Commodification of the Information Profession: A Critique of Higher Education Under Neoliberalism

Lawson, Stuart, Sanders, Kevin and Smith, Lauren Commodification of the Information Profession: A Critique of Higher Education Under Neoliberalism. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 2015, vol. 3, n. 1. [Journal article (Unpaginated)]

Text JLSC-2015-Commodification.pdf - Published version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (267kB)

English 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:	Journal article (Unpaginated)
Keywords:	professional ethics, neoliberalism, open access, commodification
Subjects:	A. Theoretical and general aspects of libraries and information. > AZ. None of these, but in this section.
Depositing user:	Stuart Lawson
Date deposited:	14 May 2015 08:58
Last modified:	14 May 2015 08:58
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10760/25080

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item