Kriittinen informaatiolukutaito

Gypsy Librarian kirjoittaa blogissaan kriittisestä informaatiolukutaidosta viitaten James Elmborgin artikkeliin "Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice" (The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32.2, March 2006, ss. 192-199). Elmborg kysyy kehittelee informaatiolukutaitoa kriittisen pedagogiikan kontekstissa Paulo Freiren ideoita seuraillen ja kehitellen.

Gypsy Librarian kirjoittaa: "The author argues that academic librarianship needs to be defined in terms of teaching, learning, and literacy scholarship. The idea is to move information literacy as libraries seem to define it, in terms of skills, towards a critical pedagogy. I find this to be quite challenging for librarianship. Coming from a background in teaching, I like these ideas. However, knowing the profession of librarianship, I can see where this would be met with resistance. One of the core values of professional librarianship is a sense of neutrality. We provide the information our patrons want without any other questions or impediments on our part. Yet critical pedagogy, as I understand it and as Elmborg briefly explains, is political by nature . If educators are shaping the citizens of tomorrow, there has to be some political engagement, yet "politics" seems such a dirty word. At the end of the day, what we do as educators is teach the students to think critically, to question. Maybe we should be asking more questions like these: 'What is the role of the library in a Freireian vision of critical literacy? Is the library a passive information bank where students and faculty make knowledge deposits and withdrawals, or is it a place where students actively engage existing knowledge and shape it to their own current and future uses? And what is the librarian's role as an educator in the process?' (Elmborg 2006, 193)."