Lloyd, Annemaree. Information Literacy Landscapes: Information Literacy in Education, Workplace and Everyday Contexts. Oxford: Chandos. 2010. 192 pp. ISBN: 9781843345077. Softcover, $75.00

Beth Stahr, Southeastern Louisiana University

Information Literacy Landscapes: Information Literacy in Education, Workplace and Everyday Contexts is one of several recent information literacy titles published by Chandos Publishing, the imprint of Woodhead Publishing which specializes in library management, information management, business management, Internet and Web, and Asian Studies. The text’s author, Lloyd, is a Senior Lecturer in Information Studies at the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University in Australia. Her specialties are information seeking, and information sources and research methods; she teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. Although this is her first book, Lloyd is no stranger to publishing. She has published extensively in Australian library journals, and her 2004 PhD dissertation (written under the name Annemaree Lloyd-Zantiotis) reported her research on information literacy in one specific workplace setting—firefighting. Information Literacy Landscapes expands upon that research. 
Lloyd identifies her audience in the book’s introduction as “information literacy researchers, librarians and …educators who are interested in the ways people experience an information environment.” In appealing to a broad audience, Lloyd describes information literacy as socio-cultural practice, and she considers the social, historical, political and economic layers of information literacy. She includes not only the information behavior of the individual in identifying, searching and analyzing information, but also writes of “information practice” which integrates social and cultural factors into information skills. She defines information literacy differently than the oft-quoted definition issued by the Association of College and Research Libraries: the “set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.” To Lloyd, information literacy is a “complex and dynamic practice that is driven by context.” She expands the academic library view of information literacy to include computer literacy in the workplace, and social practice in daily lives.  She challenges the traditional concept of information literacy in higher education and supplements it with an international review of workplace-specific and cultural literacies, reasoning that her broader view fulfills the goal of preparing individuals for lifelong learning. Three chapters in the book focus on information literacy in higher education, in the workplace, and in public library landscapes. Using the landscape model, Lloyd proposes an information literacy practice that encompasses the socio-cultural contexts of information literacy with a multi-disciplinary approach—including pedagogy, organizational science and communication studies. 
This expansive picture of information literacy is interesting from a philosophical perspective, but is of limited application to those who are charged with teaching information literacy skills to college students. Instead, this book may be suited to those who are first investigating information literacy as library and information science graduate students. It satisfies a certain intellectual need to take information literacy beyond “skills.” It also provides a philosophical milieu for those who teach information literacy at the college level, satisfying a need for the deeper meaning behind their efforts. 

Therefore, I recommend Lloyd’s text for practitioners who teach information literacy, for one practical reason. Lloyd builds a solid argument to students and patrons about the need for information literacy as a stand-alone, relevant, and essential discipline. Buried inside several layers of theory, the need for better lifelong information skills is explained, and the importance of information literacy beyond classroom and into the work environment is stressed. 

References
Association of College & Research Libraries. “Introduction to Information Literacy.” http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/infolit/overview/intro/index.cfm 

Lloyd, Annemaree. Website. http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/educat/sis/staff/lloyd.htm