UPDATE: July 29, 2016. This post reviews the draft version of the ACRL Framework. For a review of the final version of “Information has Value” please visit this link: https://senseandreference.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/revisiting-the-framework-does-information-have-value/
Well, we’ve reached the last frame of the draft ACRL information literacy revision: Information has Value. Here’s the full list if you want to go back and read about the others:
- Scholarship is a Conversation
- Research as Inquiry
- Authority is Contextual and Constructed
- Format as a Process
- Searching as Exploration
- Information has Value
This is an especially interesting frame. Not only is it a late addition to the framework (the other five have been around since the first draft in February), but it also may be the most widely accepted and discussed concept in the framework. Just search for the phrase “information has value” and you’ll get thousands of hits from the business world, computer sciences, the medical field, education, libraries, and others. Add the keyword ‘library’ and you’ll still get thousands of hits. This concept is so uncontroversial and commonplace that it’s difficult to pinpoint just how it’s “troublesome” in the sense of being a threshold concept. But it’s not too difficult to show that it’s troublesome in other ways…
Overview
From the draft framework:
Information has Value acknowledges that the creation of information and products derived from information requires a commitment of time, original thought, and resources that need to be respected by those seeking to use these products, or create their own based on the work of others. In addition, information may be valued more or less highly based on its creator, its audience/consumer, or its message.
Experts understand that this value designates information as intellectual property, and therefore, recognizes three important dimensions of value. First, information can act as a commodity, and as such, creators can use their work for financial, reputational, social, or civic gains. These motivations may determine how information sources are shared whether given freely, offered for sale, or leased for temporary access. Information users have responsibilities as both consumers and creators of information based on the work of others. Academic and legal practices such as proper attribution of sources and complying with copyright are a result.
Second, as intellectual property, information sources are affected by economic, sociological, and political influences. The means of production may privilege some voices over others. Some search systems may privilege some sources over others due to economic incentive. Experts understand the consequences of selecting appropriate research methods (such as applying the correct statistical analysis to data), the limitations of publishing practices (such as scholarly journals’ lack of interest in publishing negative research results), and the boundaries to accessing the information ecosystem (such as populations without internet access or obstacles created by paywalls).
Finally, experts recognize that their online activity and information they contribute to online sites can be used for economic gain by the sites themselves. Such uses may include personal information harvested from social media sites or advertisements placed on “free” web tools or apps. One’s online presence is monitored, tracked and, ultimately, monetized.
Following the committee’s logic, we can pull out three descriptive components of this frame:
- Information sometimes behaves as a commodity.
- The flow of information is affected by economic, social, and political influences.
- Web services can use the information you provide for their own economic gain.
And, further, we can pull out two prescriptive responsibilities:
- Respect the labor of information creators by adhering to proper source attribution.
- Respect the commodification of information by complying with copyright.
Interestingly, these two prescriptive components are tied to the first descriptive element: information as commodity. There are no corresponding prescriptive elements to the second and third descriptive elements. I mean, sure we can make inferences. Perhaps experts stand against economic, social , and political influences on information creation? Perhaps we should work to make information more accessible? Perhaps we should be careful about what information we share online? Or, maybe just describing the current state of affairs in the information ecosystem is enough. But, if that’s the case, why are there those two prescriptive claims regarding intellectual property rights?
Elsewhere, Jacob Berg has argued that this frame conceals a morally suspect take on intellectual property. Copyright law is broken, he argues, yet here we have the ACRL advocating that experts on information literacy should comply with a system “that every information professional should know is broken, at odds with the common good and encouraging innovation.” That being said, I’m not sure it’s as dire as Berg argues. The ACRL could just be describing economic reality: copyright exists; be careful.
Regarding the claim that information is affected by social forces, I’m first struck by how odd the ACRL’s first example is. Experts understand the consequence of selecting the correct statistical analysis? What does that have to do with economic, political, or social influences? Is there some post-colonial version of ANOVA that I haven’t heard of? A t-test that resists neoliberalism? Don’t get me wrong, understanding statistical methods is important for successful research, but I don’t see the link to economic/social/political influence. I might also add that if the common criticisms of LIS research are any indication librarians are decidedly not experts on quantitative methods.
Moving on, it’s absolutely true that journals handle negative results far differently from so-called significant findings. Likewise, accessibility is clearly affected by social and economic forces. But, at least from a social justice perspective, there is the opportunity here for the ACRL to take a more substantial position on racism, heteronormativity, sexism, and similar systemic oppressions. I wish they would have and overall I feel the second claim is part of the way towards a valuable insight, but there is a lot left unpacked and unsaid.
Finally, I’m glad the ACRL is promoting more responsible digital stewardship of personal information. Nothing wrong with that as far as I can tell.
Knowledge Practices (Abilities)
Learners who are developing their information literate abilities:
Give credit to the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation.
This is the closest the ACRL gets to discussing plagiarism.
Recognize the meaning of intellectual property in the United States.
I’m not comfortable with the U.S.-centric bias here, but I suppose if the ACRL is only meant to govern U.S. academic libraries then that’s the way it has to be.
Understand that intellectual property is a social construct that varies by culture.
Hm. While intellectual property is certainly a social construct, the degree of variations between cultures might be contestable, if the near universal support for treaties like Berne, UCC, WIPO, and others is to be believed (WIPO has 187 member states). Perhaps the moral significance attached to intellectual property varies between cultures, but that’s not what this knowledge practice says. I suppose you could make the claim that United Nations special agencies like WIPO represent the vestiges of Western imperialist/colonial hegemony, but even postcolonial studies have been drifting away from focusing on the lingering effects of past colonialism and instead focusing on the impact of contemporary capitalism….Basically what I’m trying to say is that the relationship between intellectual property and culture is far more complicated than this knowledge practice suggests.
Articulate the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, open access, and public domain.
Define some terms? Okay. But then what?
Know how to find open access materials.
Okay.
Differentiate between the production of original information and remixing or re-purposing open resources.
Okay.
Manage their online presences responsibly.
Okay.
Decide where their information, as knowledge creator, should be published.
Get rid of that silly “as a knowledge creator” clause. It’s trite and meaningless.
Dispositions
Learners who are developing their information literate abilities:
Respect the original ideas of others and the academic tradition of citation and attribution.
I’m worried about the conjunction. I see nothing wrong with respecting the original ideas of others. But respecting the “academic tradition of citation and attribution?” There’s an equivocation here between respect qua holding something or someone in high esteem and respect qua deference to authority. I don’t respect APA style in the same way I respect a person’s intellectual output. Break this disposition into two parts for clarity.
Value the creative skills needed to produce information.
“Creative skills needed“? Is it implied somewhere in this frame that all information production is preceded by a creative act? Like we should value the “creativity” of the weather report? I think there are other valuable skills beyond the creative.
See themselves as contributors to the information market place rather than only consumers of it.
What if they don’t buy into the commodification of information? What if they want to subvert the “information market place”?
Recognize issues of access or lack of access to information sources.
I might add that, more importantly, they should recognize privilege. I’m sure lots of students know that some people can’t access information. The real insight is in having students recognize their own information privilege (or lack thereof).
Understand that some individuals or groups of individuals may not be represented within the information ecosystem.
Hm. Which groups might those be? I know that there are serious issues of under-representation and marginalization facing certain social groups. But complete non-representation? Maybe an undiscovered village in the Amazon? I’d change this disposition to focus instead on the systemic marginalization and under-representation of certain voices. Non-representation suggests lack of awareness. Marginalization suggests intent. The latter is the more salient moral problem.
Overview
This frame has a lot of potential and it does hint at some subversive tendencies (at least by librarian standards). But I can’t shake the feeling that this is a missed opportunity for the ACRL to make a bolder statement about social justice. I understand there are probably political concerns that prevent the framework from taking a truly radical position. But that just goes reinforces one of the messages of “Information has Value”: even this framework is beholden to a particular social, economic, and political outlook. Which, when you think about it, sort of undermines any pretext of universality for the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. In the document meant to guide academic libraries across the country we have the admission that the document itself can only be understood in it’s social and political context.
And so, like Ouroboros, the Framework ends by consuming itself; as information it’s value is a function of commodification, social/economic/political influences, and digital stewardship. What’s the economic value to the ACRL of putting out a brand new framework? How do the committee members writing this framework benefit? Has the document properly attributed it’s sources, or is the list of “suggested readings” at the end count? Does it matter that the introduction to the Framework only cites it’s own task force members? What’s the social and economic context of the Delphi Study that provides us with these threshold concepts? What privileges played into the construction of the framework? Which voices were not represented? Does it matter that the ACRL won’t tell us?
If this frame is taken at face-value then these questions matter and, in the absence of answers or explanations, the value of the Framework itself can be called into question. That being said, I still think the task force that put this document together should be commended for their hard work. The framework is a step in the right direction and though I doubt my nitpicking will be given much consideration, I am optimistic that the next draft–and there has to be one–will lead to more answers than questions.
[…] Information has Value acknowledges that the creation of information and products derived from information requires a commitment of time, original thought, and resources that need to be respected by those seeking to use these products, or create their own based on the work of others. In addition, information may be valued more or less highly based on its creator, its audience/consumer, or its message. […]
[…] concepts” des neuen Framework-Entwurfs einer kritischen Analyse unterzogen. Im letzten Beitrag zum Konzept “Information has value” sind alle diese noch einmal verlinkt. Hier nochmal die im Framework im aktuellen Entwurf genannten […]
Thank you, Lane, for writing this series about the Framework. You have done a valuable service. Since the only recognition you are likely to get is verbal, let me thank you again.
Sorry I didn’t respond to your posts on frames 4, 5, and 6.
Frame 3, for instance, raises questions about the metaphysics of what is a document, a document structure, a format, etc., I didn’t know what to say about frame 3 because it isn’t clear which of these questions information literacy needs to ask. (I’d urge any librarian to begin with FRBR account of entities, since this is a carefully considered theory, developed by librarians.) Other than that, frame 3 seems to say, “There are many formats, and each is different.”
Frame 6 also leaves me at a loss. Frame 6 raises ethical questions about information use, which it reductively construes as questions about intellectual property. The owner of intellectual property rights is often not the same as the author, and plagiarism is a violation of an author’s rights, if plagiarism is to be construed in terms of rights.
One might insist that author’s rights are property of a kind. But it seems useful to distinguish whether or not plagiarism is a crime, or whether it is an ethical violation that isn’t a crime. Maybe one way of thinking and teaching about the ethics of information use is to regard it as raising issues of intellectual property rights. But it’s not the way I’ve taught students about this.
There was more to talk about with respect to the first three frames. It seems to me that the aims of information literacy instruction (or of information-literate research) need to be explained in rather general terms, and philosophical analysis or reflection is how to go about it. I’d suggest that the aims of information literacy instruction can be understood as to assist students in getting knowledge by library research, or to augment students’ abilities to get knowledge from library and other information storage facilities.
Your approach is basically along the same line. You proceeded to discuss the epistemology of information literacy. Yay! Applause! (Maybe we don’t agree on some points of epistemology. I started to quibble about authority, experts, and testimony when I responded to your post about frame 3. But that’s getting into the weeds.)
If someone don’t agree with us that the aims of information literacy instruction are to augment students’ knowledge-seeking abilities, what is the alternative?
One has to admit that students aren’t always interested in knowledge. They may be more interested in getting assignments done, in order to get degrees, which does not require more knowledge seeking than whatever is strictly necessary.
One also has to admit that there is a lot of lip service to knowledge-seeking that rings false.
Maybe an ingenious librarian could state the aims of information literate research entirely in terms of search technique, databases, lists of references, and properties of items in such lists, etc. – apart from any knowledge that might or might not be obtained from these things.
But this alternative doesn’t involve any general aim or purpose.
In summary:
(1) Thank you.
(2) You seem to agree that the aims of information literacy instruction need to be understood epistemologically.
(3) But this raises a question: What other conceptions of the aims of information literacy instruction (or information literate research) might be proposed?
I didn’t mean to say that I didn’t teach about intellectual property rights. I did. I meant only to say that I didn’t teach that all ethical problems about information are intellectual property rights problems.
Then send the postcard to all of the addresses in your area,
and try to draw customers in. You can know all the ins and outs of business and can run a restaurant without fail; but
would you know the first thing about installing the kitchen grills.
Typically, this works well if we are involved in a solid networking and we reciprocate, by
referring clients to those other businesses.
[…] was originally the last of the six draft frames that I reviewed way back in 2014 [link] and I thought it raised more questions than answers. Here’s the original […]
Thanks for finally writing about >Does information have value?
| Sense & Reference <Loved it!
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