The Information Drive-Thru

Our ability to create, manage, and discover information is critically interlinked with areas of national importance. For example in the Make or Break report published last February, the House of Lords Digital Skills Committee found that across all age groups in Britain there is a significant skills gap in terms of Digital Literacy. Working with FE students from a variety of backgrounds and age groups I saw the hard proof of this every day. To me at least, Prensky’s model of the millennial as a ‘digital native,’ that is young people fluent in the language of technology and information, is looking more and more mythical. A person’s competence in areas of Digital Literacy in my experience seems largely dependent upon the social capital they are lucky enough to inherit. Those from (the increasing ranks of) poorer communities can hardly be expected to adopt and adapt to new technological developments if they are unable to afford even basic amenities. Job Centres may offer help with the compilation of CVs, but they very rarely touch on the topic of online identity management. Just because a teenager can type 85 wpm on a smartphone doesn’t necessarily mean that they are are capable producing a quality analysis of of a given topic. And finally, even if an entire generation communicates through twitter, facebook, tumblr, whatsapp, instagram, and snapchat, that will not equate to participation in thoughtful academic discussion and reflection.

It is perhaps sad that as Information Professionals we are in some ways contributing to the dearth of Digital Literacy skills. American sociologist George Ritzer published The McDonaldization of Society in 1993 where he likened trends in societal organisation to fast-food, a theory which was quickly applied to Higher Education (the McUniversity), and more recently, academic libraries (Ritzer, 1996; Nicholson, 2015; Quin, 2015). Brian Quinn describes the production of “Information Happy Meals,” whereby students expect to be presented with information, in a format of their choosing no less, rather than undertake any in-depth research or information discovery for themselves (2015).When discussing the feedback she received from her students, Alison Garden noted that  “As students begin to think of themselves as consumers, rather than learners, their attitudes towards those who teach them is changing.” (2015)  Librarians are of course service providers, but increasingly the emphasis is less on service, and more on provision. In many libraries dedicated OPAC terminals sit unused. When students want to know if we have a book in stock, they come and ask at the service desk “because it’s easier.”

The ease with which information is readily available has also, alarmingly, affected our ability to identify areas of knowledge on which we can improve and may even artificially inflate how much we think we know. Recent studies on information searching behaviour and memory show that when people search for answers or factual information online they later believe that they came up with the answers on their own (Fisher, Goddu, & Keil, 2015). Researchers call this the “Illusion of Knowledge,” and conclude that it is directly driven by the act of searching for information. Because we can search for a piece of knowledge, we already think we know it. Ready access to information (any information!) reduces our ability to recall information correctly (Sparrow, Liu, & Werner, 2011). This phenomenon of outsourcing of memories is often described as the “Google Effect” and directly inhibits the way that people process information (Ward, 2013; Wegner & Ward, 2013).

That students increasingly rely on search engines, is not news. In fact, Further and Higher Education students have been heavily over-relying on search engines for well over a decade now (Griffiths & Brophy, 2005). However, it is starting to become clearer how this behaviour is affecting not just information literacy among students, but other core skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, managing their online reputations, and even more alarmingly, their employability. For example, Arya and Nardon note that students who rely heavily on web searching for information in programming classes not only underperform, but also fail to develop the complex problem-solving abilities required to be a halfway decent programmer (2014). The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians has reported that the information literacy skills of legal trainees in the United Kingdom is particularly lacking in that they are unable to find, interpret, evaluate, and manage complex legal information appropriately;

“...they noted that trainees seemed to depend on one-hit-only searching: in other words they did not check thoroughly and contextually around their findings. They used Google extensively and their searches tended to be shallow and brief. Trainees were also increasingly unable to distinguish between the genres of legal research tools - the difference between an encyclopaedia and a digest, for example. They seemed to lack persistence and diligence in searching, as well as organisation.” (Legal Training & Review, 2013, p. 45)

When I worked in FE, I helped students with all kinds of technology queries. Quite a few of them have little to no experience in using technology, because they have immigrated from a country where computer use isn’t widespread, or because they are from a demographic unfamiliar with current technology, to cite two general examples. However, there are an alarming number of younger, local students, who lack basic word processing skills, or even knowledge about email and browser programmes. These students have smartphones and music players, but they appear to have never had any formal ICT education at all. This goes against the grain of Prenky’s theory of the ‘digital native.’ There is also a growing cohort of students who don’t have access to a computer or the internet at home. The dedicated among them come to the Library in the evenings after class, and when we were open during the holidays. However balancing the demands of education, employment - and for many - parenthood, does not leave a lot of free time for checking your email, let alone conduct a thorough search of a Library database. Neither does a smartphone with a data plan lend itself complex research. We can depend on Libraries to provide computing facilities and internet access to members of the community but after a harsh five years of public Library closures, reducing academic budgets, and reduced staff and opening hours, more people are finding themselves in need, and Libraries are only able to provide less.

The Digital Skills Committee strongly recommended that to bridge this gap Digital Literacy needed to become a core subject at all levels of education, alongside the traditional standbys of literacy and numeracy. The report goes one step further, recommending that Further Education is perfectly placed to make up the current shortfall in digital education. I would agree. Certainly, including digital literacy on the syllabus for primary and secondary education is an important step, but this does nothing to develop the skills of mature students and lifelong learners. If this was the only course of action we would be neglecting the digital literacy of several generations. By the time students reach Higher Education, these skills should already be in place - making colleges, with their broad cross-section of the community, ideally suited to the task.

It’s surprising then to discover that Further Education colleges have implemented very little in the way of digital literacy instruction as evidenced by the large number of students demanding “information happy meals” and requesting help with tasks as simple as word-processing. Further Education has been particularly helpful to those with traditional neurological dysfunctions, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, providing some specialist training and guidance, as well as introducing technology to assist these groups. However, these developments have been made possible by funding allocations from HEFCE/SFC specifically for this purpose. Meanwhile, libraries in FE remain overwhelmingly under-funded. At a previous workplace we traded insolvent just to keep our basic online subscriptions in place until we received the next round of funding. Upon learning of our budget allocation for the 2015-2016 academic year it became immediately obvious that for the second year in a row we would not be able to afford any new physical stock. We cancelled newspapers, we cancelled magazines, we cancelled interlibrary loans. It feels, at least from where I’m standing, that the government has cancelled Further Education, and perhaps we’ve helped them to do so.

Quinn notes that the McDonalized library is “slow to respond, simplistic, and shortsighted,” (2014, p. 345). As providers of “information happy meals” we are clearly doing our students a disservice. But aren’t we also damaging our own profession? For example, without meaning to, CollegeHumor’s depiction of the human Google accurately captures what it is to work on a reference desk (2014). It is as if librarians and search engines are conflated in our customers’ imagination. As Arlie Russell Hochschild notes in The Managed Heart, increasingly mechanised and automated roles combined with the stresses of Emotional Labour only serve to depersonalise our professional interactions with others (1983). When we sit at the widow of the Information Drive-Tru and focus our efforts on quick-and-easy-to-digest consumer products that are worthy of Customer Service Excellence accreditation, who exactly benefits? It might be efficient service provision, but is it effective education?

Kevin Michael Klipfel suggests a model of pastoral librarianship that would work so well precisely because it is everything that the McLibrarian is not (2015, p. 24). This works because learning is largely dependent on the creation of meaning. When we inject authenticity into our practice both sides of the desk benefit. However, this requires upskilling and autonomy from our McLibrarians. Yes, this approach would cost significantly more in terms of staff investment and in funding, but I have a feeling that the results (a digitally literate and competent society) are very much worth it. But we can’t begin to change the minds of our students, or help them become the skilled citizens they want to be if we are spending a megre £0.07 per student on learning resources provision.

I have worked in Libraries for six years, and only half of that time has been spent in an academic environment. So I can’t claim to be best equipped to offer solutions. However, I do know that there is a problem, and I do know that our current government’s plan to turn post-secondary education into a commodity is not likely to help (Department for Business, Innovation, & Skills, 2015). I do know that interjecting some authenticity into our approach to information literacy couldn’t hurt.

Bibliography

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