Library and Information Science Commons^™

On The Space/Time Of Information Literacy, Higher Education, And The Global Knowledge Economy, Karen Patricia Nicholson

FIMS Publications

Local sites and practices of information work become embroiled in the larger imperatives and logics of the global knowledge economy through social, technological, and spatial networks. Drawing on human geography’s central claim that space and time are dialectically produced through social practices, in this essay I use human/critical geography as a framework to situate the processes and practices—the space and time—of information literacy within the broader social, political, and economic environments of the global knowledge economy. As skills training for the knowledge economy, information literacy lies at the intersection of the spatial and temporal spheres of higher education as the …

Academic Librarians And The Space/Time Of Information Literacy, The Neoliberal University, And The Global Knowledge Economy, Karen P. Nicholson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This qualitative research study explores how academic librarians working in Canadian public research-intensive universities experience the space/time of information literacy, the neoliberal university, and the knowledge economy. Information literacy lies at the intersection of higher education and the knowledge economy: it became a priority for librarians in Anglo-American countries in the 1980s in the context of neoliberal educational reforms intended to better prepare skilled workers for the “information society” (Behrens, 1994; Birdsall, 1994).

The shift from Fordist modes of production to flexible accumulation, characterized by the expansion of capital into new markets, flexible workers, and just-in-time inventories, made possible by …

Information Into Action? Reflections On (Critical) Practice (Keynote Address, Wilu 2018), Karen Nicholson

FIMS Presentations

In this keynote address, I consider the WILU 2018 conference theme “Information into Action" as representative of normative mainstream discourses of innovation, entrepreneurialism, vocation, and practicality in contemporary academic libraries.

Balancing Visions And Values: An Exploration Of Market Rhetoric In Canadian Academic Library Strategic Plans, Courtney L. Waugh

Western Libraries Publications

Strategic planning documents are key sites to institutional discourse and reflect the public face of the library. This research explores the extent to which market rhetoric permeates the strategic planning documents of three Canadian academic libraries, and examines the ways in which these institutions engage in market discourse to construct their institutional identity. What are the implications of adopting a "customer service" stance? What does it mean to be “innovative”? How do "personalized services" influence ideas of choice? Through content analysis and a critical lens, this exploratory research examines the tension between libraries as public good and libraries as a …