I haven’t blogged in over six months, but I’ve been thinking about getting back into it. I’ve got about a half dozen half-written posts on everything from discovery layers to curriculum design to some 6000 words on critical theory in librarianship. Maybe I’ll publish them one day. Maybe not. But I’ve read a few things over the past few days that I just had to comment on.
As you may have heard by now, the ACRL formally rescinded the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Going forward, the Framework for Information Literacy represents the official stance of the ACRL on information literacy. Now, I really don’t want to keep doing the ACRL Framework versus ACRL Standards debate. Yes, I’ve been critical of the Framework. I was on the task force that made the thing and I saw how the sausage was made. I think it’s based on an underdetermined educational theory and I think the six frames were chosen through a flawed methodology. I could nitpick the thing to death but I won’t (again). Rather, I just want to go on record that the rhetoric surrounding the Framework debate is its largest problem. After the ACRL announcement, the library instructors on Twitter and email lists got pretty worked up, with some praising the decision and others condemning it. And then I saw someone compare the ACRL decision to Brexit as both were “shortsighted” and would diminish the importance of the ACRL and the UK, respectively and…wow. On one hand, a parochial and voluntary association of librarians replaces one toothless policy statement with another toothless policy statement. On the other hand, a racist, anti-immigrant campaign built on lies and misinformation has just destabilized an entire country, if not the world. Yeah. Pretty much the same.
Granted, that’s only one arguably offensive comparison, but still it is illustrative of just how hyperbolic people can get over the ACRL’s decisions regarding information literacy. What I can’t seem to figure out is why.
As I see it, the arguments in favor of retaining the Standards all seem to center on either historical convenience. (“we don’t want to have to rewrite our lesson plans”) or political convenience (“like it or not, we still have to assess and to consider accreditation”). On the flip side, most of the rhetoric surrounding the Framework is about “empowering” library instructors to do things the Standards wouldn’t “let them do.” Most of the Framework excitement boils down to “oh, I can finally do this” or “now we can teach that” or some other statements about how liberating and refreshing the Framework is compared to the dusty, old Standards. Outside of that, the usual line is simply that the Framework and Standards can’t coexist and the Framework has now been adopted, so that’s that. But, guess what…
You don’t want to rewrite your lesson plans? Then don’t. The ACRL doesn’t send the Pinkertons after non-compliant libraries. So you should be fine.
You’re worried about assessment or accreditation? Here. That’s the AAC&U VALUE rubric for information literacy. It’s basically the same as the Standards except it’s actually usable. And your faculty will have heard of it. You’re welcome.
You think the Framework opens up new and liberating ways to teach; that the Standards were holding you back? Then you haven’t been paying attention. There is literally nothing being proposed under the Framework that wasn’t already being done either under the Standards or in spite of the Standards. You think we weren’t already teaching that authority is contextual? Or that information has value? Those six frames aren’t new discoveries…they’re codifications of existing thoughts and practices; thoughts and practices that developed within the milieu of the information literacy Standards. The simple truth of the matter is that where the Framework is useful, it’s not original (and where it is original, it’s not useful, I would add).
You think both the Framework and Standards are useful and want to use both? Go for it. The whole line about the two being inconsistent is nonsense. One of the lessons of the Framework is that the ACRL is not concerned with consistency and rigor with respect to theory adoption. The Framework adopted only the parts of threshold concept theory that suited it, so you can adopt only the parts of the Framework that suit you. And that includes ignoring the part that says the Framework and Standards are inconsistent. I mean, it’s written into the danged Framework itself: “each library and its partners on campus will need to deploy these frames to best fit their own situation.”
You think that’s all well and good for those with the privilege, but your boss/library/university requires that you use one or the other? Maybe you love the Framework but your mean old department head refuses to leave the Standards. Maybe you’re not ready to leave the Standards but your director heard about the Framework at a conference and thinks it’s the greatest thing ever. If either is the case, and you are receiving pressure from above to conform to one or the other policy, then just conform. It doesn’t matter. You can easily map the same learning objectives to either the Standards or the Framework. Like I said, there’s nothing new in the Framework. If anything, the Framework is so much broader and vague compared to the Standards, that it’s easier to map to it.1 You may feel forced to accept one of these policies, but that doesn’t control how you interpret it.2
Ultimately, I think we need to get away the rhetoric about what these two documents will and will not let us do and realize that the choice is up to us. Instead of focusing on the merits and demerits of each set of standards (yes, the Framework is a set of standards) we ought to be focusing on the merits and demerits of standardization more generally. Emily Drabinski has a very perceptive rundown of the role that standardization plays in librarianship. I only just read it after writing everything above, but she makes some of the same points, albeit much more intelligently. You should read it. All I can add is that we need to remember that the old Standards and the new Framework are just standards. Though they may use language that appears to be describing some fundamental reality about information literacy, they can’t actually do that. Neither amounts to any substantive theory of information literacy. Neither is authoritative. They’re just interpretations. They’re suggestions. They both serve as frameworks through which we learn to speak a common language. Yes, I think the Framework is a deeply flawed document, but at least when I hear someone say that “scholarship is a conversation” I know more or less where they are coming from and we can have a dialogue.3 As a professional community we need these sorts of shared understandings, and that’s what standards and frameworks do for us.
I feel like I’m just repeating what much smarter librarians have already said, so I’ll give it a rest. Give up on the hand-wringing. Use the Framework. Use the Standards. Use them both. Use neither. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter.
[1] Recently, a local composition instructor did a deep reading of the Framework with us and said that her entire curriculum could fit under the Framework. Whether that’s because the Framework is too vague or that the Framework is overreaching in its scope is unclear.
[2] And if your director is at the point of dictating how you are supposed to interpret an information literacy document, that’s a management problem, not a Standards/Framework problem.
[3] about what a terrible metaphor that is
Amen!
[…] I haven't blogged in over six months, but I've been thinking about getting back into it. I've got about a half dozen half-written posts on everything from discovery layers to curriculum design to some 6000 words on critical theory in librarianship. Maybe I'll publish them one day. Maybe not. But I've read a few… […]
[…] Lane Wilkinson’s brutally polite suggestion that we all need to chill out, […]
Lane,
Hope you don’t mind a bit of friendly but vigorous pushback here. I understand if you are not in the mood to respond to what I write below. I get the “tired of debating” thing.
You say of the old Standards and the new Framework: “Neither amounts to any substantive theory of information literacy. Neither is authoritative. They’re just interpretations. They’re suggestions. They both serve as frameworks through which we learn to speak a common language….”
In the intelligent and provocative post that you refer to by Drabinski, she states that “Standards, along with rules, regulations, and mores, produce a legible, coordinated, and organized world, governing interactions among and between people and things, allowing us to reliably insert a plug into a socket to access energy. …Standards are the instruction guides that produce…infrastructure.”
This sounds pretty important!
“Doesn’t matter.”
But this does raise the question of whether we are even capable of producing something that that is better or worse, doesn’t it? At the very least, given the normal circumstances libraries deal with, producing something that is, overall, more or less helpful? Why does something like this not matter but other standards we might have in the library world – expressing other content matter that relates to our practices – do? Or does every standard we might argue about really not matter at all? Why would a document that gives us “a common language” not have some real core importance for us?
Drabinski: “[These Standards documents] produce the contexts in which many of us do our work as teaching librarians…Inherent in standards is a claim to an ideal or correct way of doing or being…standards have effects beyond the immediate context of a classroom teaching and learning situation…Standards are about world-making…deciding how people think about themselves, what they do when they are at work, and how they communicate with others. Standards are about power.”
That sounds really important to me. Again, for someone who, I believe, was influential in getting one’s institution to reject the Framework, I guess I would expect a case for why this does matter.
Drabinski: “Cathy Eisenhower and Dolsy Smith lay out the argument for standards as a mechanism for generating resources… What we do in those classrooms can easily sidestep the information literacy standards and focus on more critical content or method. The strategic deployment of standards for resource claims is what matters….”
I think this is an incredibly important statement. Is there not a major ethical issue here? Namely this: Can we be trusted to say what we really think is important and what we will, in fact, be practicing? Is what Eisenhower and Smith describe itself an “ethical use of [an] information resource”? Isn’t the fact that what they want to teach in the classroom – and what they think they *should* be teaching in the classroom (i.e. critical info lit. practices) – has been given some more legitimization via the Framework one of the reasons CIL proponents are happy? Or are they – and we? – not looking at things like this at all, but are rather convinced that playing deceptive power games for resources to do what we want to do is what should be standard practice?
Re: Critical Librarianship / Info Lit.:
Drabinski: “What does it mean for a field [i.e. librarianship] when what positions itself as outside of or in opposition to it [i.e. critical librarianship] begins to be institutionally incorporated?”
Great question.
Drabinski: “Why are we all tearing our hair out trying to get the language of the Framework right? Because we believe it transmits to ourselves and to others something about “what’s true” about information literacy. If we determine that this is work that standards documents can’t do, that they’re about something else instead…”
On the other hand, as she said above: “Inherent in standards is a claim to an ideal or correct way of doing or being….”
Of course my talking about all of this above is not to be against all change, just to raise questions about the kinds of change that are occurring here. On the other hand, I wonder if some might think: “this is all constructed and contextual, so who cares?”
I don’t think so. : )
-Nathan
Hi Nathan–
Actually, I wasn’t that influential in getting my institution to reject the Framework–they rejected it before I did!
Anyway, my point was simply that choosing between the Standards and the Framework doesn’t matter. That’s not to say that adopting a set of standards isn’t important. It certainly is and there are clear reasons for adopting some set of Standards. But whether you choose the Standards or the Framework makes no practical difference. Other library departments have much more rigorous sets of standards (LOC, RDA, etc.) but I don’t think instruction librarians have ever followed information literacy standards precisely. In my experience, librarians freely deviated from the old IL Standards all the time. It’s even written into the new Framework that we are free to modify it however we see fit! So, while I agree that standardization is important, I don’t think that the Framework and the Standards are sufficiently different to make a difference in which we choose and I don’t think the history of how information literacy standards have been used in local contexts supports the idea that we’ve ever thought of any standards as being authoritative.
Lane,
Thanks for your response! Given the more technical nature of what we do, catalogers might have standards that require closer adherence than info lit teachers, but there is still a good amount of freedom, room for interpretation, there as well.
Honest, not rhetorical, question. Do you think that you are taking these matters at least as seriously as Drabinski? It seems to me that by your saying “it doesn’t matter” and her saying what she says you can rest assured that what she says will go – at least, if both of you are representative of the various opinions out there seeking to persuade (as well as listen, I assume).
For my part, I think what Nathan Filbert said about the Framework (not the old Standards) is right, and I am guessing Drabinski would agree: “we are claiming and requiring of ourselves a robust and comprehensive understanding of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and experience of human life in the infosphere.”[1]
-Nathan
[1] https://journals.ala.org/rusq/article/view/5929/7517
Nah, I think I’m much more dismissive than Drabinski. And her position should be the one that goes; she’s way more articulate and informed than I am.
As to Nathan’s position, I think that it’s true that librarians ought to develop a deep understanding of knowledge and information. But, the Framework doesn’t provide that. It’s a conceptually muddled document based in a flawed methodology. I resigned from the Framework task force the day before the first draft was released because I didn’t want my name on something that I felt was moving in the opposite direction from a “robust and comprehensive understanding of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and experience of human life in the infosphere.”
Lane,
Thanks for the kind reply. A few minutes ago, I thought about what I wrote to you and said: “Crap – you didn’t really word that very well”. But you got my intended meaning. In short, you don’t think that getting the language in FW is as consequential as she does. Well, I think she is right, but also think that her position is not the one that should “go”. : )
-Nathan
I don’t think getting the language of the Framework right is important because I think the entire Framework needs to be scrapped and replaced. I guess I’m sort of on the insurrectionary anarchist end of the spectrum when it comes to information literacy.
[…] Framework or Standards? It doesn’t matter Blog post by Lane Wilkinson https://senseandreference.wordpress.com/2016/06/29/framework-or-standards-it-doesnt-matter/ […]
Hi, Lane:
In your last response to Nathan R. you say you think the Framework needs to be scrapped and replaced. I think you should write a post on “what might have been” regarding the Framework, i.e. the direction it should have taken and the content it roughly might have had, in your view. (I’m inclined to agree with you that the current Framework is not very helpful–maybe the opposite.)
It’s great to see you posting again! –Paul
Thanks Paul! I’ve got some ideas on alternate directions but I think I’m going to try to organize things into a more “formal” publication somewhere else (i.e., to satisfy the promotion gods). But no worries, I’ve got an idea for another post…
Sounds good, Lane. I’d love to see a formal publication for you on this topic. Looking forward to more of your posts.
Wayne,
I will second Paul on that. Also, recently I said that it is “generally acknowledged” that the framework is based on constructivist theory, and was told that that claim was “somewhat unsubstantiated”. On the other hand, I get the distinct impression that there are many for whom this simply *is* the case. Are you aware of where I can find, perhaps in one place (!), a bunch of different authors arguing or even assuming what I said?
-Nathan
[…] with the ACRL Framework. I even wrote what I thought was the final word a few weeks ago…that it doesn’t matter. But, last night I was having a discussion with someone about blogging and the Framework and other […]
[…] Zwei weitere interessante Stimmen mit eigenen Blog-Beiträgen stammen von Lane Wilkonson ("Framework or Standards? It doesn’t matter") und – dort erwähnt – Emily Drabinski ("What Standards Do and What They […]