Page 2 - Introduction — Information Literacy and Information Behaviour, Complementary Approaches for Building Capability

2 Mark Hepworth and Geoff Walton

it. A diagram is presented at the end of the chapter which helps to
highlight and summarise the distinctions and similarities between IB
and IL research.
Keywords: Information behaviour; information literacy; information
capability

This book reflects the multifaceted nature of information literacy, people’s
information behaviour and their information experience. People have been
grappling with these topics for many years. Some, from a theoretical
perspective, explore the nature of the phenomenon; ‘what is it?’, trying to
identify common patterns, ‘how is it characterised?’ distinctions, ‘can it
mean different things to different people or change according to context?’
and relationships between different types of associated data, such as
demographics, expertise, behaviour or emotion. Researchers approach the
topic from different perspectives, including individual, organisational or
social. These perspectives often reflect broad epistemological orientations,
such as post positivist or interpretivist, or approaches such as social
constructivist. These in turn lead to the application of different methodol-
ogies, such as phenomenography, and an emphasis on different types of
data, such as people’s perceptions or behaviour. Each chapter focuses on
specific features or characteristics of these phenomena. This collection of
chapters by authors from around the world, either explicitly or implicitly,
therefore gives the opportunity to experience this diversity of views.
From a practical perspective these explorations also lead to a better
understanding of how to implement interventions to enhance people’s
capacity consciously either individually or within an organisational or social
context. One common theme that runs through these papers is the
importance of context and the need to understand and develop these
capabilities within a given milieu. Studies of people’s information behaviour
can be seen to be a form of needs evaluation or diagnostic to help position
information literacy interventions. Both, research into information literacy
and people’s information behaviour, can have implications for the design of
information services and products.
Leaning (2009) amongst others has noted that information literacy has
generated its own field of research and there have been many global
pronouncements on the subject — an argument echoed by Sheila Webber
and Bill Johnston in this book. Bruce (1995) identifies 1974 as the beginning
of information literacy when the term was coined by Paul Zurkowski.
Though it could be argued information literacy’s roots are far deeper than
Zurkowski — given that a great deal of scholarship written in the 1960’s an