Whitworth, Andrew.Mapping information landscapes: new methods for exploring the development and teaching of information literacy. London: Facet Publishing, 2020. xx, 201 p. ISBN 978-1-78330-417-2. £65.00.
Andrew Whitworth is a prolific writer exploring a range of issues related to information literacy. In his latest book he explores the development and teaching of information literacy using the metaphor of mapping, on one hand, and mapping as a method, on the other.
The book consists of seven main chapters exploring how humans use mapping tools and how they have developed in different fields of practice and scholarship. In particular, the author pays attention to mapping of our cognitive experiences and information landscapes with a particular aim of supporting and enhancing information literacy education.
The first chapter presents understanding of information literacy and its properties, as well as different areas of its application and several approaches to information literacy. The second chapter approaches the development of mapping in a similar vein, how it has been developed and how it has changed over time through various applications and under the influence of different mapping tools.
Chapters three and four are particularly interesting as the author explores the role and influence of power on mapping practices, but also how mapping develops our knowledge of the world and influences decision making (chapter 3). The social origin of mapping as a knowledge development tool, the knowledge itself is inseparable from the structures of societies that use and create them. This process is further illustrated through presenting psycho-geographies of Manchester, Crowborough and Seaford in chapter 4.
The fifth chapter is introducing the mapping of cognition and the use of mapping approach in information science in particular. It is notable that the author demostrates the use of mapping of information horizon as used in concrete studies by Sonnenwald (1999) and Hultgren (2009). He also presents the concept mapping and Ketso approaches and discusses the advantages and limitations of all these methods.
The sixth chapter presents discursive mapping of information landscapes emerging as a result of discussions and interactions of information scholars and practitioners. All chapters more or less explicitly relate the mapping techniques to their utility in information literacy, either as a tool of developing the understanding of its concepts and practices among information science scholars or as means of teaching information literacy to wider public.
It is quite obvious that the primary audience of this book are information literacy and information science researchers and students. It is equally addressing information literacy teachers in libraries and different educational institutions. The idea to explore mapping in relation to information is not entirely new, but the author has found innovative aspects that the readers may find useful in modern library and information practice.
References
- Hultgren, F. (2009). Approaching the future: a study of Swedish school leavers' information-related activities. Borås, Sweden: Valfrid.
- Sonnenwald, D.H. (1999). Evovlng perspectives of human information behavior: contexts, situations, social networks and information horizons. In Exploring the contexts of information behavior: proceedings of the Second International Conference in Information Needs, (pp. 176-190). London: Taylor Graham.
Elena Maceviciute
University of Borås
October, 2021
How to cite this review
Maceviciute, E. (2021). Review of: Whitworth, Andrew.Mapping information landscapes: New methods for exploring the development and teaching of information literacy. London: Facet Publishing, 2020. Information Research, 26(4), review no. R730 http://www.informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs730.html
Information Research is published four times a year by the University of Borås, Allégatan 1, 501 90 Borås, Sweden.