Digital literacies for amateurs and professionals

Abstract

Information literacy education can benefit from a balanced view of different literacies and thoroughly scrutinized approaches to their relationship to amateurs and professionals. An analysis and synthesis of an interdisciplinary body of the literature shows that the most prevailing concepts are information literacy, digital literacy and media literacy. An overview of these literacies is provided. The discussion of literacies is unimaginable without taking the Web 2.0 and of the attention economy into consideration, determined to a high degree by social interaction with the participation of amateurs. There are not equally influential in different information institutions. The vast majority of amateurs can make good use of public library services or uses other libraries for non-professional purposes. It is scholars, who continue to require “traditional” “professionally-minded” services, even though they heavily rely on informal information gathering. They require a different kind of literacy, similar to the traditional conception of information literacy.