An article by Peter Williams entitled 'Against information literacy'
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<http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2006/july/williams.htm>http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2006/july/williams.htm
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is designed to give the information literacy movement pause for thought.
Williams attacks a tendency within the movement to overstate the
importance of IL and to talk in abstract ways rather than to grapple
pragmatically with the real needs of library users. My own gloss on
his argument is that the library and information community has
over-reacted in the face of the massive expansion in sources of
available information.
For those of us in institutions where the 'modest and flexible'
approaches to information literacy he calls for are the best we can
hope to offer, the article is a breath of fresh air. But I suspect
that Williams will be attacked both by those who, he says, greatly
over-state the case for IL and by others who will say that he
shouldn't label all IL practitioners as extremists, nor write off the
IL movement as having failed.
Where do you stand?
Vincent Matthews
UCL
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