Situating Information Literacy Research

This paper reflects on the increase of information literacy research about the workplace and lifelong learning during the past 10 years. Librarians have long held that lifelong learning is the goal of information literacy instruction and training, but until the last decade, there has been a paucity of research about the information-seeking behaviour of students after they graduate. The origins and drivers of this shift in the research agenda are examined, drawing on US research studies by Project Information Literacy (PIL), and related research from around the world. Key takeaways from this body of work are discussed in addition to the implications findings have for academic librarians teaching and working with university students. Directions for future research are identified and discussed.

Download Full-text

While Most Information Literacy Research Is Included in the Fields of Library Science and Education, a Considerable Amount Is Found in Medicine and Health

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice ◽

10.18438/eblip29927 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 153-155

Author(s):

Jessica A. Koos

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Information Literacy ◽

Web Of Science ◽

Descriptive Analysis ◽

Library Science ◽

Professional Literature ◽

Science And Education ◽

Subject Areas ◽

Literacy Research ◽

The Web

A Review of: Aharony, N. (2010). Information literacy in the professional literature: An exploratory analysis. ASLIB Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, 62(3), 261-282. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012531011046907 Abstract Objective – To describe the published literature on information literacy from 1999-2009. Design – Statistical descriptive analysis and content analysis. Setting – N/A Subjects – 1,970 publications from the Web of Science database. Methods – The Web of Science database was searched using the term “information literacy” in the advanced search under “topic,” and was limited to articles published from 1999-2009. Next, information such as document type, subject areas, authors, source titles, publication years, languages, countries, keywords, and abstracts was collected from each document. A statistical descriptive analysis was conducted using the data. A content analysis was performed on the keywords and abstracts from a sampling of the results. Main Results – Information science/library science and education were the top subject areas of the identified articles, while the third largest subject area was “public, environmental and occupational health.” Nine out of ten journal titles focused on library science, however the journal title containing the second largest number of articles was Patient Education and Counseling. The content analysis revealed that the most common categories for keywords were “miscellaneous,” “health and medicine,” followed by “education.” Conclusion – The results indicated that information literacy research had been published mainly in journals associated with library science and education; however, a considerable amount of literature was published in health and medicine.

Download Full-text