Information Literacy and Knowledge Management: Preparations for an Arranged Marriage

This article discusses a conceptual framework developed as part of ongoing PhD research looking at workplace information literacy (IL) and exploring its relationships to knowledge management (KM). An empirical study is researching conceptions of effective information use and learning practices of staff at a national, over the phone, health service operating 24/7, using a phenomenographic approach combined with a consideration of structural aspects of the workplace environment related to institutional initiatives for KM. The proposed framework involves three main elements: an epistemological approach to learning based on social constructivism and hermeneutics; the analysis of situated practice from a sociological and philosophical viewpoint based on critical realism; and a definition of literacy as a multimodal semiotic tool for learning. The concepts of literacy and literacies are discussed in contrast to information literacy, and it is suggested that seeing information literacy as an aspect of literacy, rather than as an independent concept, is a more fruitful approach to the study of the core processes involved in sense-making, learning and decision-making in situated practice and particularly in organizational environments.