The negative spaces of information literacy

An alternative research agenda

Abstract

Suggestions that information literacy (IL) is being employed in subversive or unorthodox activities, including criminal or anti-democratic aims, have largely been dismissed as evidence for the need for more IL instruction. Possible solutions to situations in which librarian-promoted IL skills advance subversive activities, which include a renewed focus on standardisation or virtue epistemology, introduce additional issues, such as whose values would prevail. In contrast, engagement with IL’s negative space, a design term that refers to the aspects of a composition that surround the main focal object, provides an opportunity to learn about what has been obscured through our focus on more socially acceptable goals — and develop a richer, more responsive understanding of practice.