I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of
Truth... as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to
doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider,
carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither
affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind
of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and
relationship with Truth. 'Of the interpretation of Nature' from the collected works of Francis Bacon
Information Literacy is knowing when and
why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and
communicate it in an ethical manner. CILIP (2003)
Information
literacy--a slippery term; means lots of things to lots of people. It
has no urgency and because it borrows words from other meanings, it
actually doesn't make sense.
Cited in: Snavely, L., & Cooper, N.
(1997). The information literacy debate. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 23(1), 9.
The
problem with such definitions and models is that they continue to view
literacy as a state which can be achieved rather than an ongoing
process and group of practices. Belshaw, D. (2011). Never ending thesis.
A
mere scholar, who knows nothing but books, must be ignorant even of
them...The learned pedant is conversant with books only as they are made
of other books, and those again of others, without end. He parrots
those who have parroted others. William Hazlitt (1822). 'On the ignorance of the learned'.
Wikipedia
– the encyclopedia where you can be an authority, even if you don’t
know what the hell you’re talking about. ‘‘Wikilobbying’’ performed by
Stephen Colbert (2007) Available online.
We
now live in a world where anyone can publish an opinion or perspective,
whether true or not, and have that opinion amplified within the
information marketplace. At the same time, Americans have unprecedented
access to the diverse and independent sources of information, as well as
institutions such as libraries and universities, that can help separate
truth from fiction and signal from noise. Barack Obama's proclamation on information literacy (2009)
You argue that man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to enquire. Meno by Plato (written 380 BC). Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos. Gaddis, William, JR, London: Jonathan Cape, 1976: 20
The
present classification like all preceding or following ones will always
be illusory. Annemarie Sauzeau, writing on the project 'Classifying
the thousand longest rivers in the world' completed with her husband
Alighiero Boetti. (quoted by Tate (2012) in the exhibition 'Game Plan.'
It
is a peculiarity of academic learning that its focus is not the real
world itself but others’ views of that world. Diana Laurillard, Rethinking university education. Routledge, 1993: 50). Quoted in Paul Levin, Write great essays!, 2nd ed. Open University Press, 2009: xi
Although
he is not a particularly proactive information seeker in most
situations, The Dude’s invitational attitude allows him to keep his mind
open to ‘‘new shit’’ DILL, E. and JANKE, K. (2011), “New Shit Has Come to Light”: Information Seeking Behavior in The Big Lebowski. The Journal of Popular Culture.
And thus we can state The First Characteristic of Bad Books: the bibliography has strange features. Daniel F. Melia (2012). Pseuds' corner. THES, 9th Feb 2012.
At worst, a reading list becomes a measure of academic virility ("mine is bigger and longer than yours!"). Bevan, N. (2012). Preliminary to reading. THES, 23rd Feb. 2012.
I
love archives. You go to an archive to answer a question, check a
fact, and come away with an idea, a lyrical note, another query, more
uncertainty. Edmund De Waal (2012). Exhibition pamphlet for 'Edmund de Waal at Waddesdon, 20 April - 28th October 2012' at Waddesdon Manor.
"On
average those who gained a first-class honours degree borrowed twice as
many items and logged into MetaLib (to access e-resources) over three
times as much as those who achieved a third-class degree." Dave Pattern, University of Huddersfield, interviewed in Library and Information Gazette, 2nd September 2010
And
in line with its claim to totality Nazism brings new technology and new
organisations into everything. Hence the immense number of
abbreviations - Klemperer, V. (1957). Language of the Third Reich. Continuum
There
was a time when the word “research” meant “critical and exhaustive
research or experimentation having as its aim the discovery of new facts
or interpretations" (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
1976). Research today often means little more than locating random
snippets using a search engine. Gorman, M. (2012). The prince’s dream: a future for academic libraries, The New Review of Academic Librarianship, 18(2), 114.
It
is easy to produce dreadful assignments by using a search engine to do a
quick, undiscriminating trawl. Searching for a few words from your
assignment task, copying from websites you come across and then pasting
together disconnected bits and pieces to present as your assignment will
get you a very low grade.
-
Northedge, A. and Chambers, E. (2008). The arts good study guide, 2nd ed. (p. 271)
There
is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly
usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the
something you were after. From The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein, quoted in Collins, H. (2010). Creative research. AVA. (p. 11)
One can teach what one doesn't know if the student is emancipated - the explicative system has to be overturned - Ranciere, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster: five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Stanford University Press, p.15
...in
the olden days, you gathered information by going to the library for a
book or magazine article. You might disagree with a library book, but
you could be somewhat confident that someone checked the author’s claims
about facts before the book was published.- Rheingold, H. (2012). Crap Detection 101: How to Find What You Need to Know, and How to Decide If It’s True. In: Net smart; how to thrive online, MIT Press, p. 77.
In
an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of
something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention
of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of
attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
over-abundance of information sources that might consume it. Herbert Simon, "Designing organizations for an information-rich world," 1971, cited in: Rheingold (2012: 96) - see above.
...it is a happiness to dream, and it used to be a glory to express what one dreamt. Baudelaire, C. The Salon of 1859: translated by P. E. Charvet: 1972. In: Charles Baudelaire; selected writings on art and literature. Penguin
This report takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of creativity is constructed as a series of rhetorics. Banjai, S., Burn, A. & Buckingham, D. (2010) The rhetorics of creativity; a review of the literature, 2nd ed. Creative Partnerships Literature Reviews. London: Institute of Education.
Making students think, rather than assume, and read rather than cut and paste is proving a challenge. Brabazon, T. (2006). The Google Effect: Googling, Blogging, Wikis and the flattening of expertise. Libri, 2006, vol. 56, pp. 157–167. Available from: http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/2006-3pp157-167.pdf
Dr Sabri said a US-style survey on "student engagement" was preferable because it encouraged people to define themselves as active learners, rather than passive "consumers". "One student told me, 'The NSS gave me an idea of what I should be getting.' It reinforces the idea that students should be getting something, instead of participating."
NSS scores are a 'weak basis' for policymaking. THES. 3 November 2011. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/nss-scores-are-a-weak-basis-for-policymaking/417980.article
...enforcers rush to carry out the latest orders from their chiefs in an ecstasy of obedience to ideological principles which they do not seem to have examined, let alone discussed with the people they order to follow them
Marina Warner, London Review of Books, Vol. 36 No. 17, 11 September 2014: pages 42-43
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n17/marina-warner/diary
For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and present them as the only rational, universally valid ones.
See Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Collected Works, vol. 5, 1976, pp. 48–9 and 52–3.
