Chapter 1

Introduction — Information Literacy and

Information Behaviour, Complementary

Approaches for Building Capability

Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

Abstract

This chapter gives a general overview of the book, indicates the richdiversity of information literacy (IL) and information behaviour(IB) work carried out and is organised into four broad areas movingfrom the strategic to the highly contextualised. The four areas arespecifically: strategic view; delivering information literacy education;the link between university and work; beyond higher education. Theapproach for each chapter is summarised. This chapter also examinesthe inter-related nature of the concepts of information literacy andinformation behaviour. It shows how these ideas are contextualised,theorised and researched. The authors argue that far from beingconflicting approaches to the same problem of information capability,they are, in fact, complementary. Though these are epistemologicallydifferent both have much to offer in terms of explanation and also astools for fostering information capability. The history of informationliteracy and information behaviour is overviewed and their inter-relation explored. It is argued that information literacy can be viewedas the practitioners’ model for delivering information capabilitywhilst information behaviour, being more research focussed, explains

Developing People’s Information Capabilities: Fostering Information Literacy in Educational,

Workplace and Community Contexts

Library and Information Science, Volume 8, 1–11

Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1876-0562/doi:10.1108/S1876-0562(2013)0000008005

2 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

it. A diagram is presented at the end of the chapter which helps tohighlight and summarise the distinctions and similarities between IBand IL research.

Keywords: Information behaviour; information literacy; informationcapability

This book reflects the multifaceted nature of information literacy, people’sinformation behaviour and their information experience. People have beengrappling with these topics for many years. Some, from a theoreticalperspective, explore the nature of the phenomenon; ‘what is it?’, trying toidentify common patterns, ‘how is it characterised?’ distinctions, ‘can itmean different things to different people or change according to context?’and relationships between different types of associated data, such asdemographics, expertise, behaviour or emotion. Researchers approach thetopic from different perspectives, including individual, organisational orsocial. These perspectives often reflect broad epistemological orientations,such as post positivist or interpretivist, or approaches such as socialconstructivist. These in turn lead to the application of different methodol-ogies, such as phenomenography, and an emphasis on different types ofdata, such as people’s perceptions or behaviour. Each chapter focuses onspecific features or characteristics of these phenomena. This collection ofchapters by authors from around the world, either explicitly or implicitly,therefore gives the opportunity to experience this diversity of views.

From a practical perspective these explorations also lead to a betterunderstanding of how to implement interventions to enhance people’scapacity consciously either individually or within an organisational or socialcontext. One common theme that runs through these papers is theimportance of context and the need to understand and develop thesecapabilities within a given milieu. Studies of people’s information behaviourcan be seen to be a form of needs evaluation or diagnostic to help positioninformation literacy interventions. Both, research into information literacyand people’s information behaviour, can have implications for the design ofinformation services and products.

Leaning (2009) amongst others has noted that information literacy hasgenerated its own field of research and there have been many globalpronouncements on the subject — an argument echoed by Sheila Webberand Bill Johnston in this book. Bruce (1995) identifies 1974 as the beginningof information literacy when the term was coined by Paul Zurkowski.Though it could be argued information literacy’s roots are far deeper thanZurkowski — given that a great deal of scholarship written in the 1960’s an

Introduction 3

early 1970s and identified by Lorenzen (2003) in the area of ‘libraryinstruction’, and ‘bibliographic instruction’ (including for example, Lubansand Sharma in the UK and Fjallbrant in Europe) pre-dates and informsmore recent information literacy practice. However, increasingly we see theconcept taken out of the educational or library context and into theworkplace, where the specific information cultures place an emphasis onskills and attitudes associated with, for example, the ability to manageinformation in the organisation, including the sharing of information andknowledge. In addition we see the connection made between informationliteracy and civil rights, empowerment and personal well-being. The latter isechoed in the context of international development (Horton, 2007), and inthe Training Toolkit: Monitoring and evaluation for information literacytraining initiatives in Africa: A journey approach (2013).

There is a plethora of material available on how to teach informationliteracy (see, for example, Lloyd, 2010). Melville et al. (2009, p. 7) raises theimportance of information literacy as a set of skills needed by students tooperate effectively in the digital world, especially that students should‘possess the skills and understanding to search, authenticate and criticallyevaluate material’. Work by Hampton-Reeves et al. (2009, p. 47) states thevalue of information literacy training by concluding that, ‘Many students [inHE] have developed an imperfect sense of the research environment basedon past experience, the occasional input from a tutor and the studentrumour mill.’ This is not news to the information profession because studieswhich pre-date these reports (such as Breivik & Gee, 2006) demonstratethat even though the information landscape has become an ever richerenvironment, the workforce has a deficit in functional information literacyleading to a demonstrable lack of efficiency. Add to this the study on youngpeople’s information behaviour (UCL, 2008) which shows that pre-university students are unable to construct effective searches and use thenarrowest of criteria to evaluate their newly found information, and theproblem is clearly revealed: there is a need for information literacy tounderpin students’ intellectual development so that the successful graduatehas the skills to survive not only at university, but in the workplace too.

However, IL models are highly abstract ideas (Hepworth & Walton,2009; Owusu-Ansah, 2003) and do not necessarily provide the tools fordelivering the relevant skills and neither do they provide an adequateexplanation of either the process of becoming information literate norinformation behaviour.

In general IL models appear to be prescriptive tools or manifestos foraction containing common sense statements regarding how individualsshould engage with the information world and structure their informationseeking behaviour (Walton, 2009). What they are not are explanations ofhow information literacy or information behaviour takes place. IL models

4 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

recommend certain skills, attributes, standards that individuals mustconform to or processes to be followed in order to become informationliterate. However, these common sense statements are often grounded inthe language of the librarian, and only sporadically use the language oflearning theory, pedagogy or information behaviour and are not recognisedoutside the information profession (Virkus, 2003). Inherent within thesemodels is a level of abstraction which causes IL models to make assumptionsabout:

� notions regarding the nature of information;� the context in which individuals are seeking information;� the existing knowledge that individuals bring to the information seekingprocess;� individuals’ approaches to finding information;� individuals’ own psychological make-up and how this affects theirmotivation towards engaging with information;� how individuals go about the process of engaging with information;� how individuals’ think about, analyse, evaluate and communicateinformation.

Information behaviour research assists the grand theory of informationliteracy in explaining the cognitive processes, behaviours and feelings that,together, enable the information literate individual.

The chapters in this book explore these issues and provide a source of ideasthat both touch on people’s information behaviour and have implications forstrategies for helping to develop people’s information literacy.

A brief synopsis of the individual contributions is given below. They fallinto 4 broad areas moving from the strategic to the highly contextualisedand embedded within community settings:

1.1. Section 1: Strategic View

Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston’s chapter takes a strategic approachand examines the future of information literacy in an ever changinginformation landscape. The term they coin for this changing landscape is‘information culture’ which includes the economy, technology, organisa-tional culture, civic society and personal motivations. The informationliteracy programme they envisage, which they argue reaches beyond notionsof skills and employability, overviews capacity building in a new waywhich regards information literacy as a central component in a learner’slifecourse. Interestingly they identify four critical junctures in a person’s life

Introduction 5

which suggest differing experiences of learning. They invite informationprofessionals to recognise a need to develop a range of diverse approaches inlearning provision to address changing learners’ needs as they progressthrough their lifecourse.

Li Wang examines and analyses the process of integrating informationliteracy into the undergraduate curriculum. Whilst this case study is based inNew Zealand the implications of the research are far reaching and applicableglobally. The chapter reinforces Ward and Duke’s observation regardingthe need for effective collaboration and negotiation between informationliteracy educators and faculty. Based on sociocultural theories, this analysisexamines in depth the nature of curriculum, distinguishing three types ofcurriculum: ‘intended’ — the top-down element guide by university policies,accrediting organisation guidelines and so on; ‘offered’ — the bottom-upelement which is what actually happened on the ground, that is what istaught and finally ‘received’ — the knowledge and skills students actuallylearn. Wang identifies the tension that exists between these and the need toaddress all three to achieve integrated and embedded information literacy.

Tzu-Bin Lin and Li-Yi Wang examine the concepts of information andmedia literacy and how Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) viewstheir application as part of their 21st Century skills framework. The authorsdefine very clearly these two literacies and through discourse analysisexamine the ways in which the MOE wishes these concepts to be applied.Whilst information literacy is well understood in Singapore, they note afundamental deficit in an understanding of media literacy especially aroundthe notion of learners as producers as well as consumers of content.Interestingly, because they found that there are no clear guidelines on howto implement these literacies, the authors put forward the view that theyshould be merged in practice. This integrated approach, they argue, creates anew direction for Singapore and aligns practice more closely to UNESCO’srecommendations on information and media literacies.

1.2. Section 2: Delivering Information Literacy Education

Samuel Kai-Wah Chu, Sandhya Rajagopal and Celina Wing-Yi Leedescribe a one and a half year longitudinal study in Hong Kong, involvingpostgraduate students in education and engineering. This discusses theimplementation of information literacy interventions relating primarily toknowledge of the information landscape and the use of information retrievaltools. Their study helps to define the development of levels of expertiseamong students, in terms of their information literacy. These includenovice, competent, proficient and advanced. Their work also led to

6 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

recommendations as to how the interfaces to search tools could be modifiedto enable learners to be more effective.

Emily S. Kinksy and Debra C. Smith’s work is primarily about usingmedia literacy techniques to unpick media messages to young children.Their goal is to analyse the less than obvious values and viewpoints that arebeing promulgated by the media. This is very similar to notions ofinformation discernment found in models of information literacy. They notea convergence between information, visual and media literacies and thatthey are all important in guiding young vulnerable children to interrogatewhat they are viewing. By doing this they explore the implications forteaching media literacy and indicate ways for children to become criticalmedia watchers (to analyse and evaluate) and in so doing avoid beinginfluenced by misinformation and dominant media messages.

Jennifer D. Ward and Thomas S. Duke examine an e-learninginformation literacy programme which they devised to build capacity inlearners who live in some of the remotest areas in Alaska. This chapterdemonstrates that collaboration between professor and librarian has apositive influence on the learning intervention and echoes similar work doneby Julien et al. published in this volume. Rural professionals face particularissues around isolation and this chapter shows how e-learning can diminishthis and, at the same time, increase their personal information literacy. Thee-learning intervention described is scaffolded to provide maximumguidance at the beginning of the research process — something thatlearners clearly found very useful and enabled them to carry out far morein-depth research than they had prior to experiencing this programme.

Phussadee Dokphrom, from Thailand, explores academic staff andstudent’s conceptions of an information literate person in higher educationin Thailand. She highlights the importance of generic skills, such as the useof the English language, as well as the disciplinary differences in terms ofattitudes, research skills and knowledge. Again this chapter alludes to theimportance of context and connects this to the importance of delivering,discipline-specific, information literacy interventions at the right time andplace in student’s studies.

Edward Lumande, Babakisi Tjedombo Fidzani and Silas Oluka discussinformation literacy from an institutional perspective. The University ofBotswana have gone a long way down the path of integrating informationliteracy into the undergraduate curriculum, partly through mobilisingcommitment at senior levels in the university and partnerships withcolleagues in academic development, as well as outside the university —leading to an institutional ‘toolkit’. They describe an ongoing programmebased on a DELPHE-funded initiative, whereby collaboration has beendeveloped between universities in central and southern Africa and also theUnited Kingdom.

Introduction 7

1.3. Section 3: The Link between University and Work

Vicki Lawal, Christine Stilwell, Rosemary Kuhn and Peter G. Underwoodexamine the gap between the legal education system and the practice of lawin the workplace in South Africa and Nigeria. In so doing they aim todetect the nature and transferability of graduate skills to the workplaceand the role of cross-collaboration between law academics, the practisingbar and academic librarians in the process. They show that, especially inthe light of the growing importance of electronic information as a legalresource, there is a pressing need to close this gap by restructuring thelegal education curricula by using information literacy pedagogies. Theycoin the term ‘legal information literacy’ as a specific subset and brand ofinformation literacy.

Heidi Julien, Brian Detlor and Alexander Serenko examine informationliteracy instruction in business schools in three Canadian Universities, andtheir data reveal convincing results regarding the positive effects of thespecific pedagogical intervention of active learning. They demonstrate thatfully integrated information literacy instruction is the most effectiveintervention and this is best realised when the collaborative relationshipsbetween librarians, administrators and academics are frequent, strong andpersistent (echoing Julien et al. and Lawal et al.). They also sound a note ofcaution and highlight that the value of information literacy skills for theworld of work is not readily recognised by students and this needs to bemade more explicit in order to persuade them.

Evans Wema, from Tanzania, describes the design, implementation andcritically reflects on an information literacy intervention in Tanzania. Thelatter highlights some of the challenges associated with the workshops,including gaining high-level support, and those posed by the technologicalinfrastructure. This chapter emphasises again the need for contextualisationand ensuring, for example, that training builds on previous knowledge, isrelevant and enables people to achieve their own and their organisationalgoals. The people involved included academics and outreach staff workingin agriculture and also health domain.

1.4. Section 4: Beyond Higher Education

Stephen Abram provides an interesting perspective on information literacyand the role of librarians. He focuses, in particular, on the need forlibrarians to enable people to make use of technology and, in particular,social media and the ability to access information to achieve organisationalgoals. He emphasises the need for librarians to help people navigate and becritical and strategic in their use of new collaborative information

8 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

technologies. He advocates that librarians should focus on their impact, thatis enabling others to be creative, through the use of information technology,rather than their frequency of use of information products and resources.

Christine S. Bruce, Mary M. Somerville, Ian Stoodley, Helen Partridgeemphasise the need to focus on people’s information experience rather thanskills or abstract conceptions of information literacy. They note the diversityof people’s information experience and the significance of the context withinwhich people use information. Their chapter emphasises the social, ratherthan individualistic, dimension of information literacy, and explores theseideas in a faith community, in Australia, and also in an ethnic setting inNorth America. The use of phrases such as ‘compendiums of localknowledge’ to refer to, for example, collections of recipes and ‘learningabout life y via participation’ reinforce the collective perspective on theinformation experience.

Rosemeire Barbosa Tavares, Sely Maria de Souza Costa and MarkHepworth place information literacy in the community context and the valueof taking participative approaches to both explore and enable people todevelop abilities and a consciousness of their own information literacy needs.This chapter describes an intervention in Brasilia where people in thecommunity, through facilitation, explore collaboratively social issues andhow information could help to address these issues. At the same time theauthors make the connection between a collaborative, participative approachand the development of citizenship, civil rights and empowerment.

1.5. Conclusion

The following diagram (Figure 1), developed in collaboration with FatmahAlmehmadi a Ph.D. student at the Centre for Information Management atLoughborough University, who is studying women researcher’s informationbehaviour in Saudi Arabia, helps to highlight and summarise the distinctionsbetween IB and IL research. It can be seen that there are similarities. Wewould argue that they are complementary. To put this more forcibly toensure that information literacy interventions relate to the needs andexperience of the trainee, it is recommended that trainers should spend timeunderstanding the information experience of the audience in same way as anIB researcher would, for example, conducting a study of current informationseeking and needs, barriers etc. From a pragmatic perspective this should beseen as needs analysis or a form of diagnostics that helps to inform teachingand learning interventions or to develop theoretical approaches.

Conversely, it could be argued that IB researchers should incorporatemore explicitly an understanding of the respondents’ information literacy

Context

Worldwide(primarily in higher

education)

More practice (action research)

User: learner,critical thinker &

information literate

Attracts informationscience

practitioners (e.g.,librarian &

informationmanagers) as well

as academics

Purpose/s of studymainly: vocational,

instructional &beneficial

Context

Worldwide (limited toinformation science

departments)

More theoretical

User: information seeker,

library/system/serviceuser

Attracts informationscience scholars and

information sciencepractitioners

Purpose/s of studymainly: system/serviceoriented, informational

- Helping users identify theirinformation needs

- Helping users analyse theirinformation needs

- Using methods to foster thinkingabout information

needs

- Helping users identifyinformation needs associated with

different environment

- Helping users identify howinformation could help

- Identifying users’information needs

- Classifying usersinformation needs

- Understanding howinformation needs aredeveloped, related to

context, and expressed

- Understanding users’information seeking and use

patterns/habits

- Identifying information behaviourdimension (affective, cognitive,

behavioural)

- Identifying factors that influencepeople’s information behaviour

(cultural and social: e.g., norms;organisational: e.g., role & tasks

as well as individual factors)

- Enhancing knowledge of information landscape

- Enhancing users’ informationseeking skills

- Using methods to fosterinformation capabilities

- Developing effective informationseeking strategies

- Developing effective strategies toprocess and use information

Information seeking and use

Informationneeds (IN)

Informationneeds (IN)

Information seeking and use

Research outcomesUnderstanding

information capabilities and their

development

ILChanging

informationbehaviour

Understandinginformationbehaviour

IB

Theoritical outcome

Theories, models,frameworks, insight

Theoritical outcomes

Theories, models,frameworks, insight

Practical outcome

System & service design

Practical outcomes

Information literacy programmes

Systematic training,participative approach

Research outcomes

understanding people’s IB and

factors that influence IB

Figure 1.1: A broad comparison of IB and IL studies.

Intro

ductio

n9

10 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

and the impact this may have on the respondents’ behaviour. This wouldprovide information that could be used to either develop or suggestinformation literacy interventions or to help design technical solutions thateither corresponded to the skill, knowledge and motivation of the audience.Furthermore it would lead to studies that helped unpick the relationshipbetween capability and IB. This book is perhaps the first to show that ILand IB, far from being separate disciplines, are overlapping and comple-mentary and have much in common in not only fostering IL but also inexplaining its value.

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Introduction 11

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