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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 132 of 293

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    Introduction to the book

    The aim of this book is to enable library and information workers to provide support to students in higher education. It is relevant to different groups working in colleges and universities, including: library and information workers, staff developers, educational technologists, educational development project workers, and educational change agents, as well as students of librarianship who are planning their careers in higher education institutions.

    Anyone who works in higher education, either in a university or college, will know that we are experiencing rapid change and that it is a turbulent environment. Change factors that affect everyone include globalization, rapidly changing technologies, political instability, terrorism and environmental issues. As outlined later in this chapter, universities and colleges are positioned in a changing environment and this is requiring new approaches to supporting student learning.

    This book gives an introduction to the current landscape of higher education, the very diverse nature of students in colleges and universities today, as well as changing ideas about learning and teaching. It explores different ways of providing support for students, e.g. in developing their information and digital literacy, and through face-to-face, online and blended learning courses and other forms of support.

    Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning is a straightforward and accessible guide to learning and teaching practices appropriate for use with higher education students and it covers a wide range of tools and techniques (relevant to face-to-face and online practices), which will suit different groups of students in different contexts. Library and information workers are involved in supporting very different groups of students, e.g. they might work with large groups of 500+ students or deliver specialist programmes to very small groups of research students. Some library staff are working in contexts where resources are tightly squeezed and there appear to be few opportunities for innovation. In contrast, many universities and colleges are investing heavily in their support systems and structures for students, and this brings great opportunities for change and innovation.

    Finally, the nature and speed of the changes that are being experienced within colleges and universities means that the need for continuous professional development (CPD) is vital. Individual library and information workers now have many different opportunities to keep up to date and maintain their professional development so that they can continue to meet the needs of students and their career aspirations.

Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning
  • A Practical Guide for Librarians and Educators
  • Barbara Allan
  • Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016
  • Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning provides a straightforward and accessible guide to the latest learning and teaching practices appropriate for use with higher education students. It is both an exciting and challenging time to be working in higher education as the sector experiences rapid changes including: an increasingly diverse student population with changing expectations; changes in technology including the rise in the use of social media; increased emphasis on employability and internationalisation; development of new social learning spaces; as well as an ever-decreasing resource base. As a result of these changes, new approaches to supporting student learning are developing rapidly.

  • 7 - Social justice, adult learning and critical literacy

  • from PART 1 - THEORIES OF CRITICAL LITERACY
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 79-90

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Adult learners, also called mature learners, are a nebulous group. The United States National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, n.d.) defines ‘adult education’ as any formal learning activities done by people over 16 years old. In the UK, the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (2010, 6) expands the definition of adult learning to ‘the entire range of formal, non-formal and informal learning activities which are undertaken by adults after a break since leaving initial education and training, and which results in the acquisition of new knowledge and skills’. Other definitions are based solely on age; many institutions of higher education, including Roosevelt University (2014a) in Chicago, Illinois, consider their adult degree programme to be for students over 24 years old. In 2013, roughly 31% of students enrolled in degree-granting post-secondary institutions in the United States were 25 or older and therefore fell into the group commonly thought of as ‘adult students’ (NCES, 2015). Because this article is grounded in the context in which I work, it primarily focuses on students enrolled in higher education in the United States who are 24 or more years old. However, it is important to remember that not all 24-year-olds have the same challenges and opportunities, and students younger than this may exhibit similar behaviours, motivations or circumstances. There are no rigid lines when defining adult learners, and inflexible definitions are in fact not terribly meaningful because adult education and learning theorists can be informative for information professionals about helping learners of all ages.

    I approach the examination of adult learning and critical literacy from the perspective of an academic librarian and instructor. I was a librarian at the Roosevelt University Library from 2007 to 2010 and, since 2008, I have also been teaching online courses in Roosevelt's adult accelerated degree programme (now called the Flex-Track Program). This chapter starts with an overview of Roosevelt University and its philosophy of and approach to socialjustice, in particular as part of its Flex-Track Program. It then explores how, within this framework, three adult learning theories have been influential, both within formal, taught academic-skills courses and in more ad hoc library support. The final section reflects on some of the potential challenges facing tutors and library professionals wishing to incorporate such approaches into their work.

  • 5 - Using new literacies to discuss disability in the library

  • from PART 1 - THEORIES OF CRITICAL LITERACY
    • By J. J. Pionke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 57-64

  • Summary

    Introduction

    While most libraries in the United States are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they are not necessarily accessible enough, or accessible at all, to those with disabilities, even when the buildings conform to the law. The ADA is a national law in the US that seeks to create more equal opportunities and treatment of people with disabilities. Codified within the law are requirements such as that all public buildings should have accessible entrances and bathrooms. While it is easy to say that libraries should make more efforts to provide services for people with disabilities and different access needs, in this time of economic uncertainty, all departments in the library have multiple competing priorities and a dearth of funding. Even if funding were not a major issue, competing priorities certainly are. The prevailing unspoken attitude tends to be that as long as the library is accessible for most people and is at least ADA compliant, than accessibility for all is not a tier-one priority. This chapter explores how new literacies can play a role in challenging such complacency and improving library access for people with disabilities. Librarians tend to be a forward-thinking group of people when it comes to technology; they are often early adopters and are used to considering ways in which technology can improve access to information. From here, this chapter argues, it is a relatively small step to using new literacies to change the very way that we think about accessibility.

    The chapter starts with an overview of disability issues in relation to library provision. It then examines how the new literacies required to interact with digital media and, in particular, Lankshear and Knobel's (2006) notion of ‘mindsets’, might be a means to challenge prevailing attitudes. Building on this theory, a number of practical approaches are described. These include both general suggestions that might apply to a range of disabilities and examples of methods suited to particular conditions.

  • 2 - Working with students

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 19-32

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter provides an overview of students in colleges and universities, and different ways of working with them. Student populations in higher education are extremely diverse and the following themes and categories are explored in this chapter: students in the digital age; international students; students with disabilities; part-time students; and diversity as a result of individual learning styles. This is followed by a section on the implications of diverse student populations on learning and teaching.

    Diverse student populations

    Over the last 20 years there has been an explosion in university enrolments in most countries across the world (UNESCO, 2015). In the UK many colleges and universities highlight their diverse student populations in their marketing materials, often stating that their students come from more than 100 or even 150 countries. This gives students advantages through studying with others from different countries and creating lifetime global networks.

    The diversity of student populations goes well beyond students’ home backgrounds. These are some of the different factors related to diverse student populations that affect a student's experience:

  • • academic skills

  • • age

  • • cultural background

  • • digital skills

  • • educational experiences

  • • emotional intelligence

  • • emotional resilience

  • • employment experiences

  • • ethnic background

  • • faith

  • • financial situation

  • • gender

  • • health

  • • information technology skills

  • • language

  • • learning styles

  • • life experiences

  • • literacy and numeracy

  • • mental health

  • • nationality

  • • previous educational experiences

  • • special needs.

    • Students who appear superficially to come from the same background may be very different, as illustrated in the following example.

    Example: Two students from Guangzhou, China

    This example is based on the author's experience of teaching Chinese students in a UK university in the north of England. As part of an induction activity, the students were asked to introduce themselves to the whole class. Names have been changed to protect their identity.

    One student, Amy Ho, explained that she had attended a British boarding school in Yorkshire for five years and had obtained four A levels and 12 GCSEs. Her family lived in Guangzhou and she was used to travelling from the UK to Guangzhou for her holidays, though she often holidayed in Dubai and Australia.

  • 1 - Renegotiating the place of fiction in libraries through critical literacy

  • from PART 1 - THEORIES OF CRITICAL LITERACY
    • By Sarah McNicol, Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 3-18

  • Summary

    Introduction

    As many of the chapters in this book indicate, within librarianship and information studies, critical literacy is usually linked to information literacy and is most often focused on the use of non-fiction texts. Outside libraries, however, critical literacy is commonly explored through various forms of fiction. This chapter considers how, by adopting critical literacy approaches, librarians across all sectors may find opportunities to encourage readers to read fictional texts from a critical stance and thus find new ways to explore the different notions of ‘truth’ presented, as well as widen their range of reading strategies.

    The chapter starts by describing how critical literacy forms part of wider literary theory and relates to other approaches to reading. It then describes methods of promoting fiction in libraries in the light of this theory. Finally, it considers the potential of critical literacy in this respect, particularly within reading groups and as part of libraries’ work to promote social inclusion.

    Reader response and critical literacy

    Critical literacy can be seen as forming part of a wider literary theory that explores different ways in which texts can be read. This section sets critical literacy within the framework of reader response theory, before considering critical forms of reading more specifically.

    Reader response theory

    Reader response theory is a form of literary theory that focuses on the experiences of the reader and their engagement with a text. It differs from many other forms of literary theory which tend to focus on the form and content of the text, or on the role of the author. For scholars who work within a reader response framework, the reader plays an active role in shaping a text, to the extent that an active reader might be described as a co-author. Rosenblatt's (1994a; 1994b) transactional theory of reading is a key idea in reader response criticism. In this approach, a literary work is conceived not as an object, but as an experience to be shaped by the reader, based on guidance provided by the author through the text. This guidance takes the form of ‘clues’ (Allen, 1988) or reading ‘instructions’ (Iser, 1989).

  • 11 - Critical literacy and academic honesty: a school librarian's role and contribution

  • from PART 2 - CRITICAL LITERACY IN PRACTICE
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 123-128

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Academic honesty and academic integrity are terms in common currency, especially in tertiary education. However, the specific term ‘academic honesty’ is used by the International Baccalaureate (IB), an independent, international organization that has developed curricula in the primary and secondary sectors of education. Academic honesty is considered to be a significant feature in IB philosophy. The terms academic honesty or academic integrity are often considered to be the antithesis of the term ‘plagiarism’; for example, the UK's Higher Education Academy (HEA) and JISC (2010) produced a guide to Supporting Academic Integrity which is heavily focused on plagiarism. The IB, however, takes a more holistic and more positive view; it argues that ‘academic honesty must be seen as a set of values and skills that promote personal integrity and good practice in teaching, learning and assessment’ (International Baccalaureate, 2011, 2). Therefore, within the IB definition, there are expectations that students will develop skills in the techniques or mechanics of academic honesty, but also that they will realize and practise ethical standards with regard to academic honesty. In contrast to the IB approach, literature in library and information science tends to be strong on references to the techniques and skills development needed with regard to avoiding plagiarism, but there is less focus on the affective arena, whereby students develop principles and values with regard to their practice of academic honesty.

    This chapter describes a librarian's contribution not merely to teaching the basic precautions necessary to avoid plagiarism but also to the higher-level critical thinking skills and aptitudes that students need in order to successfully meet the demands of academic-honesty principles and standards as part of the IB programme. The following section focuses on the role of academic honesty within the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) course for 16- to 18-year-old students.

    The IB Diploma Programme

    Although academic honesty is a central part of IB philosophy throughout IB curricula, there are specific requirements for students and schools that undertake the IBDP, a curriculum for students in their last two years of secondary education (16–18 years of age). This curriculum is generally considered to be helpful and an appropriate preparation and experience for studying at tertiary level, as it involves considerable externally assessed enquiry and research assignments.

  • 14 - Diffusing critical web literacy in a teacher-education setting: initial reflections and future planning

  • from PART 2 - CRITICAL LITERACY IN PRACTICE
    • By Evangelia Bougatzeli, Laboratory Teaching Staff of the Primary Education Department, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University, Greece, Efi Papadimitriou, Assistant Professor in Linguistic and Visual Literacy in the School of Primary Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 151-160

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Despite the fact that the web was not designed for use either by children or in educational settings, many governments throughout the world, including Greece (Τζιμογιάννης, 2011), have adopted policies to support its use in educational settings. However, effective online reading demands different capabilities and attitudes as compared to reading printed texts (Coiro and Dobler, 2007). These capabilities and attitudes are often termed ‘web literacy’, ‘an ability to recognize and assess a wide range of rhetorical situations and an attentiveness to the information conveyed in a source's non-textual features’ (Sorapure et al., 1998, 410). Sorapure et al. (1998, 410) argue that ‘teaching such a literacy means supplementing the evaluative criteria traditionally applied to print sources with new strategies for making sense of diverse kinds of texts presented in hypertextual and multimedia formats’. A common distinction is made between three principal subcategories of webliteracy abilities, namely:

  • • web-searching abilities (e.g. defining appropriate keywords/phrases, knowing alternative ways to locate information)

  • • web-reading abilities (e.g. navigating meaningfully through hyperlinks, exploiting web pages’ features such as internal searching, indices)

  • • web-evaluation abilities (e.g. assessing the reliability and authority of online information).

    • However, web literacy also encompasses intricate higher-order skills and cognitive capabilities required not only to evaluate the content credibility of the accessed information, but also to reveal both the interests that constructed this specific content and the forces that dominate and shape the whole web.

    Enhancing web literacy among students requires that teachers themselves become web literate. However, there is a scarcity of web-literacy training for teachers (David, 2009). For example, in Greece a recent study (Bougatzeli et al., 2015) showed that there is a need for web-literacy initiatives to ensure (a) effective pluralism in information provision in educational settings, and (b) the critical evaluation and exploitation of information resources for the benefit of learners.

    This chapter describes a multi-level intervention which has been designed and implemented within the undergraduate programme of the Department of Primary Education of the School of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. It outlines the content and implementation of this intervention and then describes student reactions. As the initiative took place in a Greek university, the chapter starts with a brief description of the Greek educational context.

  • 10 - Evaluation of learning and teaching activities and courses

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 137-152

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In many countries student experience and satisfaction are high on the agenda of universities and colleges, and students are regularly asked for their feedback on all aspects of their academic life. The results of this feedback are used to inform change and improvements, and as performance measures within institutions; summarized results may be displayed in league tables.

    The provision of library and information services to students is regularly monitored through a range of quality assurance and enhancement processes. Library and information workers who are module leaders or tutors on creditbearing modules are likely to be involved in specific course-related quality assurance and enhancement processes, such as annual monitoring, so it is important for them to understand their institutional policy and practices.

    In contrast, some of the activities of library and information workers, e.g. workshops, online courses, giving one-to-one support, may not be explicitly included in the institutional quality assurance and enhancement processes that monitor courses and modules. It is therefore important for library and information service staff to think about how they wish to evaluate those of their activities that directly support student learning and to have appropriate systems in place.

    Different countries have their own systems of quality control and enhancement and this chapter provides a brief overview of these processes in the UK. Many of the underlying principles are the same in higher education in other countries, although their organization may be based on factors such as geography, type of institution and type of course, and the evaluation may be led by government or other agencies.

    The main part of this chapter is concerned with the evaluation of the impact of learning and teaching activities, e.g. short courses, online courses, and blended learning courses. It starts with a summary of some of the research findings of Schilling and Applegate (2012), which gives an insight into important distinctions when measuring students’ attitudes, learning or behaviour. The next section looks at practical approaches to evaluating the impact of learning and teaching activities and covers a wide range of methods, from student assignments through to tests, and gives case studies that demonstrate the value of using a number of tools together when evaluating these interventions.

Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016
  • This edited collection explores critical literacy theory and provides practical guidance to how it can be taught and applied in libraries. Critical literacy asks fundamental questions about our understanding of knowledge. Unlike more conventional approaches to literacy and resource evaluation, with critical literacy there is no single ‘correct' way to read and respond to a text or resource. A commitment to equity and social justice sets critical literacy apart from many other types of literacy and links it to wider societal debates, such as internationalization, community cohesion and responses to disability. The book provides a foundation of critical literacy theory, as applied to libraries; combines theory and practice to explore critical literacy in relation to different user groups, and offers practical ways to introduce critical literacy approaches in libraries.

  • 12 - Engaging undergraduate communications students in critical information literacy

  • from PART 2 - CRITICAL LITERACY IN PRACTICE
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 129-138

  • Summary

    Introduction

    It has been over a decade since Troy Swanson (2004) published his ‘radical’ idea that librarians should teach students about information itself, including how and why it is created, and not just how to search for it. Critical literacy provides the information professional with an opportunity to encourage critical consciousness in students (Elmborg, 2006; Kopp and Olson-Kopp, 2010) and to examine the social context and construction of information sources (Kapitzke, 2003). Beyond good or bad sources, critical information literacy encourages students to ascertain the social and cultural frameworks in which the information was created and understand the implications of that context. This chapter discusses the way in which a librarian and an instructor collaborated to engage undergraduate students in a required undergraduate communications course in critical information literacy. It starts, however, with a consideration of how a lack of published examples can present a challenge to librarians wishing to implement critical information literacy approaches.

    Examples of critical information literacy in libraries

    Critical information literacy is rooted in the work of critical theorists and, more specifically, the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire. In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (2000, 72) explicitly relates several traditional library functions – receiving, filing, collecting, storing, cataloguing – to his ‘banking concept of education’ in which teachers view knowledge as capital to be deposited in students. Elmborg (2006, 193) asks how librarians should respond to Freire: ‘Is the library a passive information bank where students and faculty make knowledge deposits and withdrawals, or is it a place where students actively engage existing knowledge and shape it to their own current and future uses?’ The literature suggests that many librarians have since endeavoured to make the library a place of engaged learning and knowledge construction (Bruce, 2004; Mackey and Jacobson, 2010; Maybee, 2006). Elmborg (2012, 90) notes that Freire's critical pedagogy responded to a specific cultural and philosophical context and that, before appropriating it as a pedagogical model, librarians must ‘account for the translation of his work … into modern (and postmodern) practices’. The influx of ideas and praxis from critical pedagogy has helped librarians to transition from resource-based bibliographic instruction to user-centred information literacy.

  • 3 - Digital literacies

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 33-48

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Employability is high on the agenda for colleges and universities, and there is a recognition that students and graduates need a wide range of professional skills, including digital and information skills, in order to be successful on their degree course and as they enter the wider world of work.

    Traditionally, the library and information profession has always ‘owned’ information literacy, but recently a broader concept of digital literacies has developed. This has resulted in new ways of thinking and working within higher education as different professional groups, e.g. library and information workers, media support workers, IT trainers and careers professionals, all have a stake in this important area. At the same time, library and information workers are engaging in areas which were traditionally outside their remit, such as student employability.

    In recent years, there has been much research and many practical developments on supporting student learning in the digital age. This is explored in this chapter by looking at digital literacies, information literacies including metaliteracy, and digital badges. Chapter 4 explores the concept of employability and responses of contemporary academic libraries to students’ employability.

    Digital literacies in practice

    Rapid changes in technology such as the rise in social media and the development of accessible media have an impact on learning and teaching, and graduate employability in universities. At one time, the institutional virtual learning environment and e-mails were the main communication channels in the learning and teaching process, and academic administration. Nowadays, there is a much more complex situation as staff and students in colleges and universities use many different systems and technologies to do their work, such as e-mail, text messages, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, Pressi, Pinterest, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Tumblr, as well as the institutional virtual learning environment.

    Josefsson et al. (2015) have carried out research into students’ use of social media and they identify three roles: the educational role, the professional role and the private role. They consider the differences between social media usage by students, and suggest that colleges and universities have a clear role in educating students to use social media as part of their studies and in preparation for work. Graduates also use many different systems in their work, and employers expect them to be able to use them to a professional level.

  • 13 - Exploring pedagogical implications of students’ search mediation experiences through the lens of critical information literacy

  • from PART 2 - CRITICAL LITERACY IN PRACTICE
    • By Sarah Clark, Associate Library Director at Rogers State University (RSU), Oklahoma, USA
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 139-150

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In my pilot study of the information-seeking narratives of mature students, ‘Ashley’ shared a provocative story of an information search that was stymied by uncertainty and fear. During a library instruction class she attended early in the semester, the librarian discussed the multiple ways students could use library resources and staff to find information more effectively. In addition, Ashley's instructor encouraged her students to seek help and provided additional resources for finding and evaluating appropriate information for scholarly enquiry. Despite all these available resources, Ashley simply became ‘blocked’ (Clark, 2014, 69), and could not overcome her anxiety sufficiently to attempt to explore her topic, or even to ask for help.

    Eventually, after failing her first research assignment because she did not use any library sources, Ashley consulted her boyfriend, whom she already respected because his computer skills had helped her a great deal in her other projects. Although he was helpful to an extent, she still did not feel that she had learned as much about information seeking as she could have done. When asked why she had not consulted with a formal mediator (Kuhlthau, 2004) such as a librarian or her instructor, Ashley said, ‘Smart people intimidate me. And people who are in charge of me’ (Clark, 2014, 70).

    Upon hearing this story, I became curious about how information seekers selected and worked with search mediators, and how seekers’ encounters with the people they asked for help influenced the search process as a whole. Scholars of information literacy such as Kuhlthau (1991; 1993; 2004), Limberg and Sundin (2006), McKenna (2009) and Shah and Kitzie (2012) contend that information seekers’ interactions with search mediators, particularly formal mediators such as librarians, play an important role in assisting seekers to overcome the common experience of uncertainty and to successfully navigate the information-search process. However, those same scholars observe that even when they are aware of the availability and merits of asking librarians for help, students seem to consistently select and engage with mediators in ways that appear to experts to be relatively ineffective for learning how to navigate the information search process.

  • 2 - Death of the author(ity): repositioning students as constructors of meaning in information literacy instruction

  • from PART 1 - THEORIES OF CRITICAL LITERACY
  • Edited by Sarah McNicol
  • Book:
    Critical Literacy for Information Professionals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 April 2016, pp 19-30

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In ‘The Death of the Author’, Barthes (1977, 146) writes that a text is ‘a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture’. He asserts that the meaning of a text is fluid, and open to the interpretations of the reader. Foucault (1979a) further deconstructs authorship in ‘What is an Author?’ by taking the author away from the centre of the meaning-making process and exposing the role of the reader in the construction of a text. This notion is, in many ways, counter to the traditional work of bibliographic and information literacy instruction, which is concerned almost overwhelmingly with establishing authorial intent and determining expertise. This dogged focus on ‘authorship’ results in a curriculum in which popular and scholarly sources are positioned on either side of a value-laden binary, and where the process of critical evaluation – purportedly the heart of the project of information literacy – is often an effort to discern existing meanings, rather than challenge them. This emphasis on authorship also does nothing to recognize the ways in which a reader's relationship with a text is, fundamentally, a discourse in which meaning is continually negotiated and filtered through one's own lived experiences and values.

    In the spirit of Barthes and Foucault, this chapter is not solely about authors and authorship. Instead, it focuses on the conversations that arise when information literacy attempts to de-centre authorial intent and turn the lens back on the reader, or learner, as the constructor of meaning. When a learner is empowered to locate their own sense of ‘truth’ in a text, the discourse opens up into an examination of how those truths are, in themselves, constructed. To understand the importance or impact of an information source, one has to consider the audience response to a particular text and address interpretation as much as, if not more than, authorial intent. The focus I propose here is not an outright poststructuralist rejection of authorship but, rather, a recognition of the unique ways in which the field of information literacy should holistically consider its interactions with authorship.

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