Radical Change Theory, Youth Information Behavior, and School Libraries

نویسندگان

  • Eliza T. Dresang
  • Kyungwon Koh
چکیده

School libraries confront significant changes in the digital age, the age of Web 2.0 and of participatory culture. Radical Change theory, based on the digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access, is germane to understanding these transformations. The theory was originally developed to explain changes in digital age books for youth. It is expanded here through the creation of a typology and accompanying characteristics that address how digital age youth think and seek information; perceive themselves and others; and access information and seek community. As a basis for their typology, the authors provide detailed evidence from an extensive interdisciplinary review of research literature concerning youth information behavior. Also proposed is a multistage research agenda that involves applying Radical Change theory in various school library settings for proof of concept followed by an exploration of potential associations between digital age youth information behaviors and twenty-first-century learning skills. This theory development will assist in determining what implications the new information behaviors and resources have for libraries, schools, and other information environments and how information professionals can better help youth become skilled twenty-first-century information seekers. School libraries in the United States confront significant changes in the digital age, the era of Web 2.0 and of participatory culture. Students and how they seek, use, create, and share information are changing at the same time that the resources they use or create are changing. As evident in national standards and guidelines, over the course of almost a century (1918–2009), the spotlight has moved from counting items to evaluating LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 58, No. 1, Summer 2009 (“Important to Us All: School Libraries and LIS Research,” edited by Marcia A. Mardis), pp. 26–50 © 2009 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois Radical Change Theory, Youth Information Behavior, and School Libraries Eliza T. Dresang and Kyungwon Koh 27 dresang/radical change theory programs to settling on the most important aspect of the school library— the learner. To reflect these changes, the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner (AASL, 2007), Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action (AASL, 2009), and Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs (AASL, 2009) speak of multiple literacies, a continuing expansion of information, the social nature of learning facilitated by technology, and the school library as a place where students can practice the learning skills they need to deal with all of these changes. The theory of Radical Change is based on the digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access. It provides a promising theoretical framework for explaining contemporary changes in information behavior and resources as well as for serving as a guide for investigative studies and professional practice. The radical expansion of the theory proposed here is in step with the digital environment. The shift in emphasis of twentyfirst-century school libraries makes an expanded Radical Change theory an especially important tool for school libraries in assessing and planning for the radical changes in students, their information seeking, and their expectations for resources. A Theory Expansion Radical Change theory was developed in the 1990s to explain the alterations that were initially noted in the watershed picture book, Black and White (Macaulay, 1990), winner of the 1991 Caldecott Medal for the most outstanding picture book published in the United States in the previous year. Dresang and her colleague, McClelland, both members of the award committee, noted that although children appreciated this publication, adults seemed more hesitant to embrace it (Dresang & McClelland, 1995). Over the course of the last decade of the twentieth century, this explanatory theory rooted in digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access was developed to explain not only the changes evident in Black and White but also those that appeared in a myriad of other contemporary books for youth. See table 1 for explanation of these digital age principles that underlie Radical Change theory. Dresang (1999) developed a typology based on the three digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access in which she identified Table 1. Digital Age Principles Principles Definitions Interactivity Refers to dynamic, nonlinear, and nonsequential learning and information behavior with an increasing sense of control by end-users Connectivity Refers to sense of community or construction of social worlds that emerge from changing perspectives and expanded associations Access Refers to breaking of longstanding information barriers, bringing entrée to a wide diversity of formerly largely inaccessible opinion 28 library trends/summer 2009 three types of changes occurring in books for youth and described characteristics that would enable users to apply the theory accurately in identifying “digital age books.” It should be noted that the digital age principles explain all three types of books; the fact that there are three principles and three types of books is coincidental. As the title Radical Change implies, the characteristics of digital age books depart from, but are still related to, those of traditional handheld books for youth. Table 2 presents an overview of the three types of books identified by Radical Change theory and their identifying characteristics. It should be noted that in the typology the three types of books are not mutually exclusive, that is, any one book might exhibit characteristics of each type. There is no one-to-one correspondence. Table 2. Radical Change Typology: Digital Age Youth Literature Radical Change Types Indicators Type One: Changing Forms of Formats Graphics in new forms and formats Words and pictures reaching new levels of synergy Nonlinear organization and format Nonsequential organization and format Multiple layers of meaning Interactive formats Type Two: Changing Perspectives Multiple perspectives, visual and verbal Previously unheard voices Youth who speak for themselves Type Three: Changing Boundaries Subjects previously forbidden Settings previously overlooked Characters portrayed in new, complex ways Unresolved endings The original Radical Change theory has proved itself to be robust in terms of providing understanding and prediction of alterations in books for youth (Dresang, 2008). Soon after Dresang developed the theory to explain changes in youth literature, it became apparent that Radical Change theory could be applied to explain instances of youth information behavior as well (Pantaleo, 2008). An expansion of the theory describes the characteristics that will enable consistent identification of information behavior, as the three-part typology in table 2 does for books. Building on the earlier work, the authors extend the theory by establishing three types of information behavior characteristic of digital age youth, which correspond to the types of radical change in handheld literature for youth and which are rooted in the three digital age principles explained in table 1. Some of the characteristics of information behavior in the digital age were also typical of information behavior in the past but these characteristics have become more pronounced, easily observed, and more widespread as a result of the development of digital culture. 29 dresang/radical change theory The typology of youth information behavior in terms of Radical Change theory consists of Type One: Changing Forms of Seeking Information and Learning (the cognitive aspect of information seeking), Type Two: Changing Perspectives (identity and value negotiation), and Type Three: Changing Boundaries (information access and seeking community). See table 3 for an overview of the proposed Radical Change theory typology. In many cases, as is true with the corresponding book typology, the types are not mutually exclusive. Rather it is important to understand the relationships and interactions between all the aspects of youth information behavior. The theory is unusually important in that it focuses on both people and resources—the interaction in the digital age between and the combination of users and information resources. It aims to explain how the changing nature of information resources, whether they are digital media resources or handheld books that exhibit digital age characteristics, influence the ways people seek, use, and impact these resources. The theory provides both a holistic and a dialectical perspective. Youth information behavior is a complex process of interplays among various factors, such as young people’s cognitive status, identity formation and value negotiation, and social interaction within a context. Reaching beyond technological determinism, the typology of youth information Table 3: Radical Change Typology: Digital Age Youth Information Behavior Radical Change Types Questions Characteristics Type One: Changing Forms of Seeking Information and Learning How do they seek information and learn? Obtaining information through a variety of media sources Demonstrating a preference for graphic and visual information

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عنوان ژورنال:
  • Library Trends

دوره 58  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2009