Introduction

With a few exceptions, the social nature of the development of information literacy has remained largely implicit in the library and information science literature. Given the ratio of practitioners to both scholars and practitioner-scholars in academic librarianship, it is not surprising that the literature related to information literacy has mostly focused on pedagogical and practical strategies, with emphasis on brief, one-time instructional interventions (i.e., ‘one shots’) that still remain ubiquitous in higher education. Relatively recent literature focusing on critical pedagogies in information literacy instruction (see Tewell 2015 for an overview) has highlighted the need to develop students’ critical or socio-political consciousness, not just their ability to select keywords and search relevant databases, which can be difficult to do within a single instruction session. Although important to recognise, this narrow focus does not account for the ways in which students’ information literacy develops within the broader undergraduate academic landscape in which students’ leaarning is situated, as well as barriers to the development of (critical) information literacy, student learning and student academic success.

Some have acknowledged the importance of the social and cultural contexts in which information literacy is developed. Lloyd (2012) and Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja (2005) have argued that we must consider the epistemic and professional communities in which information literacy is negotiated and developed. Within academic librarianship, both Elmborg (2006) and Nicholson (2014) have considered the broader academic culture in which students are developing and being asked to demonstrate their information literacy. Specifically, Elmborg (2006, p. 195) notes that students must be aware of ‘the codes used by the community and the customs and conventions in play’ to successfully demonstrate their information literacy to their faculty or risk being perceived as ‘rejects’ (ibid., p. 194) in the community. Both the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL 2016) and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP 2018) have reconceptualised their articulations of information literacy, focusing on the critical, reflective and analytical ways of thinking about and using information rather than on discrete tasks or skills. This shift has resulted in an acknowledgement and articulation of the codes, customs and conventions related to information literacy within academic culture (Folk 2019); however, academic librarianship still lacks a working framework for conceptualising and exploring the social and cultural aspects of the development of students’ information literacy.