New Wine into Old Wineskins?
Adding the Visual to Information Literacy
Instruction
Carol A. Leibiger, PhD., MSLIS
Alan W. Aldrich, M.A., MLIS
University Libraries, University of South Dakota
In the beginning was the image…
Increasing literacy privileged the verbal
Education teaches us to think critically
about words
IL Standards (2000) seem to deal with
verbal information
1. The information literate student
determines the nature and extent
of the information needed.
2. The information literate student
accesses needed information
effectively and efficiently.
3. The information literate student
evaluates information and its
sources critically and incorporates
selected information into his/her
knowledge base and value system.
4. The information literate student,
individually or as a member of a
group, uses information effectively
to accomplish a specific purpose.
5. The information literate student
understands many of the
economic, legal, and social issues
surrounding the use of information
and accesses and uses information
ethically and legally.
Visual information “rules”
• The amount of
electronic data
produced by computers,
cameras, recorders, etc.
surpassed the ability to
store it in 2007 (@ c.
250 exabytes).
word/number vs.
visual/audio information
words or numbers visual, audio, etc.
5%
• Only 5% of information
is structured (words or
numbers); the rest is
images, phone calls, etc.
95%
“A Special Report on Managing Information: Data, Data
Everywhere,” The Economist,
www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?sto
ry_id=15557443 (retrieved March 15, 2010).
We are awash in a sea of information…
…much of it visual
Visual images are powerful
information carriers
In a study of 1,000 women 15 years
of age or older,
• 36% had experienced
emotional abuse while growing up;
• 43% had experienced some
form of abuse as children or
adolescents;
• 39% reported experiencing
emotional abuse in a relationship
in the past five years.
Women's College Hospital. (1995). Canadian women's health
test. Toronto.
http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/emotional-abusestatistics.html
Visuals with texts are more memorable
(pictorial superiority effect)
Visual literacy standards focus on
images
IL/VL Standards: Separate or inclusive?
Information Literacy Competency Standards for
Higher Education
Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher
Education
1. The information literate student determines the
nature and extent of the information needed.
1. The visually literate student determines the nature
and extent of the visual materials needed.
2. The information literate student accesses needed
information effectively and efficiently.
2. The visually literate student finds and accesses
needed images and visual media effectively and
efficiently.
3. The visually literate student interprets and
analyzes the meanings of images and visual media.
3. The information literate student evaluates
information and its sources critically and incorporates
selected information into his/her knowledge base and
value system.
4. The visually literate student evaluates images and
their sources.
4. The information literate student, individually or as
a member of a group, uses information effectively to
accomplish a specific purpose.
5. The visually literate student uses images and visual
media effectively.
6. The visually literate student designs and creates
meaningful images and visual media.
5. The information literate student understands many
of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding
the use of information and accesses and uses
information ethically and legally.
7. The visually literate student understands many of
the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues
surrounding the creation and use of images and visual
media, and accesses and uses visual materials
ethically.
Issues of IL vs. VL differentiation
• Do the “classic” IL standards
apply only to words or various
kinds of information?
• Do we need separate IL
standards for every different
kind of information?
• Can the “classic” IL standards
be tweaked to be inclusive, or
are they already inclusive?
• Can the IL/VL standards be
tweaked to go beyond
research in order to deal with
environmental information in
all its forms?
Intermediality/Metaliteracy
• Pailliotet et al. (2000): “[W]e
define intermediality, broadly,
as the ability to ‘critically read
and write with and across
varied symbol systems.’”
• Mackey & Jackobson (2011):
“Information literacy is the
metaliteracy for a digital age
because it provides the higher
order thinking required to
engage with multiple
document types through
various media formats…”
Rather than containing images alone…
…or words alone, most texts are hybrid.
The standards are outcomes, not
methods
Dude, that’s
the what…
…but not the
how, Walter.
New Wine…
Mashups, New genres,
Interactive media, etc.
…Old Wineskins
Objections to a Rhetorical Approach
• Rhetorical approach is
suited for verbal
(oratory) and not the
visual.
• Rhetoric is about
analyzing arguments.
Different rhetorical traditions
• 5 canons of invention, arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery
• Semiotics (Pierce) or a theory of signs
Our blended rhetorical analysis
S imple
djustible
lexible
American icons
• http://gunowners.org/
• http://www.bradycamp
aign.org/
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Using Google, you
can find the
following sites on
M.L. King, Jr.:
• The King Center
• Martin Luther
King.org
Phrenology and African Americans
(Images from www.stormfront.org)
Contact Carol
Leibiger at
c.leibiger@usd.
edu
Contact Alan
Aldrich at
alan.aldrich@
usd.edu
Check out our LibGuide at: http://libguides.usd.edu/metaliteracy