Authority and the Arts of Information Literacy: on Dynamic Mapmakers and Maps

Hampden-Turner, Charles. Maps of the Mind. New York: Macmillan, 1981.

Nathan RinneFebruary 2008

danah boyd: education must change…

“Marketers are effectively leveraging networks of information flow to traffic goods while educators are primarily lambasting the networked technologies that mediate information flow”.

“As media opens up a culture of osmosis and makes pulling information fun, youth are increasingly disconnected from the world of [educational] push”.

www.danah.org/

boyd, danah. 2007. "Information Access in a Networked World." Talk presented to Pearson Publishing, Palo Alto, California, November 2. http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/Pearson2007.html

.

Good teachers: Guide discovery >

“Dictate Information” (Push)

Living to see the “light bulbs go on in their heads”

As they discover: increasingly greater, more complex contexts… …of the facts and ideas that get them thinking,

interested, engaged… Like teachers, libs also about: “promoting and

supporting student learning and achievement.”Logan, Debra Kay “Putting Students First.” American Libraries Jan./Feb. 2008 (39 (1-2): 56-59).

Siren song?

Odysseus & the Sirens, Athenian red-figurestamnos C5th B.C., British Museum

[The internet] appeals first, beguilingly, to our wants - immediate gratification and quick mental associations - long before it engages the need for the slower processes of deliberative and critical thought… We have a lot of work to do to help our users become more critically aware of the difference between a vague information want, superficially met, and a more focused information need that is deeply satisfied. So far, we seem to have focused more on marketing our image than actually providing indispensable service."

Isaacson, David. "BackTalk: What's Still Wrong with Reference." Library Journal 15 Nov. 2007

Fragmentation / De-contextualization

http://ossiane.blog.lemonde.fr/2005/03/03/2005_03_glifraction_/

Library-related illustration of this: …The fact that that article on single mothers appeared in The National Review or The New Republic gives you key information about potential bias on the part of the author. In the past, when you had to physically leaf through the book or journal to find the information you wanted, you were exposed to additional visual information that helped you understand the context of the information. Now the students I work with seem to view information as these disembodied, discrete snippets, floating free in space, with no ties to anything else.

Thomas, Kirsti S. 13 December 2007. Online posting. AUTOCAT Discussion Group. 13 Dec. 2007 <http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/autocat.html>

Guidance in “info lit” indispensible

“Google Generation” (those born after 1993): computer literate, but not information literate. A recent study found:

Young people don’t develop good search strategies to find quality information.

They might find information on the Internet quickly, but they don’t know how to evaluate the quality of what they find.

They don’t understand what the Internet really is: a vast network with many different content providers.”

Goodall, Hurley. "Computer Literacy Doesn't Mean Information Literacy, Report Says.” [Weblog entry.] The Chronicle of Higher Education: the Wired Campus. 16 Jan. 2008. (http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2670/computer-literacy-doesnt-mean-information-literacy-report-says). 16 Jan. 2008.

Spurned: Why do I make you anxious?

“…weak dispositions toward critical thinking were associated with high levels of library anxiety”Critical Thinking Disposition and Library Anxiety: Affective Domains on the Space of Information Seeking and Use in Academic Libraries. By: Nahyun Kwon; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J.; Alexander, Linda. College & Research Libraries, May2007, Vol. 68 Issue 3, p268-278, 11p, 3 charts; (AN 25301285)

http://www.scarecrowpress.com

A key: info lit is connected to authority and expertise

http://skinnymoose.com/network/category/blog-tips/

Part of being human means becoming authoritative experts / guides / mentors re: something (this or that)

Authority: …4a. An accepted source of expert information or advice: a noted authority on birds; a reference book often cited as an authority… 7. Power to influence or persuade resulting from knowledge or experience… The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

A key: info lit is connected to authority and expertise

Expertise: 1. Expert advice or opinion. 2. Skill or knowledge in a particular area.

Elite: 1a. A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status. b. The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team's elite.

Practitioner Specialist, etc.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

Past AASL “info lit” standards and [questioning] authority

(1) accesses it efficiently and effectively

(2) evaluates it critically and competently(3) uses it effectively and creatively(4) pursues it related to personal interests(5) appreciates and enjoys literature and other creative expressions of information (6) strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation(7) recognizes the importance of information to a democratic society(8) practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology(9) participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

“Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning”, American Association of School Librarians and Association for Educational Communications and Technology (from Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, 1998)

New AASL “info lit” standards and [questioning] authority

“AASL Unveils New Learning Standards for School Library Media Programs”:

1.1.7: Make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.

1.2.4: Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.

http://www.ala.org

New AASL “info lit” standards and [questioning] authority

2: Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge.

2.2.2 – Use both divergent and convergent thinking to formulate alternative conclusions and test them against the evidence…

New AASL “info lit” standards and [questioning] authority

2.2.3. – Employ a critical stance in drawing conclusions by demonstrating that the pattern of evidence leads to a decision or conclusion…

2.3.1 – Connect understanding to the real world.

New AASL “info lit” standards and [questioning] authority

4.2.3 – Maintain openness to new ideas by considering divergent opinions or conclusions when evidence supports change…

4.3.2 – Recognize that resources are created for a variety of purposes.

Can librarians lead this charge?

http://www.njlibraries.org/

The findings identify UK English academics' conceptions of information literacy and show them to be both similar to and significantly different from conceptions described in previous research and librarian-generated frameworks and standards…. The research implies that disciplinary differences in conception of information literacy are significant and suggests further research to assess disciplinary conceptual differences. Practical implications - Librarians working with English faculty on information literacy need to be aware of differences in conception between themselves and academics to work effectively. The paper also highlights the significance of information literacy in English faculty's teaching and research practices and this relevance suggests that information literacy should be integrated into course and curriculum design. Originality/value - The paper fills a major gap in literature on information literacy by focussing on conceptions of lecturers, thereby counterbalancing the abundance of work produced by librarians. The paper illustrates the complexity of English academics' conceptions of information literacy and informs academics' use and understanding of information literacy.

A phenomenographic study of English faculty's conceptions of information literacy. By: Boon, Stuart; Johnston, Bill; Webber, Sheila. Journal of Documentation, 2007, Vol. 63 Issue 2, p204-228, 25p, 5 charts; DOI: 10.1108/00220410710737187; (AN 24988597)

New and improved?

“‘I have come to wonder: Are the new [AASL] standards a step forward to a more holistic and comprehensive view of learners, or a misstep that will serve to marginalize our profession?’ asks Sharon Grimes, supervisor of library information services for Baltimore County Public Schools.”

Whelan, Debra Lau. “New AASL Standards: More to Come.” School Library Journal. 22 Jan. 2008 (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6524450.html) 22 Jan. 2008.

Questions:

Are these new AASL guidelines better?

Should librarians help lead this charge?

If so, how can we make it compelling, exciting?

Let’s dive deep!

First, what are some of those English teachers concerned about?

That standards don’t address “neomillennial learning styles”?

[the] “emerging Web 2.0 paradigm” of “immersive environments” and dynamic information promise (or threaten?) to upend traditional pedagogies and even the way students learn…

The ECAR (Educause Center for Applied Research) Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007″, discussed on the Inside Higher Ed blog: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/17/it

That standards don’t adequately address the importance of “active learning”?

The implication is less of an emphasis on the “sage on the stage” and a linear acquisition process focusing on a “single best source,” focusing instead on “active learning” that comes from synthesizing information from multiple types of media.

“The ECAR (Educause Center for Applied Research) Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007″, discussed on the Inside Higher Ed blog: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/17/it

That standards don’t address the need for students to teach themselves?

…education’s job, in the 1950s and ’60s, was to prepare students for a future that was static and predictable… I believe that we no longer live in those times. I believe that we need schools where students teach themselves. We must assure that they become literate, but that it is a literacy to learn — learning literacy. We should assure that they are gaining a common context for themselves, who they are, what they are, where they are, when they are, and that they appreciate the ways that their environment impacts them and how they impact their environment — and that they learn these things through their developing learning literacies.”

Quoted from the blog 2 Cents Worth in the blog of the Shifted Librarian, Tuesday, September 11, 2007, Teaching Information Literacy Is No Longer “Static and Predictable”

No. No. No.(not directly at least) - 1) Standards attempt to address these

issues in their own way…2) There are deeper philosophical

issues.

What English teachers* really want

More full recognition that:

“We know more than we can tell” (Michael Polanyi) The importance of impressions, intuition, anecdote

(qualitative “measures” “count”!) “Replicability” is not always achievable nor desirable! “Inquiry into problems; critical thinking” > “Informational

reports” Citation as aid to framing questions, establishing currency and

credibility, advertising allegiances, and exploring disagreements and open questions > citation to avoid plagiarism (Rold Norgaard)…

*or, more generally, humanities scholars.

Structured ways of exploring issues of purpose / meaning

The importance of artisanal research (work by single scholar)

There are disciplines not merely aiming for “more rapid convergence”, but divergence, i.e. “comprehensiveness and richness” (Andrew Abbot).

Interesing article: Norgaard, Rold, “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and Implications”, Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, Spring 2004

Explaining key concepts: Convergent thinking

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/psychology/Psychology/defining.htm

Think bicycle

“Various solutions are offered which gradually and increasingly converge until, finally, a design emerges which is ‘the answer’ – a bicycle – an answer that turns out to be amazingly stable over time… because it complies with the laws of the Universe – laws at the level of inanimate nature.”Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 121.

Divergent thinking: think education

“What is the best method of education?”

If discipline and obedience are a good thing, “it can be argued with perfect logic that if something is a ‘a good thing’, more of it would be a better thing, and perfect discipline and obedience would be a perfect thing… and the school would become a prison house.”

If freedom in education is a good thing, “more freedom would be an even better thing, and perfect freedom would produce perfect education. The school would become a jungle, even a kind of lunatic asylum.”

These problems are not unsolved, but insoluble (“Divergent problem par excellence”)

Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 122, 123.

Limits of convergent thinking…

“Convergent problems relate to…where manipulation can proceed without hindrance and where man can make himself ‘master and possessor,’ because the subtle, higher forces – which we have labeled life, consciousness, and self-awareness – are not present to complicate matters. Wherever these higher forces intervene to a significant extent, the problem ceases to be convergent”

Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 125.

Key issues here: authority and real-life evidence.

“we need schools where students teach themselves”

Yes. No. (divergent )

Key questions for us: How do we reconcile authority – and seemingly different

views of it – with this kind of statement? Is all “pattern recognition” valid?: Is it reasonable to think

that we can always creatively “synthesize information” any way we intuit?

What is the key to linking our intuitions with new procedures and new relationships to be discovered?

Libs say: Use these first!

How do we create an appetite for these things? Should we?

People hungry, but where to eat? Lots of places “selling” their food –

good and bad… Can we develop a recognition of,

and desire for, good food? How do we acknowledge what’s good

about the web, while not unintentionally drawing attention away from the treasures of the past?

We had previously established….

Google great (for quick facts), but… In life we value the

“tough investigation search”… where we need to examine

the wider context of particular facts

how some facts might even be understood differently given this or that “frame”…(how other facts might alter the whole picture)

I.e. helping us to see more of the “whole elephant”Or… “covering all the bases”, “interrogating all potentially

relevant sources”, “NOT ‘good enough’” searching

This is related to the value of, and help offered by, expert authorities (across disciplines)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16379/16379-h/16379-h.htm

Google great, but …

A Google search for “Biology” buries this excellent article…

...in 15 seconds

Require people to edit under real names

Verified experts given additional weight in disagreements

When articles get really good, experts vet and approve them.

Johnson, Mike. “Citizendium in fifteen seconds.” [Weblog entry.] Citizendium Blog. 20 Nov. 2007. (http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/11/20/citizendium-in-fifteen-seconds/). 20 Nov. 2007.

The way through the thicket…

Pretty deep stuff…suffer my getting philosophical here…

Google needs some “person-power” not just in initially creating their popularity algorithms, but at every step along the way…

Because…

Knowledge is cultivated by, and inseparable from, prepared (educated) persons

“…information literacy can easily be reduced to a neutral, technological skill that is seen as merely functional or performative [if you say “I resign” then saying it performs the act of resignation].”

Norgaard, Rold, “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and Implications”, Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, Spring 2004

Information literacy is a very human and personal, not mechanical or merely performative process…

Bridging science and humanities

The scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi (Personal Knowledge, 1958) said: knowledge is fundamentally personal

(“subjective” in this sense). true knowing involves… "passionate

and personal commitment.” Since knowledge is personal, we must

speak of "personal knowledge“, "embodied knowledge“, "knowledge as performance“, etc.

Yet… increased “objectivity” is the accomplishment of personal subjects, who, having been guided apprentices, willingly dedicate themselves to making contact with the external world.

Hampden-Turner, Charles. Maps of the Mind. New York: Macmillan, 1981.

http://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/

"into every act of knowing there enters a tacit and passionate contribution of the person knowing what is being known." (Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 312).

"the object of his pursuit is not of his making. His acts stand under the judgment of the hidden reality he seeks to uncover.”

The scientist's knowledge comprises "personal judgments exercised responsibly with a view to a reality with which he is seeking to establish contact." (Michael Polanyi, Meaning, 194).

http://www.amazon.de/Personal-Knowledge-Towards-Post-critical-Philosophy/dp/0226672883

Getting PERSONal: MyAssumptions. YourAssumptions?

We exist! (or: “I exist. You exist” [kind of like "I'm OK. You're OK“])

We share a world out there.

Despite all the messiness, there is some order out there to be discovered (particularly in the minds of other persons).

It makes sense (is worthwhile) to try to learn about this world

Our "epistemological equipment" (senses and reason) also "makes sense", so we can rely on it to learn about the world out there.

Our experiences of reality are analogous to other healthy persons (i.e. those who have received appropriate socialization - love).

People universally endowed with at least some shared concepts: e.g. “thirsty”, “clouds”, “tears”, “sad”, “food”, “mother”, “father”, etc.

Skeptical about skepticism

1.2.4: Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.

Note: We can question these basic assumptions, but in the very process of questioning them, we see that they are “part and parcel” of our inquiry!

Claim: Various disciplines create mental maps Based on these and other common assumptions… Without fail,

individual persons develop all kinds of mental maps …to understand this or that, and to helping them accomplish

particular purposes these conceptions are often supported by larger “world-

studying” groups (“research” in the best sense) …that will vouch for, and defend their validity (disciplinary

spheres). In each case, persons are concerned to form mental-maps to

accurately represent the world out there, i.e. the persons who form them are invested in knowing truth.

Note: Real science, for example, is actually frontier-based – the exact cookbook “methodologies” can not encourage the personal discovery aspect (the guesswork).

Empiricism? Not empirical enough!

Those who, for example, practice the hard sciences, utilizing the scientific method, obviously do not have a monopoly on “empirical studies” per se. (empirical = based on experience and observation)

Different groups represent specific views about how evidence-based study is best done within their disciplines.

Speaking of the tendency to rigorously apply the scientific method to all subjects and disciplines (forms of empiricism / positivism), one has said:

“What we have to deplore… is not so much the fact that scientists are specialising, but rather the fact that specialists are generalizing.” Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 5.

Polanyi: An overly objective approach to science is irrational

People need mapmaking

…Mapmaking is an empirical art that employs a high degree of abstraction but nonetheless clings to reality with something akin to self-abandonment. Its motto, in a sense, is “Accept everything: reject nothing.” If something is there, if it has any kind of existence, if people notice it and are interested in it, it must be indicated on the map, in its proper place……What is the value of a description if it omits the most interesting aspects and features of the object being described?Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 7, 118.

Distinctions about information literacy in disciplines

“…information literacy’s connection to community – that is, the ongoing social and disciplinary practices on which any information literacy must depend and in which it must take root. The arts of information literacy vary according to the discipline and the ways that a particular discipline makes and communicates knowledge. Our instruction should likewise always reinvent itself to acknowledge those nuances.”

Norgaard, Rold, “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and Implications”, Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, Spring 2004

Two crucial truths that balance us.

Again: Is all “pattern recognition” valid?: Is it reasonable to think that we can creatively “synthesize information” any way we intuit?

Reality not infinitely malleable:(i.e. “it can’t be carved up just any way”- David Weinberger) [Even] in library-based work [historians, English literature, etc],

there is “a taste for reinterpretation that is clever and insightful but at the same time founded in evidence and argument.”

We need complex maps: “Meaning has an extraordinary multiplicity that cannot be

easily captured by the rigidly limited vocabularies of variables and standard methods”

Quotes from Andrew Abbot, “The Traditional Future: A Computational Theory of Library Research” [pre-print])

“Life bigger than ‘logic’” ; but not maps

“Justice is a denial of mercy, and mercy is a denial of justice. Only a higher force can reconcile these opposites: wisdom. The problem cannot be solved, but wisdom can transcend it. Similarly, societies need stability and change, tradition and innovation, public interest and private interest, planning and laissez-faire, order and freedom, growth and decay. Everywhere society’s health depends on the simultaneous pursuit of mutually opposed activities or aims. The adoption of a final solution means a kind of death sentence for man’s humanity and spells either cruelty or dissolution, generally both… Divergent problems offend the logical mind.” Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 127.

Can’t touch this: very personal maps

“…If something is there, if it has any kind of existence, if people notice it and are interested in it, it must be indicated on the map, in its proper place”.

I know - am confident and convinced that - my mom and dad love me Valid knowledge – and a controlling assumption in my life. Not suitable / appropriate / possible to do “rigorous analysis” – so

can’t “prove” it to you. For my own “purposes”, I don’t need to verify it with two

witnesses. If I thought I needed to for no reason other than to question

the assumption, would that be appropriate / wise? I won’t begin to question this unless you can persuade me

to do so (question) with evidence.

There is “Authoritative art” Great literature, for example, resonates…

Stephen King on Harry Potter:

“There's a lot of meat on the bones of these books — good writing, honest feeling, a sweet but uncompromising view of human nature...and hard reality”

Great literature keeps us “factually honest” with the real world – the human condition… Artists connect with reality in jarring ways…

I see myself in [this, that character]… I feel like I am beginning to understand this, that person / culture, etc.

Interesting “aside”: men don’t read much fiction, but more boys than girls have read Harry Potter.

There is “Authoritative science”

Unlike fable, “which has burrs and feet and claws and wings and an indestructible sheath like weed-seed and can be carried almost anywhere and take root without benefit of soil or water”…

“Verifiable [repeatable, testable] knowledge makes its way slowly, and only under cultivation.”Stegner, Wallace. Beyond the hundredth meridian. Penguin Books, 1992. p. 134.

In a sense, all authorities / experts in the arts and the sciences are…

Discoverers Explorers Voyageurs Adventurers Investigators Detectives

(Pick your metaphor…) Map-makers (for self, others, etc.)

Maps also inform and fascinate

In maps, a purpose is always implied Of course maps also… …may simply inform us about the

existence of fascinating objects out there (Of course, many “Enlightenment maps” claimed to only be about this, i.e., they were de-personalized [“purely objective”] and about “science for science’s sake”, thereby claiming to be, in some sense at least, “de-purposed”)

Reconciling: art and science, heart and head, “content” and “process”Experts are… http://www.britishcouncil.org/northernireland-society.htm

Apprentices who deal with/have *dealt seriously with* the master mentors who have gone before them (trust, reception of instruction)

And have exhibited curiosity (“problem solving”, simple “child-like wonder”, etc.) intuition (tacit knowledge: “we know more than we can tell”) inner reflection (not precluding natural giftedness) dedication (“light at end of tunnel” because of “fiduciary

framework”) and “on-the-ground” effort (“leather-foot journalism”)

…regarding their contact with the world out there (in all of its seemingly static and changing, immutable and mutable aspects…)

They believe that meaningful new discoveries can/will be made. They have done so in ways - and for purposes - recognized as valid

/ reasonable (ethical! – some things always “beyond the pale”) in the eyes of others around them…

Sometimes people can represent, translate, or “map” knowledge for *others* in a creative, helpful fashion.

Sometimes “popularizing” in amazingly creative, age-appropriate ways!

Subjects: Physics ; Relativity (Physics)

…In his bedroom one rainy afternoon, he embarks on a philosophical journey that will take him to the furthest reaches of the universe!

Valid “mental-maps” (detail)

Also note: 1) Some maps can not be adequately described by

words or pictures alone but demand other kinds of “communicative settings” (the art of riding a bicycle, reading an x-ray, choosing the proper wood for a cello) (i.e. some highly developed knowledge is tacit, defying all attempts at formalization, and is picked up unconsciously from apprentices who simply trust their master mentor’s way of doing things)

2) There are “multiple intelligences”. Corollary: we trust people for some things but not others… (may be totally competent in one area and seem to us “mentally ill” in another area)….

3) All of us are “experts” (“elites” in this sense) in this or that area, this or that sense…(Expertise exists not only in "degreed" persons)

4) Since we share a common world, there is interdisciplinary overlap (with the real corresponding possibility of knowledge from here building on knowledge from there)

5) Paradigm shifts happen (break offs occur in disciplines)

6) One would certainly be wrong to think that we, in our “objectivity”, can act in such a way that we do not impact the world

7) One person can use another person’s map for purposes for which the mapmaker never intended or foresaw.

Celebrate the playing field

“the key to communicating the relevance of information literacy is to convey the broad intellectual playing field on which it moves”. Norgaard, Rold, “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and

Implications”, Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, Spring 2004

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Allianz_Arena_Playing_field_panorama.jpg

Beyond “narrow expertise”: Life’s great questions

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/philosophy/socrates.htm

Socrates: “the ignorant [do not] seek after wisdom; for herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good not wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself”.

“Grasping for the Totality”: all, at some level, have felt / feel the need to explain the world in a way that brings coherence to the “facts of life” (truths)

Universal maps – the road to defragmentation

We are constantly trying to organize define state …what is true.

Seem to want… a conception of the world that makes sense of it all something by which we may “grasp the Totality” Not just maps of truth, but of Truth A holistic “Uber-map”

…a thousand Uber-maps bloom

These may come in the form of: Myths, epic poems/songs, narratives Philosophies (ethical, naturalistic, rationalistic,

postmodern, political [Nationalism, others], etc.) Reality as Geometrical /Mathematical/

”Elegant” (“Abstract transcendental realm of perfect mathematical relationships”-Davies)

Religion, Systematic theologies, etc.

These, further influence the way we view the cosmos /

world …and particular aspects of it, are to a large degree inherited, change over time, all the time

On dual T/truth maps (detail)

Due to the fruit of our critical thinking / exploration… our conceptions in the case of t/Truth maps may stay relatively stable, evolve into something very different, or be gradually refined and nuanced

Doubt is always with us… “Conversions” may be gradual and

sudden.

On dual T/truth maps (detail)

Our tacit or explicit Truth map affects our truth maps and are to some extent affected by them.

Some Truth maps may make arriving at some truth maps more difficult (or impossible) and vice-versa.

We are all ideologues – what kind of ideologue are you? (the role of evidence and experience in map-refining in individuals)

Emaciated / Impoverished uber-maps

Some “Uber-maps” strongly imply that there is nothing intrinsic about beauty, justice, and meaning, for example – i.e. beauty, justice, and meaning are only something that I/we (and those we choose to associate with) create / make / determine.

American democracy – the right to be wrong

AASL Guidelines: http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/firstamendment/resources.html

3.3.6 – “Use information and knowledge in the service of democratic values.”

American democracy = Strong convictions (faith/conscience) and strong civility (political)

We are all ideologues – what kind of ideologue are you?:

Can we fundamentally disagree with someone and still consider them a person of equal, intrinsic value – regardless of how others might evaluate them – with whom we are determined to share a common society / life?

Objections to “T/truth maps” “Map”: “Nice, but…” (meta-ing)

Question: But how does this explanation not qualify as a “Universal Map” – how am I not suddenly the objective observer / God?

Fact: There will always be an element of trust involved in authority – who do you trust?

(the Web 2.0 folks say: openness, transparency, trust…)

Answer: You don’t need to trust me here… Test me! This is not “secret knowledge” (I think undistorted communication within free and open encounters in which one may argue one's case before others – and have it tried, tested, and contested – are desirable).

Loose ends: the big library connection

Original focus of the library movement: “to deliver the best books by the best

authors to a public, who by reading them would become mentally cultivated.”

Not giving books to people because they “can do something with it” (practical use), but because of “what a book would do to them.”Francis Miska, “The Genius of Cataloging”, audio program.

Loose ends: the cataloging connection

Responsible to promote information literacy:

…assisting school media centers to create an “educationally purposeful space”

…where age-appropriate idea exploration can be encouraged and nurtured (helping students to form meaningful and responsible [grounded in evidence] “mental maps” of persons, places, things, ideas and their connections)

…in part by striving for comprehensive access to specific library materials though the use of cataloging practices, and by other, additional means.

Loose ends: the reading connection

Reading, [Pierre] Bayard [, the author of “How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read”] says, is as much about mastering a system of relationships among texts and ideas as it is about reading any one text in great depth.Kirschenbaum, Matthew, “How Reading is Being Reimagined”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 7, 2007

One might better call this “Reading”, “information literacy”, or, “knowledge”.

Loose ends:

Laying foundations for creativity

NOT so much: ‘If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.’ - Kurt Lewin

Rather like John Dewey: Critical inquiry that attempts to understand the world and changing the world go hand in hand…(One can even be “conservative” for the sake of being “radical”)

In sum (wrap-up?)

Authorities / Experts who make contact with reality and their various “maps” are valuable to us.

Creating new knowledge presumes foundational content, personally received (some “old understandings” made fresh).

Libraries are part and parcel of this enterprise. We “map the maps”. “Information Literacy” goes deep.

Practically speaking - why start with databases, other library resources?

Some of the top expert knowledge (get paid because they *know* that, how…)

Variety of informed perspectives ([mostly] accurate facts, different *frames*) Enjoyable to read

(good writing, rhetorical skills) Eye to the “common good”

(Respectful persuasion ^, Name-calling v ) Beyond keywords, popularity algorithms, and

“concordance” indexing(More powerful searching tools, controlled vocabularies, etc.)

Libs try to collect the best of the best and influential works. (though yes, even we have outdated, contradictory, biased, and even deliberately inflammatory materials [e.g. “Mein Kampf”] on our shelves!)

FIN.