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Understanding the Field of Critical Information Literacy: A Descriptive Analysis of Scientific Articles

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Information Literacy: Moving Toward Sustainability (ECIL 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 552))

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of critical perspectives in information literacy whose importance has been recognized by a number of authors in the field. This paper is a preliminary report on a research project that aims to describe the field of critical information literacy (CIL) based on a comprehensive descriptive statistical analysis of the qualities of CIL literature. The analysis was undertaken on a sample of 102 full-text scientific and professional articles. The sample was created based on a preliminary analysis of Google Scholar, SCOPUS and WOS databases. The authors present findings on the established authorship, publication and research patterns in the field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The basis for analysis was GS data because it encompassed all WOS and the majority of Scopus search entries. Added entries from Scopus make up for 4.6 % of the analyzed search entries.

  2. 2.

    GS data consisted of different types of documents like editorials, tag archives, bibliographies, biltens, blogs, etc. Our study focuses on scientific and proffesional articles published in journals or as book chapters.

  3. 3.

    The language criterion was introduced later in the study, as the last measure of exclusion, since 92.42 % of search results were in English. Only 3.6 % non-English articles were excluded based on language criteria, while the rest was excluded based on other criteria.

  4. 4.

    Published in Accardi, Drabinski, Kumbier (eds.): Critical library instruction - Theories and Methods, and Gregory, Higgins (eds.): Information literacy and social justice - Radical Proffesional Praxis.

  5. 5.

    Reference Services Review was chosen as one of the most productive journals in the IL field.

  6. 6.

    Definitions for each type of contributions are available online.

References

  1. Elmborg, J.: Critical information literacy: implications for instructional practice. J. Acad. Librariansh. 32(2), 192–199 (2006)

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  2. Burdenuk, G.: Living and learning in the global village. In: Lighthall, L., Haycock, K. (eds.) Information Rich, but Knowledge Poor?, pp. 109–117. IASL, Seattle (1997)

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Correspondence to Denis Kos .

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Kos, D., Špiranec, S. (2015). Understanding the Field of Critical Information Literacy: A Descriptive Analysis of Scientific Articles. In: Kurbanoglu, S., Boustany, J., Špiranec, S., Grassian, E., Mizrachi, D., Roy, L. (eds) Information Literacy: Moving Toward Sustainability. ECIL 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 552. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28197-1_58

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28197-1_58

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28196-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28197-1

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