Overcoming Information Poverty

Investigating the Role of Public Libraries in The Twenty-First Century

Anthony Mckeown

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780081011102
• eBook ISBN: 9780081012314
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Overcoming Information Poverty: Investigating the Role of Public Libraries in The Twenty-First Century considers the role of public libraries in alleviating information poverty and targeting social exclusion, using a three-level information poverty framework. The book proposes a model for understanding the concept of information poverty, develops indicators for its measurement, and provides recommendations for service improvement based on analysis of public library services at macro (strategic), meso (community) and micro (individual) levels. The topic is of theoretical and practical importance when considering the changing role of public libraries today. The book is the first time a macro, meso, and micro model of information poverty indicators has been developed and applied to illustrate the impact of public libraries at strategic, community, and personal levels. - Stimulates thinking and debate on information poverty and how it may be addressed by public libraries, education departments, and governments - Uses case studies to investigate how information poverty can be tackled at the macro, meso, and micro level - Focuses on how strategic policies to reduce information poverty filter through to community-based interventions within branch libraries - Discusses mixed methods, using quantitative and qualitative data, surveys, interviews, and focus groups with library users and non-users, to conduct a three-level investigation of information poverty

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter outlines the primary motivation for the book, the origins of the book and considers why its content is important at this time. It provides an overview of the rationale and background. There is a brief discussion of what ‘information poverty’ is to introduce readers to the book’s subject matter. Following this, I provide my own definition of information poverty. The justification for the macro, meso and micro framework to conceptualise and investigate information poverty is discussed. It then explains how the research was operationalised, describing the research design and the data collection methods and instruments used. It discusses why a mixed methods approach was used and justifies the methodological choices at each level. Finally, an outline of the subsequent chapters is provided.

Keywords

Background and rationale; Digital divide; Information poverty; Macro; Meso; Methodology; Micro terminology; Public libraries; Three-level information poverty framework

1.1. Introduction

In a changing social and technological environment, the content of this book advances our understanding of the instrumental role libraries can play in overcoming information poverty. The book conceptualises information poverty using a macro-, meso- and micro-level framework. This framework is applied to demonstrate how public libraries address it at macro (strategic), meso (community) and micro (individual) levels. In doing so, the book provides an understanding of the wider economic, social and political contexts within which public library services operate and the information services they provide. This introductory chapter outlines the primary motivation for creating this book and considers why its content is important at this time. There is a brief discussion of what information poverty is, how this book creates a new perspective on information poverty and the role of public libraries in addressing it. In addition, the chapter discusses how the three-stage methodological framework was operationalised: the research design and the data collection methods. The chapter concludes by providing an outline of the subsequent chapters.

1.2. Background and Rationale

The book is timely given the emphasis by government to tackle poverty and digital and social exclusion. A challenge for government, educational specialists and public libraries in modern society is improving access to information for those without the literacy, information and digital literacy skills or the socioeconomic means to acquire information, with a goal to create a more socially and digitally inclusive society. When considering the challenges facing and the changing role of public libraries, this book articulates and promotes the purpose, role and ethos of public libraries and provides a vision of how library services can remain relevant and influential in order to meet the needs of 21st-century users. This book demonstrates the value of public libraries in this age of austerity and provides evidence of their continued relevancy in society, communities and people’s individual lives. This book is therefore particularly pertinent now, when public library services face cutbacks and increasingly need to be accountable to justify future investment. In light of current debates in the United Kingdom on public libraries and the recent Sieghart Independent Library Report, this book offers fresh insights and recommendations for public libraries based on a comprehensive analysis of the findings of recent United Kingdom–based research on information poverty and public libraries.

Specifically, this book uses the findings of an original PhD study conducted by the author¹ at the Ulster University that investigated how the public library services of Northern Ireland (Libraries NI), address information poverty at the macro level (with information infrastructure, policies and strategies); at the meso level (with targeted community interventions); and at the micro level (by improving literacy and information and digital literacy skills). Library services in Northern Ireland – as elsewhere in the United Kingdom and farther afield – are likely to be threatened increasingly by budget cuts, which mean less money to spend on stock, the library premises or library staff. In these circumstances the need for libraries to demonstrate their impact on tackling government priorities for poverty, social and digital inclusion is imperative. While the book looks at Libraries NI, it has wider implications; the three-level framework of information poverty indicators can be used within other contexts and at an international level. Thus, in essence, the local context is purely a means of showing how the three-level framework could be applied to libraries in a way that readers can interpret, adapt and apply the framework within their own library context/sector. I consider how the findings can be used to contribute to strategic policy and makes recommendations about how policy to alleviate information poverty might be improved. The empirical data from interviews with both strategic and community-level library staff and external stakeholders, a survey of branch library managers (BLMs) and focus groups with library users and nonusers are used throughout the book to illuminate (1) views and perspectives of what information poverty is, (2) how it can be addressed by public libraries and (3) how public libraries can improve their approaches to addressing it.

The next section reviews what information poverty is. Following this are discussions of how this book further develops the concept and how this conceptualisation can be applied to public libraries.

1.3. Information Poverty

For people to change their circumstances or improve their lives – whether socially, culturally or economically – they need access to information. The elusiveness and complexity of information poverty has led researchers to consider it from different perspectives. Information poverty describes a situation where individuals are unable to access information as a result of inter-related social, cultural, educational and economic factors that prevent information access. It is often defined in terms of a lack of both literacy and the information literacy skills needed to participate in society. Information poverty can be characterised by a lack of information and a lack of skills to access information, as well as a result of the cultural norms and information behaviours that exist within communities. Furthermore, it is a ‘global phenomenon that can vary from context to context’ and is ‘not purely an economic phenomenon’ because it ‘can be linked to the cultural and social spheres of society’ (Britz, 2007: 75). Moreover, information poverty is a multidimensional concept with various interpretations and applications, several different causes and many different impacts. The factors creating information poverty and the ways in which public libraries can alleviate information poverty are discussed throughout this book.

Information poverty suggests a scarcity of information that is vital to citizens’ ability to engage effectively in society and make informed life choices. The concept of information poverty, in which individuals suffer from a lack of needed information, is an issue of growing importance in contemporary society, with its enhanced focus on information and communication technology (ICT) for personal and social development. In contemporary society the need to be online and to access digital information means that ICT is now viewed as an essential tool to reduce poverty and for economic and social development. Having access to ICTs and the Internet, as well as the ability to use these, are now vital assets to escape poverty and hence be included in society. Furthermore, individuals who experience information poverty are less able to access the information they need to improve their social, economic and cultural positions; as a consequence they are often at risk of exclusion from participation in wider society.

Public libraries have traditionally addressed information inequalities ‘especially for people from the lower socio-economic groups’ who may not have the financial means to afford it (Ptolomey, 2011: 98). Public libraries now play a fundamental role in providing access to ICTs/the Internet for those who cannot afford the technologies or need support to access online information. In facilitating access to digital information public libraries can develop and empower individuals who lack the financial resources to pay for home Internet access. As well as providing access to ICTs and the Internet, public libraries have a leading role to play in developing citizens’ information and digital literacy skills and in supporting the United Kingdom government’s Digital by Default agenda. The role of public libraries in creating a more culturally, digitally and socially inclusive society by facilitating access to information and providing a space for social participation is discussed throughout this book. Bates (2008: 96) observes that ‘there is the danger that increasingly, non-use of the Internet can perpetuate a cycle of poverty and exclusion’. Being without access to ICTs and the Internet can therefore restrict personal development, social participation and access to a range of government services. So, information poverty can exclude individuals without information or the skills to access information and can prevent people from achieving their full potential and participating as full and equal members of society.

The ‘information society’, which emphasises the importance of information in contemporary society, has an enhanced focus on access ICTs. Haider and Bawden (2007: 546) aver that the lack of ‘affordable’ access to ICTs and the Internet leads to a ‘state of deprivation’ and exclusion described as ‘information poverty’. Information poverty is discussed variously in the literature with terms like the ‘information society’, the ‘digital divide’ and ‘information inequality’. Yu (2006) states that two overlapping research communities have emerged: first, information poverty, information inequality, information gap and information divide research, and second, digital divide and universal access research. Both research communities focus on social inequity in information distribution; however, their research methods and policy recommendations are different (Yu, 2006: 230). Yu (2006: 230) argues for an ‘exchange of ideas between the two communities’. The terms ‘information inequality, information gap, information divide, information disparity, information inequity, information rich vs. information poor or information haves vs. information have-nots, [and] knowledge gap’ are used to ‘describe the state of social division between those who are favourably’ placed in information resource distribution and those who are not’ (Yu, 2006: 230). While the information divide can often be seen as that which exists between developed and developing countries, there is often a similar dichotomy within societies between:

…those with easy access to an abundance of information and those who do not know how and where to find it and even, perhaps, do not understand the value of information and how it can help them in their day-to-day lives

Goulding, 2001: 109

Information poverty is ‘often mentioned together with equally contested concepts’ such as the digital divide and the information society (Haider and Bawden, 2006: 372). With the growth of ICTs in the 1990s, the Internet was ‘widely recognised as the most significant divider between the information rich and information poor’, and consequently the ‘digital divide’ became ‘the major embodiment of information inequality’ (Yu, 2006: 203). The digital divide concept emerged, often referring to (in economic terms) those who can and cannot afford technologies. In the digital divide discourse the ‘information have-nots’ are ‘frequently conceptualised as the economic poor’ (Hers...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Series Page
• Copyright
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Setting the Context
• Chapter 3. Developing an Understanding of What Information Poverty Is
• Chapter 4. Factors Creating Information Poverty
• Chapter 5. Investigating Information Poverty at the Macro Level: Part 1
• Chapter 6. Information Poverty at the Macro Level: Part 2
• Chapter 7. Investigating Information Poverty at the Meso Level: Part 1
• Chapter 8. Investigating Information Poverty at the Meso Level: Part 2
• Chapter 9. Investigating Information Poverty at the Micro Level
• Chapter 10. Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations
• Appendices
• References
• Index