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Interdisciplinarity and information literacy: Librarians' competencies in emerging settings of higher education
Author(s) -
Gullbekk Eystein,
B⊘yum Idunn,
Byström Katriina
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010079
Subject(s) - information literacy , multidisciplinary approach , discipline , negotiation , engineering ethics , sociology , literacy , conceptual framework , higher education , curriculum , knowledge management , pedagogy , political science , computer science , social science , engineering , law
Our aim with this conceptual analysis is to demonstrate possible expectations put on librarians who are engaged in interdisciplinary courses in higher education programs. We do so by relating views on interdisciplinarity with views on information literacy. We distinguish views on interdisciplinarity by the degree of integration between disciplinary components and views on information literacy by the degree of participation in addressing research problems. The analysis brings forth four cases. The cases entail different professional competencies that range from source‐oriented technical skills applicable in multidisciplinary settings to collaborative negotiations of research problems and information needed to address them in inter‐disciplinary fields. This conceptual account has a twofold potential: First, it has a capacity of informing academic libraries about alternative paths in developing or revising activities for interdisciplinary education. Second, it also provides a framework for developing future research problems that address current challenges related to information literacy in interdisciplinary settings.