This title’s radical perspective focuses on the nature of information literacy and interrogates the conventional definition of information literacy to develop the concept of an ‘information landscape’. This concept is much broader than the accepted definition and postulates that it is the contemporary perspective that contests the field of information literacy in the generation of knowledge. It has a body of social, political and educational theory and has elements of dialogue, discourse, power and authority to deliver researched perspectives on the creation of knowledge.
The cognitive authority inherent in the definition of ‘knowledge landscapes’ is determined by communities which reside within, and are constantly constructing, these landscapes. The author suggests that changes over time have revealed biases in the system that organises production and consumption of information. Alternative forms of authority mean that we have to learn about patterns of information exchange and cognitive authority within the information landscape and that we have to learn how to transform these whilst maintaining vigilance over authority. There is some criticism of the institutional systems of education in which authority is centralised, exclusionary and unitary instead of being distributive, participatory and polysocial. The author postulates that information literacy has been taught, practised and studied in limited ways within an institutional framework that does not permit scrutiny of cognitive authority. Understanding the contexts within which people experience information is part of the theory of applied practice that recognises the fundamentally dialogic and political nature of knowledge formation.
The author’s view embraces the information landscape as involving libraries, schools, community organisations, activist groups, businesses, classrooms, workplaces, family, media, social networks and many more informal elements, including social and political elements, which communicate and are responsible for knowledge formation. The perspective regarding ‘information landscapes’ is exploratory rather than evaluative, with even libraries coming in for critical evaluation because they demonstrate limited philosophies of knowledge formation.
Controversially, the author claims that the concept of radical information landscapes involves an independence from technology. He claims that information and communication technologies, rather than facilitating autonomous learning, may be more accurately identified as an element allowing the informed in society to maintain their capital. The author recognises rapid technological change but holds the view that its value lies in stimulating learning needs, which, in turn, need to be met. High value is also placed on artifacts as an essential part of information; these include practical knowledge, insights, experience, emotional impact, observations, dialogue, technology access and other experiential factors. Factoring in time is also examined, postulating that every epoch is characterised by its singular view of legitimate information and knowledge.
Each chapter begins with an abstract and a list of key words with in-text referencing throughout. At the end there is a very lengthy bibliography followed by a detailed index. For readers who have an interest in the theory of information behaviour and are stimulated by challenges to accepted academic frameworks, this is an expansive and rigorous interrogation of the field.
New England Girls’ School
© 2015, Heather Fisher
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2015.1100284