A Phenomenological Imperative for Information Literacy

Abstract

When the American Library Association developed and approved the Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, librarians at many institutions began to attempt implementation. The Framework marked a conceptual and practical break from the past of information literacy standards, so substantial re-tooling become necessary. The present paper applies phenomenology to some specific concepts of the Framework to assist with interpreting ideas and implementing those ideas into practice. The phenomenological analysis actually forms a critique (not criticism) of three of the concepts in particular and uses the work of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as foundations to facilitate information literacy work.