Keywords
Citation
Dobreva, M. (2010), "Information Literacy at the Crossroad of Education and Information Policies in Europe", Library Review, Vol. 59 No. 8, pp. 638-639. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242531011073173
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Information literacy is a concept with multiple interpretations but beyond any doubt is the fact that it is conditio sine qua non for the information society as well as the knowledge economy.
This book goes beyond the traditional discussions of what constitutes information literacy and how it might be assessed. Instead it addresses a number of vital but often neglected aspects of information literacy, such as how it is defined in policies; how it is related to the current European higher education setting; what it means for different communities – and more specifically for the community of learners; and what measures can be used to promote it. These questions are essential for the definition and implementation of information literacy policies and the book combines two points of view: the overview and theoretical insights are nicely complemented by carefully selected case studies from various European countries, which help to contextualize the common principles in real‐life settings.
The first section of the book provides an analysis of the information literacy policies and the implications of their relationship to both education and information technologies. This section includes an introduction by Maurizio Rocchi – this chapter and the foreword are in Italian but the rest of the book is in English – and two chapters contributed by Carla Basili. The chapter “Information and education policies in Europe: key factors influencing information literacy academic policies in Europe” suggests that information literacy is seen more often as a set of skills while the policy dimension is still being neglected. It also motivates the need for more active involvement of the library and information sciences community and emphasizes that the coordination of university curricula in this area has to be addressed not only on institutional level, but also on the EU policy level.
The second section of the book consists of ten chapters which present information literacy policy issues in European countries including Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania, Spain and the UK. Some of those address the level of national policies but there are also chapters which focus on the higher education policies, helping to illustrate approaches on different levels.
The book is one of the outcomes of the European network on information literacy, a research initiative by the CERIS Institute of the National Research Council in Italy[1]. This is not a random fact; the continuous dialogue within the network in recent years helped to establish better understanding of the similarities and differences in theoretical perception and practice in different countries. The network, contributed to by members, has published several books and organized a number of summer schools in recent years; it is an excellent example of a European human infrastructure which has the potential not only to serve as a discussion forum but also to initiate and implement joint work.
The idea to establish EnIL was conceived by Carla Basili who also edited the book. Her research interests focus on policy studies related to the transfer and diffusion of scientific information. Her commitment and vision are not only necessary but also inspiring; the fact that this network produces such outcomes speaks for itself.
This book is relevant to university teachers and students, policy makers, researchers in the areas of information and education, and also to anyone who feels that information literacy matters in their specific domain. For example, concern about information literacy from the digital humanities community is illustrated by Schreibman, as follows:
The digital [world], with its impermanence, mutability, fads, technology shifts, and hype, is not a brave new world but one fraught with changing expectations, littered with unusable devices, lost content and a fair proportion of the population functionally illiterate: an illiteracy as pervasive as that before the great enterprise of free elementary education that began in the West in the mid‐nineteenth century (Edmond and Schreibman, 2010).
It would be difficult to find a more persuasive argument as to why information literacy matters and it is excellent that books such as Information Literacy at the Crossroad of Education and Information Policies in Europe exist to develop understanding and activity in this area.
Note
- 1.
Reference
Edmond, J. and Schreibman, S. (2010), “European elephants in the room (are they the ones with the bigger or smaller ears?)”, in McGann, J., Stauffer, A. and Wheeles, D. (Eds), Online Humanities Scholarship: The Shape of Things to Come: Proceedings of the Mellon Foundation Online Humanities Conference at the University of Virginia, 26‐28 March, Rice University Press, available at: http://cnx.org/content/m34307/latest/