Information Literacy Research and Practice: An Experiential Perspective

In this paper I explore some experience-based perspectives on information literacy research and practice. Approaching information literacy from the point of view of those experiencing it, is very different from the standard interpretations of information literacy as involving largely text based information searching, interpretation, evaluation and use. It also involves particular understandings of the interrelation between information and learning experiences. In following this thread of the history of information literacy, I reflect on aspects of the past, present and future of information literacy research. In each of these areas I explore experiential, especially phenomenographic, approaches to information literacy and information literacy education, to reveal the unfolding understanding of people’s experience of information literacy. The evolution and development of the phenomenographic approach to information literacy, and the associated growing attention to a dual focus on information and learning experiences are highlighted.