Workplace Information Literacy: It’s Different

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to frame the key issues in workplace information literacy. This chapter is the personal experiences and observations of the author with over 30 years of experience in intranets, corporate libraries and product development. The workplace is not a single or uniform population, as can be said broadly about mass markets like consumers, K-12 students, or undergraduate scholars. Workplaces are defined as the workers in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors who are tasked with running the organization and delivering services to end users like learners, customers, clients, patients, etc. This chapter explores these issues and frameworks through key target audiences in commercial and institutional workplace environments such as:

• Teachers (as opposed to students)

• Faculty (professors as opposed to young scholars)

• Corporate administrators and business decision-makers, executive, professionals, consultants, accountants, auditors, MBAs, managers

• Medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists

• Lawyers (in both private practice and internal corporate and government work)

• Engineers

• Creative professions (artists, advertisers, marketers, etc.)

Citation

Abram, S. (2013), "Workplace Information Literacy: It’s Different", Developing People’s Information Capabilities: Fostering Information Literacy in Educational, Workplace and Community Contexts (Library and Information Science, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-222. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1876-0562(2013)0000008017