Workplace Information Literacy: Co-designed Information Experience-Centered Systems and Practices

Abstract

A collaborative design initiative in a North American academic library was initiated in 2016 to enhance information literacy and enrich learning conditions in the workplace. This paper describes co-workers' information intensive and learning centered design processes, which intend to further collective capacity for 'using information to learn' over a twelve-month period. Throughout, attention focused on aspects of informed learning-being aware of the kinds of information we are using, how we are using information and how different forms of information come together to inform and transform our work. Reflection and dialogue on information experience stories further aimed to inform information experience design-to allow individuals and groups to experience information and the information environment surrounding it in a range of increasingly complex ways which offers them a richer, broader and more effective information engagement experience.

Informed Systems: To Advance Organizational Capacity and Co-Worker Capability

“…Fewer narratives described category 4-5 (information curation, knowledge management, knowledge creation, worldview transformation). Workplace informed learning categories 6-7 (information sharing and knowledge creation) were largely absent [21]. Although findings revealed considerable variation, no participants' narratives expressed the full range of informed learning categories nor the depth of those categories.…”

Curating knowledge, creating change:: University Knowledge Center, Kosovo national transition

“…As Informed Systems initiatives in the United States from 2003 to the present have demonstrated (Somerville, 2009, 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Somerville and Mirijamdotter, 2014; Somerville et al, 2017, 2018a, 2019), collective learning is progressed through information experiences that acknowledge content, the information itself, and context. Collective learning thereby promotes interrelationships between people and their environment.…”

Information experience: A domain and object of study

“…The transformative nature of IXD allows it to act as an agent of change. When applied to social issues such as immigration (Sayyad Abdi, Bruce, Partridge, & Watson, in press), it has the potential to contribute to social progress in the form of social inclusion and when applied to organizational phenomena (Somerville, Chaudhary, Mirijamdotter, & Sayyad Abdi, 2019;Somerville, Imhof, Bruce, & Sayyad Abdi, 2017), it supports organizational change and innovation.…”