Lawson, Stuart, Sanders, Kevin ORCID: 0000-0003-1217-0149 and Smith, Lauren (2015) Commodification of the information profession: a critique of higher education under neoliberalism. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3 (1). eP1182. ISSN 2162-3309 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1182)

Preview

PDF (Open Access Article) 29451 SANDERS_Commodification_Of_The_Information_Profession_(OA)_2015.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (495kB) | Preview

Abstract

The structures that govern society’s understanding of information have been reorganised under a neoliberal worldview to allow information to appear and function as a commodity. This has implications for the professional ethics of library and information labour, and the need for critical reflexivity in library and information praxes is not being met. A lack of theoretical understanding of these issues means that the political interests governing decision-making are going unchallenged, for example the UK government’s specific framing of open access to research. We argue that building stronger, community oriented praxes of critical depth can serve as a resilient challenge to the neoliberal politics of the current higher education system in the UK and beyond. Critical information literacy offers a proactive, reflexive and hopeful strategy to challenge hegemonic assumptions about information as a commodity.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	scholarly communication, open access, information literacy, policy, gold, green
Subjects:	Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z719 Libraries (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Information & Library Services
Last Modified:	23 Apr 2021 14:20
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/29451

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads