Seeing infrastructure, interrogating infrastructure: Making explicit the implicit of LIS education and learning environments

Davis, Rebecca; Bettivia, Rhiannon; Maurici-Pollock, Danielle; Williams, Rachel

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117989 Copy

Description

Title

Seeing infrastructure, interrogating infrastructure: Making explicit the implicit of LIS education and learning environments

Author(s)

• Davis, Rebecca
• Bettivia, Rhiannon
• Maurici-Pollock, Danielle
• Williams, Rachel

Issue Date

2022-10

Keyword(s)

• Sociotechnical systems
• Library and information science (LIS) education
• Infrastructure
• Education programs/schools
• Students
• Social justice

Abstract

The relationship between infrastructure and higher education (HE) has been well studied from the perspective of information technology (IT), education policy, and pedagogy (Williamson, 2018). Learning infrastructure is highly localized, yet the opacity and variability of LIS education makes it difficult to understand the variety and breadth of challenges that unarticulated operating principles pose to students, particularly during the Covid pandemic. In this panel, we ask: what critical infrastructure is necessary to support LIS education and LIS students during times of crisis, when flaws in the infrastructure are revealed through failure points? This panel will take us on a journey through current research by Bettivia, Davis, Pollock, and Williams. Work by Bettivia and Davis examines the assumption that digital natives know how to learn in digital environments, an assumption that proscribes investment in holistic programs of student onboarding that undergird student experiences in HE. Pollock and Davis then ask us to consider why we persist with our current infrastructure when so many of its features represent known barriers to access for historically excluded populations. Williams continues interrogating infrastructural tensions in public library service provision during times of crisis, addressing ways of navigating those tensions and coping through that process. Davis examines the use of academic library resources and services by undergraduates of the global majority and the subsequent impact of the pandemic. Each of the following presentations weaves a larger narrative which takes up the central questions: why are these the infrastructures, and should these remain the operating principles?

Series/Report Name or Number

Proceedings of the ALISE Annual Conference, 2022

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117989

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21900/j.alise.2022.1004

Copyright and License Information

• Copyright 2022 Rebecca Davis, Rhiannon Bettivia, Danielle Maurici-Pollock, Rachel Williams
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Owning Collections