Last week I saw a call for chapter proposals for a book in the Innovations in Information Literacy series on digital storytelling. I’ve been interested in the outside-the-box connections among information literacy and digital storytelling since I first became involved in ds106, so this seemed right up my alley. I thought I would reach out to the ds106 masterminds to get their views on information literacy and how it connects to ds106 specifically. Jim generously gave an hour and a half of his time:
One of the nice things about getting this on Youtube is that it generates a transcription, which saves me a lot of typing. And Jim had a lot to say. This is especially valuable because he comes at it from a different perspective:
…my interest in information literacy is digging into a process, or a kind of domain if you will, and understanding how elements of it work. And most of my work has been around web sites, web hosting, building out personal identity and I think part of that literacy is understanding how do people find your work? How do search engines work? How do you think about what you link to and what that tells people about you? I think all of these are fundamental elements of a kind of next generation information literacy.
The ACRL sees info lit from the perspective of college and research librarians, like me, and for the purpose of college library research. That makes sense given where we are and what we do, but if we truly think of info lit as a life skill, as the cornerstone of lifelong learning, then we have to consider people’s lives outside academia, and the media and tools and systems they work with and within. Jim’s background in literature and educational technology gives him insights into info lit that I might not have as a librarian. I will be picking apart this conversation further.
