Information Services and Digital Literacy

• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Abstract:
• Chapter 2: Knowing what we know
• Abstract:
• The economy of ordinary knowledge
• Boundaries of knowing
• Conclusions
• Chapter 3: Information services and digital literacy
• Abstract:
• Information services
• Digital literacy
• Conclusions
• Chapter 4: Technologies of abundance
• Abstract:
• Networking
• Personal information technology
• Usability
• Convergence
• The consequences of technology
• Conclusions
• Chapter 5: The culture of participation
• Abstract:
• Communal and individualist participation: ‘talko’ work and ‘broadcast yourselfism’
• Commercialism and freedom
• Roles and rules of participation
• Economy of participation and non-participation
• Conclusions
• Chapter 6: The 'new' user
• Abstract:
• Learned or born
• Behaving differently with information
• Reading differently
• Users and non-users
• Identity
• The making of a ‘new’ user
• Conclusions
• Chapter 7: Information
• Abstract:
• The form of information
• The emergence of information
• Qualitative and computational viewpoints
• A pig in a poke?
• Abundance and scarcity
• Conclusions
• Chapter 8: Information services and digital literacy as boundary objects
• Abstract:
• The pieces that do not fit
• Across the boundaries
• References
• Index

Despite new technologies, people do not always find information with ease. Do people still need help in finding the information they need, and if so, why? What can be made easier with new tools and techniques?

Information Services and Digital Literacy is about the role of information services and digital literacies in the age of the social web. This title provides an alternative perspective for understanding information services and digital literacy, and argues that a central problem in the age of the social web and the culture of participation is that we do not know the premises of how we know, and how ways of interacting with information affect our actions and their outcomes. Information seeking is always a question of crossing and expanding boundaries between our earlier experiences and the unknown. We may not yet be well enough acquainted with the landscape of digital information to understand how we know, where the boundaries to our knowledge lie, how to cross them, and what consequences our actions may have.

• Presents a new approach for understanding how information services help and hinder people in becoming informed
• Provides an overview of how to conceptualize information services and digital literacy
• Provides a model for developing new types of library and information service

Researchers, practitioners and students in Library and Information Studies