Presentation given to

1. libraries and
the future of
transliteracy
lane wilkinson
houston, tx
april 20, 2012
CPE#535

2. Welcome!

3. Blogs
Presentations
Websites
Where you’ll find
Journals
transliteracy
Conferences
Job descriptions
Job titles

4. Social media
Digital literacy
Some things Ebooks
transliteracy is Participatory
not… Open Access
New librarianship
Library 2.0

5. Transliteracy
the ability to read, write, and
interact across a range of
platforms, tools, and media.

6. A brief history of
transliteracy

7. 2005
The Transliteracies
Project
“Text has historically
existed as a negotiation
between media,
including oral, written,
print, visual, and…
electronic media.”
(Liu 2006)

8. 2005
The Transliteracies
Project
Studying “the zone of
negotiation…by which
the older dialogue
among print, writing,
orality, and audiovisual
media…enters into new
relations with digital
media.”
(Liu 2006)

9. 2007
PART: Production
and Research in
Transliteracy
The ability to read, write
and interact across a
range of platforms, tools
and media.
(Thomas, et al., 2007)

10. 2007
PART: Production
and Research in
Transliteracy
“Transliteracy is an
umbrella term
encompassing different
literacies and multiple
communication
channels.”
(Andretta 2009)

11. 2010
Libraries and
Transliteracy
“Transliteracy began as
a descriptive concept,
designed to understand
how people navigate
their way across various
media.”
(Newman 2011)

12. 2010
Libraries and
Transliteracy
“[It is] understanding the
ways various means of
communication interact
and understanding…the
skills necessary to move
effortlessly from one
medium to another.”
(Ipri 2010)

13. What do all of these approaches
have in common?

14. 1. Multiple media

15. 2. Communication

16. 3. Interaction

17. Transliteracy is the ability to
communicate meaning
between media

18. Why is transliteracy relevant to
librarians?

19. Libraries have always
promoted literacy

20. Literacy has always
been mediated by
information
technology

21. So, technology
influences how we
can and should
promote literacy

22. But, a
multiplicity of
technologies
can be a
logistical
nightmare

23. Transliteracy helps us
promote literacy
across technological
barriers

24. The three pillars in more detail

25. Multiple media

26. Once upon a time…
…literacy was simple.

27. Then, something changed…

28. We invented new tools
to communicate

29. We found new places
to communicate

30. We found new time
to communicate

31. We’ve always had choices

32. Just never quite so many

33. economic social
orality
financial statistical
economic
meta web health
new media information
literacy
cultural
print
digital critical
visual
computer scientific
historical electracy
post-
visual
financial numeracy

34. There’s got to
be a better
way

35. Communication

37. The birth of the web made it necessary for
librarians to shift more towards teaching
search strategies and evaluation of
sources. The tool-focused “bibliographic
instruction” approach was later replaced
by the skill-focused “information literacy”
approach.
Meredith Farkas
American Libraries Magazine
11/01/2011
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/practice/information-literacy-20

38. The end of the “tool-focused approach”

39. But, information isn’t just evaluated

40. Information is used

41. Information is
communicated

42. But doesn’t
information literacy
cover that?

43. Transliteracy and information literacy
Print Scientific
Orality Health
Signing Economic
Visual Cultural
Computer Critical
Digital Media

44. We can be literate without
being able to evaluate

45. We can be
information
literate
without being
tech-savvy

46. Transliteracy and information literacy
Print Scientific
Orality Health
Signing Economic
Visual Cultural
Computer Critical
Digital Media
Communication Evaluation

47. Transliteracy and information literacy
Print Scientific
Orality Health
Signing Economic
Visual Cultural
Computer Critical
Digital Media
Transliteracy Information Literacy

48. We’ve done a great job with
evaluation

49. Transliteracy is about bringing our
attention back to communication

50. Interaction

51. Transliteracy is also
about asking:
“How are all of
these literacies &
technologies
supposed to
interact?”

52. How have librarians
dealt with
interaction and
integration?

53. Librarians love
compartments

54. But patrons don’t

55. The “versus” mentality
doesn’t cut it
anymore

56. Information
resources are linked

57. Transliteracy is about avoiding silos

58. Caveat:
It’s not just digital

59. Analog to analog

60. Analog to digital

61. Digital to digital

62. Transliteracy is
about
the network

63. Transliteracy is an intersection…
Multiple media
Communication
Interaction

64. Transliteracy and librarianship

65. Librarians encourage transliteracy
by adopting programming and
teaching strategies that promote
skill transfer across media

66. Transliteracy is not something we
teach
Transliteracy is something we take
advantage of

67. 1. Effective information use requires
multiple information sources

68. The days of “one medium”
research are over.

69. Yet we tend
to focus on
the resources
that we know

70. To distinguish
ourselves from
the web
we often put
up defensive
walls

71. But, patrons will use
non-library resources

72. And they’re
running right
into the walls
we’ve been
building

73. Get comfortable with non-library
resources

74. Show how the library fits in

75. 2. Identify skills that can adapt

76. How are you
preparing your
patrons for
change?
Your staff?
Yourself?

77. An example

78. Can your patrons still use it?

79. Identify skills that will outlast change

80. 3. Encourage skills that transfer
across platforms, tools, and media

81. The question posed
by transliteracy is:
“Are we
encouraging
skills that
transfer?”

82. Transfer of learning
The ability to transfer
cognitive skills
learned in one domain
to a new domain

83. Encourage skills that will adjust

84. Start from
patrons’
existing
mental
models of
libraries
(Holman 2011)

85. And teach
the analogy
1) Candidate inferences
2) Schema abstraction
3) Re-representation (Gentner & Colhoun 2010)

86. Begin with what they know

87. Encourage inference through
analogy

88. Show how it works,
not just how to use it

89. Give ample time for free play

90. The library is reinforced as a
node in the network

92. Wikipedia before class

93. Google versus the Library

94. You moved off-campus, but now you’ve got roaches!
Where’s the best place to find out which bug-spray is
most effective?
A. Off.com
B. The Journal of Entomology
C. Yahoo! Answers
D. Ask Grandma
The library is not (always) the answer

95. Teaching the analogy

96. The world of information

97. Ample time to experiment

98. Social media training

100. Workshops and beyond…

101. We constantly ask:
How can we make
the library a part
of their network?

102. That’s the core of transliteracy

103. It’s not a set of skills

104. It’s a goal

105. Conclusion?

106. The future of transliteracy?

107. There’s still something of value

108. We still have to deal with
multiple media

109. We still have to deal with
communication

110. We still have to deal with
how it all fits together

111. So, how do we get there?

112. Transliteracy is the ability to read,
write and interact across a range of
platforms, tools and media

113. It’s about communicating
meaning across media.

114. The word ‘transliteracy’ may not last

115. But, the need for
transliteracy will
always be around

116. Thank you
senseandreference.wordpress.com
librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com

117. References
Andretta, S. (2009). Transliteracy: Take a walk on the wild side. In World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA Genreal
Conference and Assembly, Milan, Italy: 23-27. http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/14868
Farkas, M. (2011). Information literacy 2.0. American Libraries [Blog post]. November 1, 2011. Available at:
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/practice/information-literacy-20
Gentner, D. & Colhoun, J. (2010). Analogical processes in human thinking and learning. In Glatzeder, B.,
Goel, V., and von Muller, A. (2010). Towards a Theory of Thinking. Heidelburg: Springer. 35-48.
Holman, L. (2011). Millennial students’ mental models of search: implications for academic librarians and
database developers. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37(1): 19-27.
Ipri, T. (2010) Introducing Transliteracy. College & Research Libraries News, 71(10), 532-567
Liu, A. (2006). Definition of Online Reading. http://transliteracies.english.ucsb.edu/category/research-
project/definition-of-online-reading
Newman, B. (2011). Beginner’s guide to transliteracy. Available online at
http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/beginner’s-guide-to-transliteracy/
Thomas, S., et al. (2007) Transliteracy: crossing divides. First Monday, 12(12). Online.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2060/1908