends through constituent services of all kinds so too will librarians find the Direct Democracy will bring library users out of the wood-work to support the library services so critical to their success in influencing not only information policy issues but governance issues of all kinds. IIA undertook a year-long study to locate and analyze government information policies of all kinds for their impact on the free market place of ideas. Woody Horton who helped IIA on this project told me the other day that the supply of this Policy Book is down to a single copy. Tracking government information policy touches on privacy, the free market place of ideas, citizen ownership of the information everyone creates just by living, and the policing of wall street functions to name just a few.

Beyond these five action programs of the Information Industry Association its submission in 1974 wherein the term Information Literacy was coined, included about the only historical record of the emergence of the industry with the nature of the companies involved being identified and described. It was the library enthusiasms for Info Lit that has since led a parade of other literacies seeking recognition in their areas of activity many of which are likely participants in the Direct Democracy Coalition for Citizen Rights and Responsibilities.

Yes, there was an implicit business purpose to the presentation we made to the Commission. We were pointing out that there was an industry developing enhanced services to increase the quality of life, the profitability of businesses, the missions of charitable groups, etc. But most of the public knew nothing about these products and services and in fact, had a trained incapacity to use them across the board. Our submission suggested that by providing universal Information Literacy training the population, the business world and the gross domestic product reflecting increased efficiency and productively would result in increased per capita income. Such universal training would enlarge the free and open marketplace of ideas, a central guiding policy goal of the industry.

It must be noted that at the time the submission was made to the Commission there were no desk top computers, no internet, no worldwide web, no videos delivered as TV images on a cell phone or any of the more recent information implements.. Most computerized data base searching could only be done on remote mainframes. Such computerized research required a prized skill because of its complexity. Software to simplify searching would come later.

In 1973 we were talking about a very special information literacy field. Since then computerized searching has revolutionized what is thought of as Information Literacy. You will see in my Direct Democracy plan, some change in purpose, function and practice of Information Literacy is needed. Hence the title of my remarks is Information Literacy Is Dead, Long Live Information Literacy.

The Direct Democracy Movement focuses on marshalling more citizen involvement in Direct Democracy efforts, including such things as petitions for legislative action, recall movements, constitutional amendment petitions and similar actions which can be taken to highlight some glitch arising in the Representative form

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of Democracy we are accustomed to relying on. Unfortunately, the representative form of Democracy has enabled citizens to take a “Let George Do It” position and their decision to decline to participate in whole or in part in governance issues. Many do not realize the personal power for good that they forfeit in that process. Information Literacy projects will reinforce regular citizen involvement programs with solidly researched reports on current issues. This too will enable more citizen involvement.

The action plan for this movement is contained in the supporting Phrase: The Coalition for Citizen Rights and Responsibilities (CCRR).

This suggests an urgent and immediate campaign to marshal citizens in an effort to clearly establish Citizen Rights and Responsibilities necessary to Direct Democracy. The struggle of the Arab spring, and other citizen-based efforts, such as Occupy Wall Street recently sought to bring direct democracy significantly into play.

3 A New and Large Role for Information Literacy Efforts

The library community has been the watchdog in the past over the use of library patron borrowing records and other issues. Now that the powers that be have decided their full commitment to the public for library services is no longer needed because “everything is right there on the Internet,” it may be necessary for the library community to transition itself to serve the same public with the library skills, training and respect for information in a new way. Information Literacy is a necessary element of such a new way.

I have been working to create a procedures manual to outline not only what can be done today to address this situation, but also how to create a Coalition for Citizen’s Rights and Responsibilities to lead, community by community, state by state, country by country, to the development of the rules of the information road that lies ahead. When the automobile was invented rules of the road had to be developed. A function of the Coalition is to monitor the rules developed for information. It’s beginning to happen in widely dispersed centers without any one actually verifying whether the proposed rules are good, bad or indifferent. We need better than that.

The manual also addresses the fact that there is no established process to engage citizens in issues like Information Policy or for that matter simply how to become a non-partisan, non-political force on any and all other issues arising today. Political assassinations like those of Jack and Bobbie Kennedy have put a limit on how many talented people are willing to risk their lives in public office. Where are they? Are they any less interested in how the country is governed? Can they become involved in and support coalition efforts outside of the political party system? This evolution could be supported by librarians and others who grasp the function of Information Literacy understand the details how the following a four-step process works:

Information becomes knowledge. Knowing how to find information on the internet seems to have been solved, but we know there is a great deal about the research process that is not yet grasped by the general public no matter how sophisticated their digital technology is.

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Knowledge leads to understanding and Understanding becomes the individual and collective wisdom we will all need in

the coming next forty years. I find this four step process helpful in explaining to the general public what

information literacy means in a generalized way.

4 A Tribute to Ben Franklin’s Society for Useful Knowledge: The Direct Democracy Plan and How It Will Work

The organizing principals of my plan are based on a system created by Benjamin Franklin in about1730 and a system he sustained throughout his life time. He called it the Society of Useful Knowledge. Mr. Franklin’s driving force was based on the fact that the Colonies were populated principally by farmers and merchants and were purposefully limited by the crown in how much freedom they had. They needed useful knowledge just to get through the day. Within the Society for Useful Information, Franklin organized what he called the Leather Apron Committees, community groups of 12 people, later nicknamed the Junta, to explore what society’s needs were and how to address those needs. Each one of the 12 were given the task by Franklin of writing a short description of a specific problem of their choosing needing to be addressed. Ben wrote several such statements to prime the pump. The Junta would once a month retire to a pub in the evening to discuss their approach to each issue. It may even have been one of those papers that suggested the study of lightening to Ben. It is known that they later dispatched a junta member to explain electricity and the need for lightening rods on buildings throughout the mid-Atlantic colonies.

Implementing such a plan today would meet require a body overseeing the work of the Juntas as a parent organization. In my plan it would be the Direct Democracy Coalition for Citizen’s Right and Responsibilities. Induction into the CCRR would provide an academy of people committed to this process to develop competent and recognized policy statements designed to give participating citizens a clear understanding of the issues and a certainty as to the accuracy and value of CCRR publications

The fact that “All politics is local” means that under this plan, each local area, each library, each community organization, would be encouraged to create a Junta to work on community interests in their geographic area or intellectual area of interest.

In the process the Direct Democracy Coalition would provide a pathway for citizen involvement in the country’s civic affairs. The most important part of this process is the need for information literacy skills, critical thinking, fact checking and where necessary text editing. Everyone needs an editor.

It is interesting to note that the Library of Congress supports House and Senate Members with its Congressional Research Service. Members of both houses can ask for help in understanding legislative proposals and response or for help in drafting and justifying new legislation. This is a confidential service. Only the member can divulge what he CRS came up with in response to a request. It is a service just like the support that Librarians and others could provide to a local Junta. Their studies

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would be evaluated by members of the Coalition, individuals inducted into the Direct Democracy Coalition to assure the studies were fair, non-political, and factual all leading to public understanding of the issues involved. This would create a shared wisdom in the community needed to address the issue. See the book “The Society of Useful Knowledge” by Jonathon Lyons, Bloomberg Press, New York, 1913 for the complete story and the Colonial setting that fostered its growth and development.

The role of Libraries within the Citizen’s Right and Responsibilities program would be central and vital. A variety of other organizations would be welcome as well

I have met with Catherine Tease, Director of the Prince George’s County’s Memorial Library System, where I live just outside Washington, and she is willing to help beta test this program in the county Library system in all respects.

Some librarians are leaving libraries to create their own businesses. The Association of Independent Information Professionals [2], a global association of over 400 businesses with professional information searching skills and the understanding and wisdom earned in many years of library and information services. The Coalition for Citizens Rights and Responsibilities will work with AIIP member companies as participants in the Coalition. This will also draw in the information industry firms with information resources of vital interest to efforts of this type. The AIIP has negotiated discount data base search rates for its members with major information companies. The AIIP has been a big help to me in preparing for the “Marketing Aspects of Starting Your Own Information Company” workshop scheduled for Thursday from 1:30 to 3:00 pm. The workshop will provide the results of a Survey of the Membership of Associated Independent Professionals, detailing basic market facts about the Member’s businesses and will provide a an interactive discussion about factors to be taken into account before launching a business.

I cordially invite everyone at this conference to consider participating by creating local Coalitions for Citizen Rights and Responsibilities to encourage citizen participation in civic affairs. To stay connected on this future of Information Literacy and to receive detailed information on the Direct Democracy movement please use my email address to contact me.1

In conclusion, it should be clear there is a world of opportunity to be conquered by skillful people in many roles, but the most important is the one regarding the care, feeding and the extension of Information Literacy. Long Live Information Literacy!

References

1. Information Industry Association: Information Sources: The Annual Directory of the Information Industry Association. IIA, Washington, D.C. (1992)

2. The Association of Independent Information Professionals, http://www.aiip.com

1 zurkowskipaulg@gmail.com