Connect the dots

If someone had asked me prior to studying ETL401 to define ‘information’, I would have described it as: facts pertaining to a particular topic. This initial understanding of ‘information’ aligns with a semantic way of thinking; that information must contain meaning and be of a factual or instructional nature (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015). Seeing information through the lens of the classic definition, that focuses more on the transmission of information separate from meaning, gave me another perspective that I had never considered before. In the context of the work of a teacher librarian, both the semantic and classic ways of defining information coexist. The Information Hierarchy (Wideman, 2008) perfectly represents this union of both definitions. Below I have shown my current knowledge of how the library environment facilitates progression through The Information Hierarchy:

Data: Data, being the language we use to communicate (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.), is contained within the resources a library holds. Examples of resources include books, websites, videos, audio, etc.

Information: A student uses their knowledge of language (letter-sounds, grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc.) to decode the data through reading, viewing, listening, etc.

Understanding: The student then interprets the information they have just decoded and forms meaning.

Knowledge: What the student has read/viewed/listened to is retained for future recall.

Wisdom: The student applies higher-order thinking skills, such as analysing, evaluating and creating, in combination with the knowledge they have retained to apply and share their knowledge.

Of course, learning and acquiring new information is not always this linear. Joseph Z. Nitecki (1985) points out that “personal knowledge is subjective, always directly related to an individual’s own previous knowledge and unique way of absorbing new perceptions into an existing system of relations already known” (p.401). The teachers and students who utilise school libraries bring with them a vast range of personal knowledge and life experiences which will ultimately affect the ways in which they relate with the information and resources that are contained within the library. This emphasises the need for a teacher librarian to not only know their resources, but to know the teachers and students in which they are connecting the resources to.

 

References:

Nitecki, J. D. (1985). The Concept of Information-Knowledge Continuum: Implications for Librarianship. The Journal of Library History (1974-1987), 20(4), 387-407.

 

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2015, January). Semantic Conceptions of Information. Retrieved March 11, 2021 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/

 

Wideman, R. M. (2008).  The information hierarchy. [Powerpoint slides].  http://www.maxwideman.com/issacons/iac1013d/sld004.htm