Introduction

This chapter presents Chantal Mouffe’s theory of plural agonistics with a focus on its relevance to information literacy research. Plural agonistics is positioned on the radical strand of democratic theories (see also Chapter 1 by Buschman). But, contrary to other radical theories, it does support the representative liberal form of democratic rule (Mouffe, 2013, xiii). The theory builds on the collaborative work of Ernesto Laclau and Mouffe (2014), in which they set out to inquire into why left politics was unable to take account of social movements not based on class. They suggested a radicalisation of democracy as a response to the essentialist view of class they identified as dominating the left: ‘What we stressed was the need for a left politics to articulate the struggles about different forms of subordination without attributing any a priori centrality to any of them’ (Mouffe, 2018, 3).

It has been pointed out that both information literacy practice and research suffer from a lack of theoretical awareness when connecting the concept to democracy (see also Chapter 1 by Buschman). James Elmborg has stated (2006, 196) that ‘[m]uch of the conflict inherent in information literacy as a critical project can be traced to contested definitions of “democracy”’. Plural agonistics is here suggested as a democracy theory that can help us to elaborate the possible connection between information literacy and democracy. However, neither information literacy nor libraries are specifically mentioned by Mouffe. Before moving on to why and how this theory is proposed for understanding information literacy, it can be helpful to present the basic tenets of the theory.

Outline of the chapter

Next, antagonism and hegemony will be introduced, two important concepts that Laclau and Mouffe developed and from which Mouffe’s theory of plural agonistics was built. The democratic paradox will then be presented, followed by the role institutions have when addressing the democratic paradox. A second part follows with a focus on plural agonistics and information literacy. Passionate decisions and democratic institutions constitute the first topic, followed by a discussion of an agonistic view on consensus and compromises, how politics and ethics should be understood and the impossibility of neutrality when advocating democracy. A closer look at an agonistic view of identity and a description of how chains of equivalences should be formed follows before suggesting what an agonistic take on information literacy research would entail.

Introduction

The variation theory of learning is a theoretical framework that can guide information literacy research. The value of variation theory to information literacy research is that it can shed light on information literacy specifically in relationship to learning through the identification of patterns of variation that may enable learners to learn as intended. Developed from an educational research agenda (Marton and Booth, 1997; Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle, 1997; Marton and Tsui, 2004), variation theory is well suited to the study of information literacy in formal learning contexts. Grounded in the belief that reality is created through interaction between individuals and the world (Marton and Booth, 1997, 12–13) and that knowledge is awareness of phenomena created through such interactions (Marton, 1994), learning is defined as changes in awareness enabled by encountering variations or differences (Marton, 2014; Marton and Tsui, 2004). The theory focuses on specific parts of the learning process, including intentions for learning, how it is enacted in a classroom or other learning situations and the learners’ lived experiences of learning. Variation theory allows for exploring the relationship between information literacy and learning in various ways, such as focusing on it as the sole outcome of a learning situation, or as a part of learning in a disciplinary learning context. Recognising that learning occurs in a myriad of contexts, variation theory may be adaptable to the study of information literacy outside educational settings, including playing a role in addressing information-focused challenges, such as misinformation, equitable access to information and so forth, facing the world today.

Variation theory

Origins

Variation theory guides research and practice that examines learning environments to reveal what students have learned, but also what was possible for them to learn within a learning situation. The development of variation theory was directly informed by the research findings from studies applying the phenomenographic approach developed in the 1970s by Ference Marton and colleagues at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. While there are different approaches to phenomenography, they all focus on identifying variations in human experience of the same phenomenon (Marton, 1981). This type of phenomenographic research was primarily developed to explore and describe learners’ experiences in educational settings (Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle, 1997) The typical outcome from this kind of phenomenographic research, called an outcome space, is a set of categories that describe the varied ways of experiencing the phenomenon being studied.

Introduction

Practice-theoretical information literacy research has conceptualised information literacy as a sociocultural (Lloyd, 2006) or sociotechnical (Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja, 2005) practice embedded in the activities of communities and domain specific practices rather than the ‘behavior, action, motives and skills of monologic individuals’ (Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja, 2005, 339). These understandings have opened a view on information literacy that acknowledges its complexity and the sociocultural features that enable the emergence of such practice in a specific site (Lloyd, 2010), explaining how information literacy happens (Lloyd, 2011). In this chapter, these understandings of information literacy are discussed from the viewpoint of mediated discourse theory (MDT), which can be characterised as a discursive theory of human action. Specifically, MDT can deepen the understanding of the relationship between discourse and action in information literacy practices and the way actions with information are mediated by a variety of material and symbolic tools in ways that are often unnoticeable to us. MDT as an approach can be useful in addressing the tensions between the individual and community-focused understandings of information literacy and the need to broaden the understanding of information literacy to better acknowledge the multimodality of information and information literacy practices. Furthermore, MDT not only provides analytical tools to understand information literacy but can also help identify actions ‘with potential to become tactics to change’ (Wohlwend, 2020, 14).

The core elements of mediated discourse theory

The central principles of MDT were introduced by linguist Ron Scollon (Scollon, R., 1998; 2001a; 2001b), who, with his colleagues, developed it mainly within the framework of mediated discourse analysis (MDA) and its methodologically oriented branch nexus analysis (NA) (see Scollon, S. W. and de Saint-Georges, 2013; Scollon, S. W., 2014). In their work, Scollon and colleagues have brought together theorisation from several research areas, including sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, literacy studies, practice theories and sociocultural approaches to psychology, and combined them in a unique way with an attempt to understand and explain human action, specifically focusing on its relationship with discourse.

Introduction

Information and information systems are designed in many ways and on many levels, including the choice of content included or excluded; graphical layouts and linguistic choices; the crafting of internal structures, links and metadata; and the contextual embedding of units and systems into networks of others. Much current research and development in infor - mation design-related areas emphasise ‘solutionist’ approaches, whereby design is intended to resolve externally defined ‘problems’, while simultaneously striving to achieve user experiences that are as ‘seamless’, ‘intuitive’, ‘transparent’ and ‘immersive’ as possible. The argument here, in contrast, emphasises critical literacy-motivated needs and possibilities of designing for the opposite; of designing in ways that highlight and problematise the limited and biased character of information representations – and that make visible and inspire reflection and dialogue on critically informed future improved alternatives. This argument is achieved by way of introducing concepts and theories associated with the field of critical design to elaborate theoretical and empirical understandings of and approaches to critical literacy.

A primary motivation for this combination is the recognition of a foundational ‘problem of representation’ affecting conditions for and consequences of all forms of information construction, use and exchange, with related power imbalances. This position postulates two particularly important things: (a) for objects, entities, experiences, events and actions to become information, they have to be represented somehow; and (b) that this representational requirement is not only unavoidable but problematic. Representation in the sense implied here is what gives potentially informative resources and entities a form, structure and context with subjective and social meaning potential (cf. Blackwell, 2013; Buckland and Ramos, 2010; Johansson, 2012; Johansson and Stenlund, 2021). Whether sorted in mental categories, expressed through spoken discourse, visualised as data points on a map, enacted by a bodily gesture or processed and published as a written academic publication, representational tools in the form of concepts, classifications, grammar, visual forms, colour schemes and even body language are necessary verbal and non-verbal representation schemes (‘structuring devices’, Buckland and Ramos, 2010) for the construction of information that is meaningful and communicable across bodies, minds, places and times.

The problem, in this view, is that all representational tools are situated constructs and, as such, malleable to social and material limitations, bias and variations across times, cultures and contexts (cf. Beaulieu, 2002; Blackwell, 2013; Drucker, 2014; 2020).

Theory is a critical element of research, providing the intellectual scaffolding that is necessary for its development, implementation, analysis, interpretation and critical evaluation. Theory provides the necessary concepts that can be employed to describe a phenomenon or practice as it is experienced and/or performatively enacted. Knowledge from theory is always a view from somewhere (Barad, 1996) and the knowledge provided by social theory draws attention to certain forms of knowledge and ways of knowing, i.e. different contexts, different concepts and different truths (Lloyd, 2005). Theory makes visible our standpoint or our assumptions and beliefs – our ontological and epistemological positions – and it scaffolds our decisions about methodology (Lloyd, 2021,18).

The theories presented in this book provide us with a range of perspectives and concepts that enrich our understanding of information literacy practice. The ontological and epistemological emphasis acts to alert us to differences and centre the lived experience of the practice. Overall, however, the broad palette of social theories makes a claim for the situatedness of the experience of information literacy. This is realised through a focus on the conditions of social life, including the sociomaterial aspects of practice, power, social dynamics and the role of epistemic narrative structures that promote specific forms of discourse and actions via a web of ruling relations.

Nevertheless, silences remain – with chapters exploring the sufficiency of democratic theory (on which the premise of information literacy as central to citizenship is built) and the critical contribution of corporeal information and intra-actions to ways of knowing. Pointing to the need for further research, these silences also have implications for teaching practices. If information literacy is understood as a political practice and a cultural tool, educational delivery must be carefully and critically understood in terms of hegemonic power and positionality – as well as through an acknowledgement that there are multiple sources of information and consequently, multiple ways of knowing.

The wider theoretical landscape

One of the overarching aims of this book was to reflect on the theoretical landscape of information literacy, with the goal of drawing out observations related to how theory contributes to and shapes information literacy research. Analysis of the various chapters in this book make clear that work with theory can be done in many different ways and there is great variation in strategies employed by the authors when theorising information literacy.

What is the work of theory? Theory is a critical element of research and provides the intellectual scaffolding that is necessary for the development, implementation, analysis, interpretation and critical evaluation of research. Theory provides the necessary concepts that can be employed to describe a phenomenon or practice as it is experienced and/or performatively enacted. Knowledge from theory is always a view from somewhere (Barad, 1996) and the knowledge provided by social theory draws attention to certain forms of knowledge and ways of knowing, i.e. different contexts, different concepts and different truths (Lloyd, 2005). Theory makes our standpoint or our assumptions and beliefs visible – our ontological and epistemological positions – and it scaffolds our decisions about methodology (Lloyd, 2021, 18).

Currently there is only one theory of information literacy practice, the Theory of Information Literacy (Lloyd, 2017). However, the employment of social theory, which is drawn from wider disciplinary arenas and applied to understand information literacy as a socially situated practice and lived experience, has been prodigious in the last 20 years. Sociocultural, postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives that underpin these social theories act as counterbalance to the provision and attainment view of information literacy, which continues to advocate an autonomous (Street, 2003), skills-based, measurementfocused approach to practice. The autonomous view fundamentally satisfies the instrumental rationality of education systems and the continued need for librarians who operate within those systems to stake their claims as experts in the field.

The use of social theory allows researchers to dive under the surface of the attainment perspective and turn their attention to understanding and explaining what information literacy is, as well as how it happens and how its operationalisation contributes to the shaping of social life.

This volume

The inspiration for this book arose from the realisation that a significant proportion of information literacy research remains focused on technical, practical or problem-solving topics. In addition, attempts to conceptualise the topic often take place without a comprehensive understanding of the ontological or epistemological foundations of theoretical work. Theoretically focused information literacy research has also been poorly treated within existing theoretical scholarship, with the information literacy focus of recent publications addressing theory development and use within library and information studies (LIS) being limited to Kuhlthau (Sonnenwald, 2016) or loose understandings of Freirean thought (e.g. Leckie, Given and Buschman, 2010).

Introduction

Unlike the term information literacy, whose literary debut took place in the midst of the cold prescriptive format of institutional reports (Zurkowski, 1974), the concept of critical information literacy was forged in the heat of the academic environment – more specifically, in articles published in scientific journals from the North American field of library and information science, right at the dawn of the 21st century.

These first studies on critical information literacy (CIL) brought a teleological turn in the essence of information literacy (IL) goals as they were presented not only in Zurkowski’s Related Paper, but also in the two documents of the American Library Association (1989; 2000) that became an international reference for IL researchers in the area of library and information science (LIS), including the Brazilian field (Dudziak, 2016). Once directed towards efficiency in the search and use of information for personal growth, information literacy, in its critical frame, does not aim at the achievements of singular individuals, but at the emancipation of society as a whole.

In order to achieve emancipation and equality, an objective that traces back to the Aristotelian ethics of the common good, it is necessary to stimulate and encourage the development of a social consciousness about existing inequalities and forms of oppression. This social consciousness is what should guide individuals in their actions – something that CIL North American researcher James Elmborg (2006) summarises as theoretically informed praxis. The idea of praxis that permeates Elmborg’s writings has its origins in the critical pedagogy of the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire (2005), a fundamental reference for Elmborg and other CIL pioneers from the USA such as Michelle Simmons (2005), Heidi Jacobs (2008), John J. Doherty and Kevin Ketchner (2005).

In Brazil, when we first published our theoretical reflections on CIL (Bezerra, 2015; Bezerra, Schneider and Brisola, 2017), our goal was to seek inspiration from our contemporary sources in the North.

Introduction

This chapter focuses on Dr Estela Mara Bensimon’s concept of equity mindedness and its application to information literacy scholarship, both theoretical and empirical. Equity mindedness is an orientation to our scholarship that influences the decisions we make about how we approach information literacy-related research, including the theories and methodologies we draw upon to shape our explorations. I argue that an equity mindset requires us to interrogate how information literacy is understood and valued in various contexts, including communities, organisations or institutions, as well as how individuals access critical information about expectations for the development and enactment of information literacy within those contexts, by drawing upon existing theories related to sense-making (Dervin, 1983; 1998) and critical social theories (Bourdieu, 1986; 1993; Coleman, 1988; Lave and Wenger, 1991). Communities, organisations and institutions, including learning environments, are not neutral spaces and an individual’s identity characteristics are likely to influence how they navigate a particular community and how they are perceived by others in the community. Equity mindedness extends the existing scholarly discourse about the sociocultural nature of information literacy by exploring the role of power dynamics and how information literacy could be used to marginalise or empower.

In the content that follows, I will first define and describe an equity mindset, as it has been developed by Bensimon (2005). A critical aspect of equity mindedness is the use of data to explore inequities within particular contexts, as well as applying an equity mindset to the analysis and interpretation of data. When an equity mindset is used to interrogate the cause of inequities, it requires one to consider systemic causes of inequities at the community, organisational or institutional level(s). Then I will outline three critical assumptions that we must make about the nature of information literacy to apply an equity mindset to our research and scholarship. These include the acknowledgement that information literacy is shaped by and situated within communities that have their own value systems; that information literacy is characterised by complex ways of thinking, knowing and communicating and is not simply a discrete set of skills that is durable across communities or contexts; and that power, privilege, oppression and exclusion are part of the contexts or communities in which information literacy is situated.

Introduction

Imagine the following scene: a student, let us call her Laura, participates in an information literacy class at a university. She has just started her bachelor programme and is generally a bit unsure about how she is supposed to act in order to be perceived as a good student. The librarian who teaches the class talks widely, accompanied by a PowerPointpresentation, about the importance of students being able to determine their information needs, access information effectively and efficiently, being critical about information and information sources. Not only should one be able to understand the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information, but there is also the need for accessing and using information in an ethically and legally correct way. The student is overwhelmed. Hardly anything of what the librarian says is of the sort that Laura usually thinks of when she is trying to find information on the web or elsewhere. It feels as if she has entered a world foreign to her.

From a research perspective, taking an analytical approach, the imagined scene functions as an illustration of how two traditions of approaching information literacy collide. Even if it is likely that Laura has not approached the concept of information literacy before experiencing the event in the university library described above, she probably has an idea of what it means to be able to find and use information in a purposeful way. However, this activity is not something that she consciously has formulated or put into words before.

This collision between two different ways in which information literacy is being understood can be described with the help of a distinction suggested already in the 1980s by the literacy researcher Brian Street. He distinguishes between an autonomous and an ideological approach to studying and understanding literacy (e.g. Street 1984; 2006). The former is grounded on an assumption that literacy – autonomously – will have beneficial effects beyond particular literacy events. The autonomous approach anticipates, in Street’s (2006, 1) words, that ‘[i]ntroducing literacy to poor, “illiterate” people, villages, urban youth etc. will have the effect of enhancing their cognitive skills, improving their economic prospects, making them better citizens, regardless of the social and economic conditions that accounted for their “illiteracy” in the first place.’ The ideological approach, on the other hand, conceives of literacy as inseparable from the context in which it is enacted.

Positioning theory

Positioning theory provides a framework through which the fine-grained dynamics of social episodes can be studied. At the heart of this work lies the position, a sociological concept that has been used to refer to a person’s status or constellation within a community (Bjerre, 2021, 266). However, beginning in the 1990s, position took on a new meaning as Rom Harré and other constructionist and post-structuralist theorists started to reconceptualise positions and related acts of positioning in terms of the distribution of rights and duties within a particular interaction. Drawing attention to how people locate themselves (and others) within conversation, this development also introduced a more overt focus on the ways in which the position obliges and limits the potential to act. Positioning theory was labelled as a theory in 1999 (Van Langenhove and Wise, 2019). Still relatively unchanged since then, it constitutes a multi-layered framework through which the impact of living in ‘an ocean of language’ (Harré, 2008, 32) can be analysed, including how people construct themselves – and have their opportunities and worlds constructed – through social encounters.

For information literacy, positioning theory presents an opportunity to consider the role that granular, social interactions play in shaping information landscapes (Lloyd, 2006). Involving a shift from thinking about information literacy itself to the ‘flow of talking and writing’ within which information literacy actions are set (cf. Moghaddam, Harré and Lee, 2007, 4), a focus on position-positioning relationships draws attention to language use and interaction, whether this is written, spoken or material. It also extends research examining the social sites of information practice (e.g. Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja, 2005; Lloyd, 2005) by interrogating the conditions that shape information environments, including the impact that discursive constructions have upon what kinds of knowledge are valued, who can access learning opportunities and claims about how information literacy should happen. In focusing on social encounters, this chapter follows Davies and Harré (1990, 45) to define discourse as an ‘institutionalised use of language and languagelike sign systems’ that both constitutes and forms a resource through which speakers and hearers negotiate social practice (Davies and Harré, 1990, 62).

Overview of positioning theory

At its heart, positioning theory centres on how people make sense of reality in a discursively constructed world.

Introduction

Sociomateriality as a theoretical perspective has its roots in science and technology studies (STS), organisation studies and feminist research. It is one of many traditions within a broader framework of practice-based research. Sociomateriality is a broad theoretical church and as such it encompasses a variety of different interpretations and terminologies. Nevertheless, several assumptions are commonly shared by the different thinkers and schools of thought united under the umbrella of sociomateriality, although there are nuances that are also reflected in terminological variations. In this chapter, we explain these assumptions, introduce a selection of commonly used notions and discuss how they can be applied in information literacy research.

The chapter mainly refers to sociomateriality as it was developed in the works of Karen Barad (2003; 2007), Silvia Gherardi (2017), Lucas Introna (2013; Introna and Hayes, 2011), Wanda Orlikowski (2007) together with Susan Scott (Orlikowski and Scott, 2015; Scott and Orlikowski, 2014) and Lucy Suchman (2014). In addition, we follow the reasoning of Paul Dourish (2017, 4), whose work is specifically concerned with information, when he writes: ‘… the material arrangement of information – how it is represented and how that shapes how it can be put to work – matters significantly for our experience of information and infor - mation systems’. Based on these works, we would like to present a dynamic understanding of sociomateriality that supports the analysis of information literacies within the specific infrastructural settings of contemporary society and is open to further development.

We should emphasise at the outset that the theoretical framework presented in this chapter is not just for developing an understanding of information literacy in terms of today’s commercial, digital information infrastructure. There is nothing digital built into it, so to speak. That being said, it is based on certain assumptions that we think become particularly clear when we shed light on the enormous challenges that society currently faces concerning information seeking and the evaluation of information sources in an algorithmic information infrastructure in which machine learning challenges traditional notions of, for example, trust, agency, intentions and even knowledge.

The chapter begins by contextualising sociomateriality, introducing some of the current challenges in information literacy research and explaining how sociomateriality can help us. It introduces some important questions that sociomateriality can help information literacy research to answer. This is followed by an overview of some key notions and central tenets of sociomateriality.

Introduction

To begin with, there is the need to determine just what ‘theory’ offers to the research into a field such as information literacy. No one expresses this more cogently and eloquently than Habermas:

The last sentence is particularly applicable to the discussion of consciousness and cognition, and, indeed, the entirety of the contents of this volume. The importance of ‘theory’ is to enable ‘praxis’ to become as effective as possible. For example, Richard Haass (2023) says that, to participate fully in a democracy, the citizenry must first be informed (this is number one in his list of people’s obligations). The very idea of theory may seem a bit foreign, but when we connect it to work on consciousness, we see that the practice of information literacy can flourish. That is the message Habermas leaves us with; in the present instance, the theory of consciousness can lead to a more complete understanding with how individuals can think through information. That is, people who think critically are able to employ information to make reasoned decisions. What follows in this introductory section is the debate regarding consciousness, where it resides and how it works.

There has been something of a tradition among many neuroscientists and philosophers of mind to adopt a monist position regarding the brain. That is to say, there is an explicit use of Cartesian dualism (the view that there is both a body and a spirit or soul and that the mind resides in the soul, even as the brain is a part of the physical body).

Introduction

Multiple perspectives have been employed to conceptualise information literacy since the emergence of the concept in the 1970s. Each perspective (functional, skills-based and ideological) and its discourses articulate how information literacy is understood and practised (Lloyd, 2010). However, up until recently, few articles have sought to provide a deeper explanation of the inherent complexity of this social practice or how and in what ways information literacy and its internal and external practices emerge and travel.

This chapter is influenced by a suite of theories collectively described as practice theory, in particular the site ontology conception (Schatzki, 2002) and epistemological approaches, which locate the body as a central feature of doing practice. The power of the practice theory approach is that it opens up and draws attention to new analytical possibilities for thinking about and researching the connection and interplay between information literacy, sociality and materiality – the site where social life occurs (Schatzki, 2002, xi). It does this by emphasising the analytical role of context in shaping the discursive relationships between people, information and the materiality of practice (Lloyd, 2005).

It then locates practice theory ontologically and epistemologically in relation to the practice of information literacy and connects these theories to the concept of information landscapes, which forms the core of the theory of information literacy (ToIL) (Lloyd, 2017). The theory of information literacy (also described as the theory of information literacy landscapes (Lloyd, 2017), positions information literacy as a practice that is enacted within a social setting. It is composed of a suite and pattern of activities and skills and ways of communicating and understanding that reference structures and embodied knowledge and ways of knowing relevant to the context. Information literacy is a way of knowing (Lloyd, 2017, 2).

In the practice of information literacy, people connect not only with text but with the materialities linked to their settings; they draw from the social, epistemic and the physical/corporeal modalities of information and, through that connection, they form and shape their information landscapes.

The theory of information literacy (ToIL) (Lloyd, 2017) therefore advocates a broader understanding of information literacy as a social practice which, when enacted, connects people with information through the signs, symbols, materiality and embodiment associated with the sayings and doings of practising. Information literacy is a practice which is also a constituent part of other practices in everyday life.

Introduction

Both democracy and information literacy are, in an intertwined way, severely challenged now (see Taylor et al., 2022; Jaeger and Taylor, 2021), calling for some reflection and analysis. The well-established connection between them serves as a political and civic reason for information literacy in democratic societies: a ‘theory in the form of the dominant paradigm’ (Wolin, 1968, 151). Information literacy so construed is a building block of one theoretical construction of citizenship. Establishing the dominant paradigm and its persistence will generate a reflection and unpacking of the IL–democratic theory relationship that will be theoretically richer. To accomplish this, the first section identifies a work in library and information science (LIS) that captured and axiomatically stated the information literacy paradigm. That theory-in-the-form-of-a-dominant-paradigm is then briefly traced back and through its persistence in LIS thinking about democracy and libraries. In the second section a democratic theory is identified as the rootstock of the dominant IL–democracy paradigm. It is interrogated to unpack its assumptions and empirical lacunae of particular relevance. The third section will produce a more complex theoretical understanding of the evidence, the normative values of information literacy in democratic societies and the actual role of libraries and information literacy in them and then will offer a conclusion.

Information literacy and democracy: the dominant LIS paradigm

It is important to state clearly a working assumption: the gigantic changes from 1776 to 1914 – the American, French and Industrial Revolutions, colonialism, socialism, the British Empire and the rise of secularism to name a few – demand a focus on Britain to adequately understand them. It is the same for the USA from World War 1 to the fall of the Soviet Union, and is arguably still core to knowing the state of democracy and the world (Buschman, 2022, 11). Political science and political theory (from which this chapter draws) follows this pattern (Katznelson and Milner, 2002, 3–5), as does LIS, broadly. Libraries and Democracy: the cornerstones of liberty (Kranich, 2001), a volume described as ‘prophetic’ (Waters, 2001, 61) in its contemporaneity with the ‘recent tragic events in New York and Washington’ on 9/11 (Cope, 2001, 383), was recognised at the time as a capstone to the IL–democracy paradigm for its ‘aggressive advocacy’ (Moon, 2001, 183) for ‘the relationship of libraries and democracies’ (Dugan, 2001, 486), earning a recommended place in all professional and LIS collections (Waters, 2001, 61).