Navigating the information landscape
Change log
Authors
Coonan, Emma
Abstract
This article explores the tension between the structures by which the library organises and presents information, and the ways in which students and researchers access, use and conceptualise knowledge. I suggest that while knowledge structures are vital to learning and research, an overemphasis on structurality is mistaken, and can lead to an inappropriately positivist approach which impedes the research mission. The article examines various metaphoric ways of negotiating meaning and navigating information structures, and of crossing the threshold of structurality
Description
Preprint of column segment to be published in Serials Librarian 61(3), 2011.
Keywords
information literacy, information retrieval, information-seeking behaviour, taxonomy, research skills