ERIC Number: EJ1413015
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1933-5954
Working Conditions Are Learning Conditions: Understanding Information Literacy Instruction through Neoliberal Capitalism
Romel Espinel; Eamon Tewell
Communications in Information Literacy, v17 n2 Article 13 p573-590 2023
Neoliberal capitalism's demands for efficiency and innovation have greatly impacted North American academic libraries and the work conducted in them, including information literacy instruction. The divisive forces of neoliberalism must be met with resistance, and libraries hold the potential for generating an information literacy praxis where learners engage information with a critical consciousness instead of a consumerist one. Using library labor conditions and the contradictions between innovation and student learning as focal points, we argue that academic library workers should seek to center attention to inequities and injustices in the information economy and scholarly information systems in their instruction, identify shared issues within their workplaces to organize around, and build coalitions outside libraries to transform what is possible for academic labor and student learning alike.
Descriptors: Neoliberalism, Academic Libraries, Library Instruction, Information Literacy, Resistance (Psychology), Librarians, Equal Education, Justice, Social Systems, Work Environment
Communications in Information Literacy. e-mail: editors@comminfolit.org; Web site: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A