Public libraries, digital literacy and participatory culture

In recent years public libraries have experimented with user-generated or community-contributed content through the interactive tools of Web 2.0. For some commentators this not just establishes a new relationship between libraries and their publics, but signals the end of information hegemony and an ‘expert paradigm’. Such claims need to be treated with caution. This article argues that public library experiments with user-generated content can be more usefully analysed in the context of wider institutional mandates around literacy, civic engagement and access. This article critically examines some recent library developments in this field, with a particular focus on Australian libraries.

[1]  Rae Condie,et al.  The impact of ICT in schools - a landscape review , 2007 .

[2]  Nicholas C. Burbules.  Digital libraries as virtual spaces , 2013 .

[3]  Frank Parry,et al.  Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 , 2008 .

[4]  Jane Harding,et al.  Information literacy and the public library: we’ve talked the talk, but are we walking the walk? , 2008 .

[5]  Suzanne Willis,et al.  Beyond the ‘digital divide’ , 2006 .

[6]  C. Dawson,et al.  The Influence of Principals’ Technology Training on the Integration Of Technology into Schools , 2003 .

[7]  Irina Trushina.  Freedom of access: ethical dilemmas for Internet librarians , 2004, Electron. Libr..

[8]  Ilkka Tuomi,et al.  Beyond the Digital Divide , 2000 .

[9]  Paul Miller,et al.  Web 2.0: Building the New Library , 2005 .

[10]  Mark Brown.  The Growth of Enterprise Pedagogy: How ICT Policy Is Infected by Neo-Liberalism. , 2005 .

[11]  Sue Hutley,et al.  Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) , 2009 .

[12]  Alan Bundy,et al.  Growing The Community of the Informed: Information Literacy—A Global Issue , 2002 .

[13]  E. Owusu-Ansah.  Information literacy and the academic library: a critical look at a concept and the controversies surrounding it , 2003 .

[14]  A. Mutch.  Information literacy: An exploration , 1997 .

[15]  Erica McWilliam.  The Creative Workforce: How to Launch Young People into High-Flying Futures , 2008 .

[16]  Alice Phoebe Naylor,et al.  Reaching all children: a public library dilemma , 1987 .

[17]  A. Black,et al.  A New History of the English Public Library: Social and Intellectual Contexts, 1850-1914 , 1996 .

[18]  Samuel de Carvalho Lima.  SNYDER, I. The Literacy Wars: why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2008. , 2012 .

[19]  Fiona R. Cameron,et al.  Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage : a Critical Discourse , 2007 .

[20]  Denise Meredyth,et al.  Real Time: Computers,Change and Schooling , 1999 .

[21]  Lawrence Lessig,et al.  Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy , 2008 .

[22]  John Schiller.  Working with ICT , 2003 .

[23]  James Shedlock,et al.  Democratizing Information: Online Databases and the Rise of End-User Searching , 1990 .

[24]  Kim E. Moody,et al.  Covert censorship in libraries: a discussion paper , 2005 .

[25]  Madely du Preez.  Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe , 2009 .

[26]  Hannelore B. Rader,et al.  Information Literacy 1973-2002: A Selected Literature Review , 2002, Libr. Trends.

[27]  S. Muspratt.  Constructing critical literacies: teaching and learning textual practice , 1997 .

[28]  Henry Jenkins.  Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century , 2006 .

[29]  Madely du Preez.  Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe , 2009 .

[30]  Rose Holley.  The Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program: Helping Communities access and explore their newspaper heritage , 2007 .

[31]  M. Gibson.  Beyond Literacy Panics: Digital Literacy and Educational Optimism , 2008 .

[32]  Bertram C. Bruce,et al.  Libr@ries: Changing Information Space and Practice , 2006 .

[33]  Nicholas Gruen.  Engage: getting on with Government 2.0 , 2009 .

[34]  Richard J. Cox,et al.  Double fold: libraries and the assault on paper , 2001 .

[35]  O. Erstad,et al.  Reviewing Approaches and Perspectives on “Digital Literacy” , 2009 .

[36]  Cushla Kapitzke.  INFORMATION LITERACY: A POSITIVIST EPISTEMOLOGY AND A POLITICS OF OUTFORMATION , 2003 .

[37]  Gunther Kress,et al.  Literacy in the New Media Age , 2003 .

[38]  Allen Bundy.  Information Literacy: The 21st Century Educational Smartcard , 1999 .

[39]  S. Ewing,et al.  CCi digital futures 2008: the Internet in Australia , 2008 .

[40]  C. Luke,et al.  Adolescence Lost/Childhood Regained: on Early Intervention and the Emergence of the Techno-Subject , 2001 .

[41]  P. Freebody,et al.  Further notes on the four resources model , 1999 .

[42]  Henry Jenkins.  Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture , 1992 .

[43]  M. Maczewski.  Exploring Identities Through the Internet: Youth Experiences Online , 2002 .

[44]  Joy Palmer.  Archives 2.0: If We Build It, Will They Come? , 2009 .

[45]  Louise S. Robbins,et al.  Champions of a Cause: American Librarians and the Library Bill of Rights in the 1950s , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[46]  B. Cope,et al.  Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures , 2001 .

[47]  David Bawden,et al.  Information and digital literacies: a review of concepts , 2001, J. Documentation.

[48]  Matthew Battles.  Library: An Unquiet History , 2003 .

[49]  Gerard Goggin,et al.  Opening up Literacy with the Digital Turn: Ideas from Mobiles , 2008 .

[50]  Sirje Virkus,et al.  Information literacy in Europe: a literature review , 2003, Inf. Res..

[51]  M. Hammond.  "The Great Fiction Bore": Free Libraries and the Construction of a Reading Public in England, 1880-1914 , 2002 .

[52]  Kirsten Tozer.  Civic Space/Cyberspace: The American Public Library in the Information Age , 2001 .

[53]  Guy Merchant.  New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning (2nd edn.) by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel , 2007 .

[54]  Rose Holley.  Many Hands Make Light Work : Public Collaborative OCR Text Correction in Australian Historic Newspapers , 2009 .

[55]  Colin Lankshear,et al.  Introduction: digital literacies: concepts, policies and practices , 2008 .

[56]  P. Valkenburg,et al.  Adolescents’ internet use: Testing the “disappearing digital divide” versus the “emerging digital differentiation” approach , 2006 .

[57]  Gregg J. Rickman.  : Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture . Henry Jenkins. , 1993 .

[58]  Colin Lankshear,et al.  New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning , 2006 .

[59]  Mike Sharples,et al.  A theory of learning for the mobile age: learning through conversation and exploration across contexts , 2010 .

[60]  J. McMurtry.  Social economy as political practice , 2004 .

[61]  Svanhild Aabø,et al.  The role and value of public libraries in the age of digital technologies , 2005, J. Libr. Inf. Sci..