Information literacy practice plays a key role in the transitional processes of individuals within new intercultural settings. While this ability to adjust to new cultural contexts is increasingly important within today's multicultural societies, campuses and workplaces, typical approaches to information literacy education struggle to scaffold the newcomer's disrupted information landscapes. In focusing on prescriptive skills, information literacy standards position linguistic and cultural difference as a learning deficiency. Yet, when alternative information literacy frameworks centre upon personal habits of mind, they fail to account for contextual dynamics. In this conceptual paper, the authors use research into the health practices of resettling refugees as an example to argue that a move away from behaviourist approaches to information literacy refocuses our attention on questions of adjustment and engagement with cultural understandings of information, and forms a more inclusive way to consider the diversity of today's information societies.

Recognising the importance of exploring multimodal experiences of information, this paper provides a detailed examination of the scope of visual research methods within information practices research. More specifically, the paper will use the examples from one completed study (Lloyd and Wilkinson, 2017) and one ongoing study (Hicks, in progress) to discuss and provide a detailed examination of the use, affordances and limitations of two research methods that centre upon participant-created photographs: photo-elicitation and photovoice. Demonstrating that the use of photographs helps to evoke and communicate complex meaning as well as to mediate between linguistic, temporal and spatial constraints, this study highlights the continuing need to develop research methods that privilege participants' understandings and perspectives.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the emergent grounded theory of mitigating risk, which was produced through an analysis of the information literacy practices of English-speakers who are learning a language overseas as part of their undergraduate degree. Design/methodology/approach The grounded theory emerges from a qualitative study that was framed by practice theory and transitions theory, and employed constructivist grounded theory, semi-structured interviews and photo-elicitation methods to explore the information activities of 26 language-learners from Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. Findings The grounded theory of mitigating risk illustrates how academic, financial and physical risks that are produced through language-learner engagement overseas catalyse the enactment of information literacy practices that enable students to mediate their transition overseas. Research limitations/implications This study’s theory-building is localised and contextual rather than generalisable. Practical implications The grounded theory broadens librarians’ and language-educators’ knowledge of student activities during immersive educational experiences as well as extending understanding about the shape that information literacy takes within transition to a new intercultural context. Social implications The grounded theory develops understanding about the role that local communities play within intercultural transition and how these groups can respond to and prepare for increasingly fluid patterns of global movement. Originality/value This paper contributes to an increasingly sophisticated theoretical conceptualisation of information literacy while further providing a detailed exploration of transition from an information perspective.

PurposeThe aim of this study is to investigate people's information practices as the SARS-CoV-2 virus took hold in the UK. Of particular interest is how people transition into newly created pandemic information environments and the ways information literacy practices come into view.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative research design comprised one-to-one in-depth interviews conducted virtually towards the end of the UK's first lockdown phase in May–July 2020. Data were coded and analysed by the researchers using constant comparative and situated analysis techniques.FindingsTransition into new pandemic information environments was shaped by an unfolding phase, an intensification phase and a stable phase. Information literacy emerged as a form of safeguarding as participants engaged in information activities designed to mitigate health, legal, financial and well-being risks produced by the pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsTime constraints meant that the sample from the first phase of this study skewed female.Practical implicationsFindings establish foundational knowledge for public health and information professionals tasked with shaping public communication during times of crisis.Social implicationsThis paper contributes to understandings of the role that information and information literacy play within global and long-term crises.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies to explore information practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

abstract:This article details an open card sort study administered to undergraduate students, graduate students, and librarians at the University of Colorado at Boulder in order to reveal perceptions of library research guides. The study identifies user group preferences for organization and content of research guides, as well as themes emerging from the collected study data that contrast librarian and user mental models. Interested librarians will gain insights into student perceptions and use of research guides in academic libraries today as well as recommendations for guide design.