More than just a pretty face....

and other observations on school libraries and teacher-librarianship

Being Cool: Information Literacy

Information literacy is the ability to access, evaluate and use information from a variety of sources

We are in the Information Age so I'm told. This is a new time that requires new solutions to very new problems. "The Information Age is upon us." Is this is not just a new theme to lead us into a new age of merchandising that has been cleverly titled, and persuasively demonstrated around this incredible new machine - the computer? Perhaps you have noticed that the word micro-computer has lost its minor chord. It was not long ago that Macs and IBM's were called personal computers; now they are just computers. And the computer has somehow led to this new Age of Information that few people seemed to realize was just the same as it was before. That is not the case now. Now a computer can be used to find out stuff that you didn't necessarily need to know, that you were originally able to ignore , or pretend didn't exist before the computer came along. Now we have so much information that we have come to realize that people will have to learn how to cope with it all. And so we come up with the term Information Literacy as if this was a unique new idea.

Now don't take my tone too literally. I am part of the "Information Industry" that has emerged in the Information Age. I was part of the old Library Industry that has lost its flavour in the glare of the computer screen. All of the librarians are curiously at odds in this new age. We were there and we saw it coming. Now we are trying to engage the same principles with a hoard of infidels who believe they saw it first and that it's new and fresh and cool. Librarians (and libraries) are just not cool man!

So we have been forced to find new ways of saying the same old stuff that we know is actually the truth. By using a fresh new term like "Information Literacy" we can catch the attention of many of those who believe that there is a curriculum waiting there to be taught. We can do what we always have tried to do...bring kids together with meaningful information in ways that cannot help but make a difference to their lives.

I may be wrong or just muddleheaded, but I thought that learning to use information was called thinking. Somewhere I was taught that learning to use information from a wide range of sources was called good thinking. And forgetting important information I had once acquired, or failing to recall or correctly use the important parts of that information was called called failure. So all that we have here is a new way of trying to get teachers and parents and curriculum planners to re-think the way we address information now that there seems to more of it than ever before.

Interesting is it not, that since the birth of the Internet everyone who has a computer suddenly has access to masses of information - much more than ever existed before the Internet and just as suddenly, we have to figure out ways of coping with all that information that is coming down the pipe in such a chaotic manner. "Why we shall have to invent a new problem to solve in order to apply our high level thinking skills." "Why we must create whole new structures in our schools to cope with the flood of information that is everywhere."

Hey guys, I hate to spoil your party, but there has been no new revolution. We haven't any new information. All that we have is a new delivery system that unfortunately allows anyone (yes anyone!) to put information into it without regard to its value, purpose, quality or size. Now everyone can be an expert and we suddenly have become very aware of the need to teach everyone how to distinguish useful information from mere pap.

The Internet is a huge lake of data: very broad but very shallow. But the real issue before us is that in order to teach everyone to "access, evaluate and use information" we must ensure that there is a clear distinction between information, understanding and wisdom or knowledge. That seems to be the dilemma that has led us to this strange position. We have determined that there is a need to ensure that our young people can take advantage of all this information when we know that the issue is not sorting out the Web but rather finding truth and wisdom in the myriad of connections that can be made.

We need to teach kids to find, critically consider and properly use information. We have always seen schools as places in which kids and people would be exposed to heaps of information from which they would come to fashion ideas and understandings. There is nothing new under the sun. There is no free lunch. There is no new information. Information literacy means that we have to learn how to find the information we need through all the sources open and available to us, then consider all the information we have been able to locate and understand it in a critical manner. Then we have to consider whether or not we will use that information in solving a problem we may have been able to discern. Doesn't this all seem to be the wrong way around. Don't we usually start with a problem and seek ways to solve it. Does that not involve seeking out information from whatever source, considering it in the light of other information until the solution is obvious or at least discernible from several options?

We simply have to convince our colleagues that we are as cool as they are. We simply have to convince our students that while we don't look cool we really are. Deep down.

Donald Hamilton