Fractured Landscape Research: Information Practice and Social Inclusion program

Supporting information practices of Refugees in Transition  (SpiRiT)

SpiRiT (Supporting information practice of refugees in transition and resettlement) investigates the information experiences of refugees as they transition and resettle into their host communities. The study focuses on identifying the compelling information issues that refugees face when they transition and resettle, and how they access, use and share information  to support their integration into the community.

The research program focuses on social, economic, educational and health information related issues.  A particular interest of the research program is how refugees develop the capacity for information resilience by developing  information practices that promote sustainability.

 Learning in everyday spaces

This project describes the information needs, literacies and learning practices used by refugee youth  (approximately 16-25 years) in everyday learning spaces (i.e., city library, faith-based youth groups, sporting teams, and other community groups that support refugee youth).

Information, inclusion and informed participation: identifying and addressing social inclusion from an information perspective.

Social inclusion and exclusion are investigated from an information practice perspective. This research aims to understand how migrants and refugees at various stages of their integration reconcile their cultural information practices with those of their adopted countries. Three themes are taken up in the project, learning to become a citizen, engaging with learning and working, and participating in everyday living.

Learning to live well: Health information practices of refugees in daily life

This project  takes up the themes of learning about health and learning to live well in exploring how refugee’s develop knowledge of health related sources and how health information practice and health literacies are developed in order to deal with the health-related settings and health systems of their adopted community. The study explores how health narratives are constructed, circulated and disseminated by this particular cohort.

 Information literacy and Information Practice.

WiLiT (Workplace Information Literacy in Transition) program addresses significant questions associated with the role of information literacy in the transition from education to work.  The program explores the educational preparation and the work-readiness of students who are entering into increasingly complex multimodal workplaces. Included in this focus is an exploration of the capacity for new workers to operationalize the information literacies, competencies and skills learned in academic or training settings in new workplace spaces to effectively use information to solve workplace problems; to engage with creative and innovative thinking and to support other workers in collaborative practice. The research will allow academic, vocational librarians and educators to develop new ways of supporting the transition from education to work.

Work smarter: Knowing in practice

This project aims at understanding how knowing practices are enacted, socially, corporeally and textually within a workplace. The study will specifically consider how these practices are shaped in relation to sociocultural, material/economic and sociopolitical conditions that influence specific domains of workplace knowledge. Of interest in this study, is a particular type of knowing practice, information literacy, which is understood as a foundational practice in the construction of ways of knowing. The research explores the question; How are knowledge practices enacted

Conceptualising information literacies practice across two practice domains

Empirical studies conducted in two different contexts: in the training of pre-service teachers and then in their teaching practice will consider how information literacy is learnt and then how this practices travels into applied practice as part of the suite of classroom literacies. Specific questions that drive this research include: How do trainee teachers negotiate their understanding of information literacies? How do these literacies travel from training to actual practice? What is the degree to which information skills are generic, to what degree are they domain-specific? How can we better facilitate learning in diverse contexts? On a broader scale the project will consider; How does teacher education prepare preservice teachers to work in complex multimodal information environments?

The project will contribute new theoretical and empirical understandings of information literacies and information practices that are of practical importance in education, workplace learning and training.

 Health Literacy: Moments of Practice Studies

RIPIN (Researching Information Practices In Nursing) is a cross-disciplinary program that explores the information practices of nurses and patients in a variety of health care settings. The series of studies will produce models of information practice that have implications for workplace learning and for health literacy. To date the RIPIN program has produced a number of refereed journal articles and conference papers. The work has been editorialized in the Journal of Advanced Nursing (2011) and has won best conference awards, internationally and nationally.

  Previous Research

2006-2007 New South Wales Ambulance Information Literacy Project titled: Information experiences of NSW Ambulance Officers in Preparatory Training and On-Road Practice. This research focused on how trainee ambulance officers experience and use information in the training environment and the implications for the development of professional practice and identity formation. This study is part of a suite of planned studies that will investigate information literacy in workplace contexts and draw on the model of information literacy developed in my doctoral research.

2005 Knowledge Management (Community of Scholars funded). This research aimed at developing an understanding of the contrasts between the library professions perception of knowledge management and the way in which this field is perceived in the workplace. This research has implications for the education of library and information management professionals.

2001-2004 Doctoral Research. Working Information: Developing a grounded theory of information literacy in the workplace. Candidature 2001-2004, Conferred 2005 University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

 Preservation, Lost and Missing Documentary Heritage.

2007 Preservation of Ongoing Access Project. Libraries and other information agencies, including records management areas, have highly developed systems, skills, and techniques for information management, often built up over decades or centuries. However, these agencies have traditionally spent little effort in studying how their users access and make use of the information sought. Many issues related to providing users with their information needs warrant further attention. The research project is concerned with several of these research areas, specifically focusing on ensuring the long term, ongoing availability of appropriate information by targeted selection and preservation programs

2005 Preservation of Digital Materials project (CSU Community of Scholars funded). The objective of this research is to explore how national and state libraries are capturing and storing ‘born digital materials’ and the implications of these activities for long-term access

2004 Lost and Missing Documentary Heritage Survey for UNESCO Memory of the World Program

2004- Australian Lost and Missing Documentary Heritage project. The outcome of this research was a methodology for identifying lost and missing documentary heritage. Research is continuing in this area.