A decade of trend reports: Approaches of information literacy and digital literacy in light of the IFLA Trend Reports (2013-2024): A textual analysis
Keywords:
Textual data analysis, data mining, information literacy, digital literacy, Voyant tools, IFLA trend reports, content analysisAbstract
Structural abstract
Background and objective:
Examining and debating new subjects and emerging topics in library and information science is part of IFLA trends, and literacy concepts have long been a matter of concern within these trends. This article aims to discover prominent aspects and approaches of information literacy and digital literacy concepts in IFLA trend reports from 2013 to 2024 by implementing textual analysis within different corpus reports to investigate the contributions and relationships of various trends to information and digital literacy.
Methods:
To reach this purpose, Voyant tools’ important features were implemented for textual analysis for finding patterns, structures, and specific analysis of information and digital literacy within IFLA trend reports corpus from 2013 to 2024 by identifying and investigating important contexts with focus on Voyant tools special features such as Topics, Cirrus, TermsBerry, Relative frequency, and Bubblelines.
Results:
Both information literacy and digital literacy are topics of discussion in IFLA trend reports 2016 and 2024 from multiple perspectives, with a special focus on information literacy in the IFLA trend report 2021. In terms of Bubblelines, the highest density was in IFLA trend report 2024. In dealing with relative frequency in information literacy, IFLA trend reports 2013, 2016, 2021 and 2024 had the highest relative frequency while digital literacy was the main topic of discussion in IFLA trend report 2016 and 2024. Important contexts of information and digital literacy were also investigated and distinguished within various IFLA trends.
Significance, value:
Implementing Voyant tools in this research as an innovative textual analysis method demonstrated that information and digital literacy are considered important approaches in IFLA trends in various years and are not only aligned with most of these trends but can also interpret multiple aspects of a corpus of reports according to their definitions and applications.
References
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