Foundations of Information Literacy

by Natalie Greene Taylor, Paul T. Jaeger

Overview

It’s not hyperbole to conclude that in today’s world, information literacy is essential for survival and success; and also that, if left unchecked, the social consequences of widespread misinformation and information illiteracy will only continue to grow more dire. Thus its study must be at the core of every education. But while many books have been written on information literacy, this text is the first to examine information literacy from a cross-national, cross-cultural, and cross-institutional perspective. From this book, readers will

• learn about information literacy in a wide variety of contexts, including academic and school libraries, public libraries, special libraries, and archives, through research and literature that has previously been siloed in specialized publications;
• come to understand why information literacy is not just an issue of information and technology, but also a broader community and societal issue;
• get an historical overview of advertising, propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, and illiteracy;
• gain knowledge of both applied strategies for working with individuals and for addressing the issues in community contexts;
• find methods for combating urgent societal ills caused and exacerbated by misinformation; and
• get tools and techniques for advocacy, activism, and self-reflection throughout one’s career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780838949702
Publisher:	American Library Association
Publication date:	11/15/2021
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Natalie Greene Taylor, PhD, MLS, is an associate professor and coordinator of the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at the School of Information of the University of South Florida. Dr. Taylor’s research focuses on youth information literacy, information intermediaries, and information policy as it affects youth information access. She has published articles in more than two dozen scholarly journals, her research has appeared in American Libraries and other professional journals, and she has coauthored five books: Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Information Policy and the Public Library; Libraries, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Enabling Access and Promoting Inclusion; Foundations of Information Policy; Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy: Confronting Polarization, Misinformation, and Suppression; and Foundations of Information Literacy. She is coeditor of Library Quarterly.

Paul T. Jaeger, PhD, MLS, JD, MEd, is a professor at the College of Information Studies and codirector of the Museum Scholarship and Material Culture program at the University of Maryland. He studies the impacts of law and policy on information access, accessibility, and literacy, with a primary focus on human rights and civil rights. He is the author of about 200 journal articles and book chapters, as well as twenty books. His research has been funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Science Foundation, the American Library Association, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. He is coeditor of Library Quarterly. In 2014 he received the Library Journal/ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award. A 2019 study published in Public Library Quarterly named him one of the two most influential scholars of public library research in the past thirty-five years (it was a tie).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments and Sanctuary ix

List of Acronyms xi

1 Searching for Information (Literacy) 1

2 Defining Information Literacy 11

3 Information Literacy in the Context of Information Behavior and Everyday Life 29

4 The Operationalization of Information Literacy, Part I Academic and School Libraries 43

5 The Operationalization of Information Literacy, Part II Public Libraries, Special Libraries, and Archives 61

6 Information Literacy Is a Human Right 77

7 Controlling Information Literacy 85

8 Literacy Politics and Literacy Policies 95

9 Why Libraries? 101

10 The Field Guide to Incorrect Information 115

11 A Brief History of Advertising, Propaganda, and Other Delights 131

12 Pandemic-Style Disinformation, Misinformation, and Illiteracy 137

13 Toward Lifelong Information Literacy 147

14 Advocacy, Activism, and Self-Reflection for Information (Literacy) Professionals 153

15 The Social Infrastructure for Information Literacy 163

16 The Lifelong Information Literacy Society 173

References 181

About the Authors 215

Index 217

Editorial Reviews

”Library workers, information professionals, LIS faculty and graduate students seeking to understand current theories of information literacy should look no further than Taylor and Jaeger’s Foundations of Information Literacy. This engagingly written text provides a robust introduction to information literacy since its emergence in the 'information society' of the 1970s and its continued evolution to address the information disorder of the participatory Web."
— OIF Intellectual Freedom Blog

”Taylor and Jaeger declare libraries the community institutions to best help learners understand information literacy and contend librarians should 'own' the teaching of it and cultivate community collaborations to further their reach. This volume is for librarians charged with infusing information literacy into their teaching and public-facing work."
— Choice

"This is one of the best library and information science books that I have read in years. The authors cover a huge amount of theoretical and practical ground very successfully ... I found the plea to evolve the approach to information literacy to include contemporary issues such as privacy and surveillance timely. As our roles increasingly expand to research data, data governance, rights and data control, a new community requires education and processes that are built on the fundamentals of information literacy."
— Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association

From the Publisher

05/01/2022

In this ambitious textbook, Green Taylor (library science, Univ. of South Florida Sch. of Information) and Jaeger (information studies, Univ. of Maryland)—the coauthors of Foundations of Information Policy—team up once again to take a deep dive, in a very crowded market, of the past, present, and future of information literacy and associated issues. The authors offer a detailed look at information, literacy, and information behavior before delving into the history, intent, and utility of the main topic. They introduce a new definition of the term to function as a lens to examine scope and influence. Most notable are the number of pages devoted to misinformation, disinformation, and illiteracy, while considering the many complexities of electronic information. Like many textbooks, chapters end with groups of helpful questions serving as primers for further discussion. Worthy of mention, there is an overuse of partisan examples throughout the text, which diminishes the overall goal of this well cited resource. VERDICT This textbook may be of interest to a niche audience in information science.—James Rhoades

Library Journal