Conference Agenda

Objectives

Across the globe, competencies that facilitate critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and fluency with digital tools that support these competencies, top the inventories of employability skills (Klegeris, 2021; Matuszewska-Kubicz, 2021). Humanities and social science (HSS) programs appear to generate effective employees for the growing business services sector (BSS), which seeks job candidates with interpersonal and communication skills to address the various needs of clients and to work in sustainable multidisciplinary teams (Muller & Doloreux, 2009; Multan, 2020). Digital literacy skills appear to constitute some of the learning outcomes (Sparks et al., 2016) that the business sector expects university graduates to attain and to feel empowered in as they enter the labor market. Our study examines the psychological empowerment of recent HSS alumni after attending four different digital literacy courses at the Jagiellonian University in Poland. The goal was to examine the extent to which this empowerment differed depending on the type of digital literacy skill training—information, data, visual, or communication and collaboration—these alumni completed.

Methodology

Six months after graduation, HSS alumni who in their final year of study completed a digital skills course designed to support their entrance into the labor market, and who were employed in business services, completed a psychological empowerment survey based on Spreitzer’s (2007) framework. The sample for this quasi-experiment consisted of 202 responses (information literacy, n = 52; data literacy, n = 54, communication and collaboration, n = 54; visual literacy, n = 42). Bayesian statistics were used to examine differences in empowerment self-reports between alumni who completed the four digital literacy courses.

Outcomes

Students who completed courses in information literacy and data literacy reported higher workplace empowerment compared to those who completed courses in visual literacy, and communication and collaboration. Despite the study’s limitations concerning the Polish context, the research findings suggest curricular design implications that are relevant to a wider, international workplace context. Firstly, students would benefit from digital skills training opportunities provided within HSS programs. Secondly, certain digital skills appear to be more advantageous for students pursuing careers in the business services sector than others.

References

Klegeris, A. (2021). Mixed-mode instruction using active learning in small teams improves generic problem-solving skills of university students. J. of Further and Higher Education, 45(7), 871–885. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2020.1826036

Matuszewska-Kubicz, A. (2021). Key competencies in the labour market from the perspective of higher education students. E-Mentor, 92(5), 69–80. https://doi.org/10.15219/em92.1541

Muller, E., & Doloreux, D. (2009). What we should know about knowledge-intensive business services. Technology in Society, 31(1), 64–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2008.10.001

Multan, E. (2020). Adjusting students’ competences to the needs of modern business services sector. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 7(3), 2326–2349. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2020.7.3(58)

Sparks, J. R., Katz, I. R., & Beile, P. M. (2016). Assessing digital information literacy in higher education: A review of existing frameworks and assessments with recommendations for next-generation assessment: Assessing digital information literacy in higher education. ETS Research Report Series, 2016(2), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/ets2.12118

Spreitzer, G. M. (2007). Toward the integration of two perspectives: A review of social-structural and psychological empowerment at work. The Handbook of Organizational Behavior. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Background & Objectives

A turquoise organization is a concept crafted by Belgian business practitioner Frédéric Laloux. It is a rarely implemented, high maturity demanding model based on three pillars: sense of mission; wholeness of humanity; self-management (Bartosiewicz, 2017; Laloux, 2014; Tabaszewska-Zajbert & Sokołowska-Durkalec, 2019; Wasiluk, 2022). Accumulating information and collective transforming it into knowledge is considered to be its fundamental success factor (Januszko-Szakiel, 2020). Despite scarce evidence on this point, it may reasonably be inferred that, in practice, this flexible and individually empowering model, invests every employee with an equal load of responsibility for the organization’s prosperity. It engenders specific information needs and patterns of information behaviors as well as requires a particular form of information literacy. The authors, one of whom runs an information brokering company based on the turquoise scheme, inspected LIS students’ receptivity to the very idea of a turquoise organization and, subsequently, their readiness to develop skills needed to work with? such an entity.

Our objectives are defined as follows: 1) to measure, using mixed-method approach, LIS students’ receptivity to key principles of turquoise organizations. We define receptivity as capacity, grounded in already acquired knowledge, to project oneself in the turquoise settings and anticipate the type of information work and skills to be mobilized; 2) to assess mental and operational readiness of LIS students to integrate turquoise entities once graduated. In other words, to assess whether students demonstrate competences such as autonomous and self-responsible information sharing, discovering and encoding tacit knowledge within organizations, self-managing and improving the quality of data and information generated, sustainably archiving, and preserving information resources of the company for further reuse; 3) to suggest adding relevant content to existing LIS academic curricula in order to better equip future employees of turquoise organizations.

Methodology & Outcomes

For the study we used both quantitative and qualitative approach, the former being an online survey questionnaire. For he latter we conducted a series of individual semi-structured in-depth interviews, the full transcripts of which we analyzed conjointly by the prism of the affordance theory and the actor-network theory. We administered the survey to a group of 90 students of master in information management, from which we recruited 12 volunteer interviewees.

Results showed that students exposed ambivalent attitudes towards turquoise organizations, ranging from naïve approval to acute suspiciousness. Their nearly unanimous declarations of readiness to be hired by a turquoise entity, are mitigated, if not contradicted, by the results of individual interviews. Students showed some difficulties in properly identifying information affordances and networking connections (ANT theory) in turquoise settings. They seemed to be intimidated by the high level of autonomy and responsible personal involvement in information management processes embedded in the turquoise model. Since information is the major asset in turquoise organizations, LIS graduates are, a priori, predisposed to seek employment in such environments and there is merit in verifying their capacity to be actually recruited and to deliver proper work. These preliminary outcomes still need to be nuanced and processed in view of transforming them into actual proposals of curricula enrichment.

References

Bartosiewicz, S. (2017). Turquoise companies, future or utopia. Central and Eastern J. of Manag. and Econ., 5(3), 393–397.

Januszko-Szakiel, A. (2020). Turkusowy model komunikowania i informowania w organizacji biznesowej: Studium przypadku. In P. Korycińska (Ed.), Horyzonty informacji (pp. 123–140). Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Biblioteka Jagiellońska. Retrieved March 11, 2023 from https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/handle/item/261425

Laloux, F. (2014). Reinventing organizations: A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness. Brussels: Nelson Parker.

Tabaszewska-Zajbert, E., & Sokołowska-Durkalec, A. (2019). Towards a turquoise organization–personal change of employees and its socio-cultural barriers. Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego We Wrocławiu, 63(9), 200–210.

Wasiluk, A. (2022). On the way to turquoise organizations and turquoise leadership. Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Śląskiej. Organizacja I Zarządzanie, 647–661.

In today’s healthcare there is a strong focus on evidence-based scientific information. The evidence-based movement states that healthcare should be based on scientific research. Hospital librarians have a role as key actors when it comes to facilitating information seeking and use of scientific evidence within healthcare (Chaturvedi, 2017; Egeland, 2015). In recent years, with demands for evidence-based practice, the main role of hospital libraries has gradually shifted from serving patients with literature to becoming medical libraries for healthcare professionals. This change has transformed the role of hospital librarians into specialists focused on clinical librarianship and research support. This paper is part of a research project started in 2020 on information practices of hospital librarians, with previous studies focusing on information work of hospital librarians (Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023) and documentary practices in evidence-based medicine (Ahlryd & Hanell, 2021). The often invisible information practices of hospital librarians can be visualized through the application of the concept of information work (Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023). Lloyd (2013) frames information literacy practices, such as facilitating access to information, as critical for solving workplace problems and consequently as a critical practice of information work. For healthcare professionals there is a need for specialized information literacy. Previous research shows how information practices in healthcare connect to both a science-oriented medical discourse and a holistically oriented nursing discourse (Johannisson & Sundin, 2007), and that information literacy practices of hospital librarians need to balance between an understanding of information literacy as either generic or embedded (Sundin, Limberg & Lundh, 2008). Against this background, this paper investigates the information literacy enacted and developed by hospital librarians as they work to support evidence-based practice. The main research question guiding this investigation is: what is the nature of information literacy practices constructed, negotiated, and enacted by hospital librarians as part of their information work? This study is informed by a practice-oriented perspective framing information literacy as a situated practice (e.g. Lloyd, 2013) and includes 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with hospital librarians and hospital library managers between 2020 and 2022. The analysis shows how information literacy practices of hospital librarians are situated within a multi-polar discursive field and characterized by three main hospital library practices: clinical practices, information seeking practices, and a health technology assessment practice (cf. Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023). Within the healthcare sector, hospital librarians need to navigate between generic and situated views on information literacy as well as epistemologically conflicting understandings concerning the nature of scientific evidence. The different views on information literacy make it possible to discuss different epistemological approaches within healthcare and how hospital librarians respond to these. With the growing importance of evidence-based medicine, we find that information literacy practices of hospital librarians tend to be positioned and shaped by a science-oriented epistemology. Drawing on this analysis, possible future directions for information literacy practices within hospital librarianship are elaborated.

References

Ahlryd, S., & Hanell, F. (2021). Documentary practices of hospital librarians in evidence-based medicine. Proceedings from the Document Academy, 8(2), 12. https://doi.org/10.35492/docam/8/2/12

Chaturvedi, K. (2017). Evidence-based library and information practice & educational needs of health librarians: National and international trends. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 37(1), 24–29.

Egeland, M. (2015). Hospital librarians. Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 15(1), 65–76.

Hanell, F., & Ahlryd, S. (2023). Information work of hospital librarians: Making the invisible visible. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 55(1), 70–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211063202

Johannisson, J., & Sundin, O. (2007). Putting discourse to work. The Library Quarterly, 77(2), 199–218.

Lloyd, A. (2013). Building information resilient workers: The critical ground of workplace information literacy. What have we learnt? In S. Kurbanoğlu et al. (Eds.), Worldwide Commonalities and Challenges in Information Literacy Research and Practice, European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2013, Istanbul, Turkey, October 22–25, 2013: Proceedings. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) 397 (pp. 219–228). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03919-0_28

Sundin, O., Limberg, L., & Lundh, A. (2008). Constructing librarians’ information literacy expertise in the domain of nursing. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 40(1), 21–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000607086618