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Commodification of the information profession: a critique of higher education under neoliberalism

Lawson, Stuart and Sanders, K. and Smith, L. (2015) Commodification of the information profession: a critique of higher education under neoliberalism. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 3 (1), ISSN 2162-3309.

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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.

Metadata

Item Type: Article
Keyword(s) / Subject(s): neoliberalism, higher education, commodification, librarianship
School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
Depositing User: Stuart Lawson
Date Deposited: 27 Jul 2015 14:20
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2025 01:45
URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/12572

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