Source: LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, AND MUSEUMS IN TRANSITION. Changes, Challenges, and Convergence in a Scandinavian Perspective. Edited by Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen,
Kerstin, and Rydbeck Håkon Larsen. (ISBN: 9781003188834). 2023: Routledge Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
___________________________________________________________
Learning, Literacy, and Education in LAMs
Johanna Rivano Eckerdal, Henriette Roued-Cunliffe, and Isto Huvila
Introduction
Even though the idea of libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) as knowledge institutions has been problematized, LAMs are increasingly understood as vital sites for learning in society. Their societal role includes supporting democracy, but how that is done in practice is seldom specified. The Scandinavian countries differ to the extent that steering documents inscribe explicit societal missions for LAMs. In Norway and Sweden, their democratic role is stated in the Library Acts, whereas the Danish Library Act does not bestow on libraries a social mission but is characterized instead by an entrepreneurial rationale (Engström 2019). In Sweden, a social mission is also included in the Museum Act (Rydbeck and Johnston 2020). In this chapter, we will discuss the development of accentuating LAMs as sites for learning as a process in tandem with an intensified emphasis on learning – in particular lifelong learning – in society (Fejes 2006).
First, a model of three forms of lifelong learning is introduced, followed by a brief excursion into pedagogical theory and its relevance for LAM professionals. Next, we present literacy – traditionally related to libraries and in particular those within the educational sector – as a fruitful concept for LAMs as it offers potential to connect local everyday practices at LAMs with the anticipated social impacts of the institutions. After that, we describe activities at Scandinavian LAMs, with learning as the implicit or explicit goal, using both traditional and novel examples. Finally, we discuss different underpinnings to how learning is understood in society and conclude by underscoring the importance for LAMs that they remain sites for different kinds of lifelong learning in order to develop and strengthen their role in supporting democracy.
Three forms of lifelong learning
The shift from industrial to postindustrial society allowed people in the Scandinavian countries to engage in learning throughout their life span to an unprecedented extent. In an analysis of Swedish educational policy texts, Andreas Fejes (2006, 2017) identifies three forms of lifelong learning. Formal learning, occurring in dedicated educational institutions with planned learning under specific regulations, results in credits that document learning taking place. Secondly, nonformal learning is based on planned situations for learning but without formal teachers and with alternative types of documentation. For example, the Scandinavian tradition of adult education at study associations can be described as situations of nonformal learning. Finally, informal learning refers to unplanned learning taking place in situations that do not have learning as a goal (Fejes 2017, 297).
The forms of lifelong learning are not mutually exclusive – several may take place simultaneously in specific situations – neither are they easy to discern one from another. Here, we understand the three forms in the following way: Formal learning takes place within the formal educational sector either in its own or external premises and is part of regulated education that results in credits; nonformal learning comprises specific situations outside the formal educational sector that both organizers and participants construe as situations where something is learned; informal learning is unplanned learning taking place without
the participants’ intention to learn at all.
Understanding learning activities with the use of pedagogical theory
Three influential paradigms in the history of pedagogy have been behaviorism, constructivism, and a sociocultural perspective on learning (Säljö 2000). Even though they emerged in a chronological order, they have not replaced each other. On the contrary, they may be present simultaneously in research, pedagogical practice, and everyday speech. However, in contemporary pedagogical research, learning is predominantly understood as a social activity as proposed in the influential sociocultural perspective on learning (Insulander 2005). From this perspective, learning is perceived as activities happening within, and impossible to understand stripped from, their historical, social, and cultural context (Wertsch 1998). Learning is also considered an intrinsic part of all human activities. People will always learn from the activities they engage in (Säljö 2000), but it is difficult to pinpoint what learning is actually taking place and hence to shape learning activities targeting specific goals.
“Mediation” is a frequently used term to describe the ways in which LAMs make their collections and activities available to users. Today, attention is paid to how these activities create opportunities for learning as the focus has shifted to their pedagogical rather than merely mediating role. The increasing emphasis on pedagogy (Insulander 2005) has shaped the activities at LAMs to varying degrees.
The use of pedagogical theory and vocabulary by LAMs to describe and present their work is recent, and it is mostly museums that do it, including having museum pedagogues in their staff. Archival pedagogics does exist too (SOU 2002:78, 166), and sometimes the overarching term “cultural heritage pedagogics” is used (Riksarkivet 2019). In the realm of libraries, the term “library didactics” has been used (Laskie 2017) and library pedagogues can be found at some libraries. However, the usual approach is to understand librarianship as a profession that includes a pedagogical role.
In the LAM context, museum pedagogics is perhaps the most established academic branch of pedagogy. This is to a large extent due to the work of Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, who argues that the idea of learning as transmission (see Sfard 1998) is outdated and widely criticized, having originated from a modernist, individual-centered perception of the museum that views information as constant, immutable objects (2000, 130–135). Hooper-Greenhill proposes a “post-museum” that invites visitors to engage and participate (learning as participation; see Sfard 1998) by providing experiences that invite meaning making. She presents the post-museum as a process and an experience, not a building (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 152). Research related to outreach activities at museums has introduced pedagogical theory to analyze and problematize activities at museums. These insights are also relevant for understanding activities at archives and libraries as situations of learning.
Democracy, literacies, and LAMs
For LAMs as educational institutions, one of the key concepts associated with their educational activities and goals is literacy. Education and learning are traditionally heavily linked to texts. The etymology of the word literacy exemplifies this link, as it refers to the letters that form a written text. However, how we meet texts today has changed, as people increasingly engage with them in digital form. Text is therefore understood in a broader way, including varying types of media that convey content (Säljö 2009). The concept of information literacy or, more recently, that of media and information literacy grasps this development and the new competences it demands. It is a helpful concept for describing how LAMs, as places for learning that include developing free opinions, constitute an important piece of the societal infrastructure of institutions where democracy can unfold (Rivano Eckerdal 2017).
The contemporary digital media landscape has influenced the development of many forms in which literacy is enacted. Several stakeholders state that information literacy nowadays is a vital ability needed to navigate through our society, libraries playing an important part in supporting it (ALA 1989; Wilson et al. 2011). Archives and museums increasingly hold digitized collections or digitally born collections, accessible via digital platforms (Roued-Cunliffe 2020). Therefore, not only libraries but also archives and museums make their collections available to users both on-site and online, emphasizing the need to educate users in how to access and use the resources. Museums and archives have started to develop initiatives to foster, for instance, museum literacy (Stapp 1992), visual literacy (Lehman, Philips, and Williams 2020) and archival (Vilar and Šauperl 2014) or records (Oliver 2017) literacy with staff and the public. Without going into details about definitions of, and boundaries between, these types of literacy it suffices to conclude that literacy concepts and literacies in the plural – which is an inclusive approach to this discussion – are highly relevant to all three institutions.
Of the LAM-related literacies, information literacy has transpired as the most well-established research field, not least due to the presence of libraries in many, but not all, schools and learning institutions. Consequently, the contributions of libraries and librarians to learning are often discussed in terms of information literacy (e.g., Bruce 1997; Buschman 2019; Elmborg 2006; Hicks 2019; Limberg, Sundin, and Talja 2012; Lloyd 2006; Rivano Eckerdal 2012).
Information literacy was first introduced in the business development context and has been criticized for neoliberal aspirations of promoting economic growth. However, today a growing body of literature frames information literacy as a critical concept crucial for democratic development (Elmborg 2016). However, such critical information literacy is not practiced to a large extent, due to contested (Elmborg 2006) and vague references to what democracy entails (Rivano Eckerdal 2017). In parallel, a growing body of research problematizes the instrumental conceptualization of information literacy as a skill set and related practices. The newer research underlines information literacy as an ability shaped by the sociocultural context, involving not only reading but also understanding of content – including the conditions affecting its production and distribution – and acting on it.
Forceful rhetoric is often used when stakeholders discuss information literacy. The so-called “Alexandria Proclamation” gives a lucid example:
Information Literacy lies at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals. It is a basic human right in a digital world and promotes social inclusion of all nations. (IFLA 2005)
Both the work on information literacy and other LAM-related literacies exemplifies how LAMs contribute broadly to strengthening different kinds of literacy in society. Since the concept enables a connection to be made between everyday work at LAMs and their contribution to democracy, we find it important to raise LAM professionals’ awareness of the concept. By being able to express how their work connects to different kinds of literacy, the democratic role of LAMs becomes more discernible.
Learning at LAMs
A central underpinning of the educational role of LAMs is the Scandinavian take on the welfare state constructed to offer a robust public, subsidized, social infrastructure to endorse and encourage social mobility. LAMs are important pieces of that infrastructure (Klinenberg 2018; Olsson Dahlquist 2019). By guaranteeing citizens access to well-curated collections, individuals are thought to benefit and learn from the stockpiles of this collective.
Traditionally, staff expertise has been a guarantee for the building and developing of collections to ensure that important material is preserved and curated for the future. The key expertise in this respect includes organizing collections and facilitating the retrieval of material. The different collection management and development techniques have in parallel established professional experts as key mediators between the material and the end-users (Trant 2009).
In addition to collection development, introducing people to the intended use of the institutions and their collections is part of what LAM professionals do. These activities include an aspect of learning, albeit not always explicit. Strategies for teaching users about accessing collections are therefore central to the institutions, even though not always framed as teaching. In archives and libraries, staff members typically instruct users about the access to resources: Search for a book in a library, or a record in an archive. Such instruction is offered, verbally or in writing, at the physical institution or on their website. In museums, on the other hand, activities usually explain the content of the collections. Exhibitions include texts that describe and contextualize what is displayed. Sometimes catalogues are produced to complement an exhibition. Guided tours, with some of the items presented by guides to groups – scheduled tours open for everyone present as well as tours booked in advance for dedicated groups – are common,(1) often complemented by audio guides, i.e., prerecorded tours of the collection (compare Hooper-Greenhill 2004).
Thus, traditionally mediating activities at libraries and archives are different from those at museums, influencing whether and how the activities are construed as instances of learning. Mediating activities concerning the content of the resources at museums can be easier to conceive as learning than the more indirect mediating activities at libraries and archives. While learning happening when users read books or records retrieved in collections is important for, and from a societal perspective in relation to, LAMs, the understanding of knowledge about accessing the institution and its collections is also in itself a key learning point: It adds the literacy aspect to the learning.
From the perspective of Fejes’ three forms of lifelong learning, the predominant forms of learning in all three institutions have been informal and nonformal. Much of the use of public LAMs consists of people becoming informed by being there and taking part of their resources in their spare time. Something they all have in common however, is the fact that their mediating activities are increasingly integrated with formal learning. Libraries within the educational sector have always had a relation with formal learning institutions, but there are indications that the connection is becoming emphasized. One example is found in the Swedish inquiry on school libraries (SOU 2021:3) that emphasizes the importance of staffed school libraries for students’ learning outcomes.
Examples of educational activities at LAMs
A usual activity in the first years at school is to visit a public library and to become acquainted with its collections, activities, and staff.(2) Guided tours are often included as well as an invitation to receive a library card. In this way, all pupils receive information about what public libraries can offer: In a formal learning setting, they learn about how the institution can be used for nonformal or informal learning.
Bookstart is a method for encouraging literacy from a very early age, bearing in mind the importance of stimulating reading in children’s home environment. It was first developed by the reading charity BookTrust in England, now well-established and researched in many countries (Kulturrådet 2015, 32–34). In Denmark, Bogstart was run as a project between 2009 and 2016, whereas Bokstart in Norway and Sweden is ongoing.(3) Bookstart is developed to support early literacy in families, in situations of informal learning. In collaboration between public libraries and child health centers, book gifts are provided to toddlers. The gifts are assumed to establish a contact between caretakers and libraries, ensuring that the families have access to the library’s resources.
Archives tend to be less known to the public even if steps have been taken to make them better known. In Sweden, initiatives have been made to develop material and activities for schools. Methods include thematic Archival bags (Arkivväskor), bags filled with copies of archival records and other material to be used in workshops in schools, but also in geriatric care, meaning that the bags can be used both within formal and informal learning.(4) Since 1998, the second Saturday in November has been Archives Day at Swedish archives on national, regional, and local levels. Nowadays, it is a yearly event in all Nordic countries. During Archives’ Day people are invited to familiarize themselves with archives and the informal learning that unfolds is described as important for democracy.(5)
Among the groups that use archives a lot, family historians are one of the most prominent. They use and share intensively the growing digital collections available at public LAMs, private organizations, and companies (Evans and de Groot 2019). This kind of autodidactic learning related to family history can also take place in public libraries, which usually include a section on local history. Depending on whether the focus is on learning family history as such, or on one specific task, the autodidact can be characterized as a nonformal or informal learner.
In contrast to archives, museums have been developing specific programs to attract schools for a long time. Visits to museums have to some extent been seen by school classes as synonymous with a nice day out of school while the content of the visit has perhaps been less important. Much effort has been made to develop al. relevant and complementary content that matches what is taught in the classroom, that is, to establish the learning as formal. The Danish Knowledge Centre for External Learning Environments (Skoletjenesten) has been highly influential in providing elaborate school programs at museums. It is a national knowledge center that works to encourage and support formal learning with different guides and programs that schools can use for learning outside its premises.(6) A Swedish example is the Working Life Museums Co-operation Council (Arbetsam), which offers extensive information to schools about how to use working-life museums in their teaching. The material includes templates that anchor activities at museums to specific goals in the steering documents.(7)
Programs including both exhibitions and workshops where visitors continue to explore the themes and topics of the tour by drawing, painting, or playing are offered at many museums. One example is the Children’s wing (Børnehuset) at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, which offers such creative workshops targeted at children.(8) Children and their caretakers visiting the Children’s wing in their spare time would be an example of an instance of informal learning. But the Children’s wing also offers programs for school groups, which means that the same type of activity – perhaps with the same child – can also be framed as formal learning.
Novel ways of supporting learning at LAMs
The strong societal emphasis on learning apparent throughout Scandinavia together with the other societal changes described throughout this anthology affect the educational practices at LAMs. The ways in which LAMs respond to these changes do sometimes lead to developments that are at odds with their traditions. We will now present in more detail three examples that are illustrative of how they are breaking new ground in various ways in how they engage in lifelong learning.
To engage users’ participation: Kolding Stadsarkiv
The city archives in Kolding, Denmark are unusual in their vision and strategy for participation and learning. The theme for their 2019–2022 strategy is summed up in the hashtag #alleharenpladsihistorien (the hashtag translates to #everyonehasaplaceinhistory). This statement forms the basis of their current and future activities, from learning programs for schoolchildren to their interaction with what they call competent users. Many of these users have a family history interest, but some also have other more professional or theme-based interests, for example, bus or garden enthusiasts, and some have a more general, less defined historical interest. The city archives collaborate with the libraries and museums in Kolding in curating a space in the middle of the main library, a so-called “historic workshop,” where all citizens can come by and engage with their town’s history. It was understood that the library is more open and a more welcoming space for citizens than the traditionally hidden archives, where it is more challenging to welcome users who do not have a specific purpose for their visit.(9) City archivist Lene Wul calls this space a hybrid-gathering place for the future, which, while being a great vision, also testifies to an experimental and agile approach, where informal learning is something that happens in the synergy between the institutions and citizens.(10)
This experimental approach is also present in the way Kolding City Archive has carved a space for archives to provide formal learning programs in local schools. Together with other city archives in Copenhagen and Esbjerg they have recently received funding to continue, but also to develop and expand, the project The archive in the open school – meeting history (Arkivet i den åbne skole – mødet med historien). The pilot project aims to anchor the use of historical sources in the classrooms by developing teachers’ competences. The archive has an extensive catalogue of learning programs developed for children and young people. In their popular Democracy is mine (Demokratiet er mit) program, pupils in year 8 or 9 receive an insight into the inner workings of local government, both historically through the use of preserved sources (e.g., the minutes from the technical committee in 1989) and through arguing for their own suggestions in front of current local government politicians at the town hall.(11)
Advancing (information) literacies in collaboration: The Norwegian School Library program
Some of the pedagogical efforts at LAMs aim directly to develop specific competences and literacies. As already mentioned, the literacy concept has been explicitly seized by libraries. One of the explicit tasks of public and academic libraries in all Scandinavian countries is the advancement of (media and) information literacy (Hall 2010).
Although information literacy-oriented policy goals are broad, covering the public as a whole, much work on information literacy is related to formal learning, focused on educating students in higher education, and to a considerable extent on improving librarians’ informational and digital competences. The Norwegian School Library program (2009–2013) explicitly aimed to advance information literacy in and through school libraries and public library collaborations. The program is characterizable as formal learning but is innovative in several ways: By combining reading promotion – connected to literacy in general – and information literacy; by targeting pupils in primary and lower secondary schools; and by appointing school and public libraries a joint mission to work with (information) literacy in this broad manner. Although the program was criticized for not achieving its ambitious national goals (Carlsten and Sjaastad 2014), the 210 development projects in 173 schools and 105 municipalities across the country reported positive outcomes (Carlsten and Sjaastad 2014; Ingvaldsen 2014). The program consisted of a large number of specific projects related to reading promotion and information literacy by, for example, developing means to increase the enjoyment of reading by using picture books, and by integrating local libraries as resources in school work, explicitly to develop pupils’ information literacy and learning strategies (Ingvaldsen 2012). A key challenge, as with many similar initiatives, was that at the start of the project, teachers saw just a limited pedagogical potential in working with libraries (Ingvaldsen 2017). Moreover, librarians often felt that they had inadequate pedagogical competence (e.g., Khatun, Virkus, and Rahman 2015). Therefore, a focal point in the program was to engage librarians, teachers, and school management in collaborative work (Ingvaldsen 2017).
To be and stay relevant in the local community: Sörmlands Museum
In 2018, the new regional museum for the county of Sörmland in Sweden was inaugurated. The vision of the museum is presented on its web page as “to broaden views and arouse commitment.” It offers activities that “will contribute to people influencing society and their life situation.”(12) An important element of the museum is the Storytelling storehouse (Berättande magasin). In contrast to how museums are traditionally conceived, a storehouse is at the center of the building. Visitors may enter, dressed in white protective robes, at specific times accompanied by museum staff. At other times, visitors look into the storehouse through its glass walls. The location of the storehouse invites users to actively engage with the artifacts, described as “belonging to everyone.” The museum is acting to lower the threshold for users to engage with it and its collections. The Storytelling storehouse is open for both regular visitors and school classes. By inviting people to engage with the material held by the museum, the museum is not framing itself as the guardian of the collection. Instead, the museum is presenting itself as a guardian of the county in which everyone is included. One example is the permanent outdoor exhibition The history in Sörmland (Historien i Sörmland) dispersed over 13 locations across the county.(13) The museum in its design and activities has therefore established itself as an active agent and empowers social change in the local community by inviting old and new users to actively participate in the activities of formal, informal, and nonformal learning to discover and explore stories about Sörmland, past and present.(14)
The increasing emphasis on LAMs as spaces for lifelong learning
The importance of successful lifelong learning exemplified by the previous three examples is emphasized in many international LAM initiatives (ACRL 2000; ALA 1989; IFLA 2005; Wilson et al. 2011). These initiatives emphasize the importance of citizens’ attitudes that motivate them to develop skills and knowledge as the demands for expertise evolve and change.
James Elmborg builds a powerful argument about the development of education in the USA during the twentieth century. Drawing on a discussion between two prominent voices within education, John Dewey and David Snedden, two rationales for education and lifelong learning are identified: “The stakes involved boiled down to two arguments for progress and what to do with the increasingly urban citizens: Educate them to be free and autonomous thinkers, or educate them to be skilled employees” (Elmborg 2016, 544). A similar development can be identified in Scandinavia, where the idea of learning as a means to develop oneself and for personal empowerment is inherent to the concept of popular education (folkbildning) (Fejes 2017; Olsson Dahlquist 2019).
An understanding of lifelong learning as empowering stands in stark contrast to the contemporary paralleling of learning and employability and economic growth. This tension implies consequences for universities, including libraries and the education of future librarians, which can be said to be shaped by an entrepreneurial spirit (Hansson 2019).
This shift of focus signals a parallel shift from anchoring lifelong learning in informal versus formal educational sectors, which operate with different rationales (Fejes 2017). The three forms of lifelong learning – formal, nonformal, and informal – are useful for understanding activities at LAMs that include learning, and how they are related to dissimilar rationales and as a consequence differ in the role that the institutions are given in society. While LAMs traditionally have been places for informal or nonformal learning – and in Scandinavia they continue to have that role – they are also increasingly integrated into formal learning.
While two rationales may therefore be said to cross or at least be juxtaposed within LAMs, the increasing contextualization of LAMs within formal learning, as we have seen in the previous examples, does not necessarily mean that they exclusively become part of the economic rationale. The integration of activities or services from LAMs within the formal educational sector can instead be considered to be advantageous in helping them to open up to new and explorative ways of learning. Hereby they may become places for supporting their users’ empowerment by offering them new opportunities to, for example, develop their literacies without losing their role as sites of informal and nonformal learning.
Conclusion
Activities involving learning and teaching are an important part of what is done at LAMs and how their missions are outlined. Not only the institutions that formally belong to the educational sector, but every LAM may fruitfully be understood as part of society’s infrastructure for knowledge and learning. Given the magnitude that learning has in the contemporary societal discourse, perspectives of learning and literacies bleed into the LAMs from the formal educational sector and tint them: The learning imperative impacts society as a whole.
The critical importance of learning has been further accentuated by recent developments, including the rise of populist right-wing parties and criticism of the democratic institutions that have contributed to a decline of democracy globally (Boese et al. 2022). Democracies formerly described as stable have taken steps in reducing the political rights and civil liberties of their people, with some leaders using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to consolidate their power (Boese et al. 2022). The neologism “fake news,” coined as a criticism of the free press, is but one example of how fundamental democratic institutions are currently under attack. These developments have also affected Scandinavian countries even if they are still rated, for good reason, as well-functioning liberal democracies with free elections, a free press, and an independent judicial system. (15) Measures to support people’s ability to develop free opinions are therefore vital to support democracy. Knowledge not only about individual resources but also about the systems they are included in and the ways they are made public are stepping stones for learning about society as a whole.
We argue that LAMs already offer situations and sites for such learning to happen. LAMs are viewed as institutions in which knowledge about society is held in trust. For LAMs, it is vital to be able to understand both the role of the institution in society and the role of the trained LAM professionals. As their funders have a growing interest in bestowing on LAMs a mission to work with pedagogy, the expectations of their staff being knowledgeable in learning and teaching are increasing. In parallel, understanding the different forms of learning that may take place in, and be supported by, LAMs is similarly of utmost importance for LAM professionals. By offering a broad palette of educational activities, and framing the institutions themselves as sites for informal, nonformal, and formal learning alike – including discerning and discussing the diverse values underpinning the imperative of lifelong learning – LAM professionals can articulate the everyday educational activities at LAMs to align with the societal role the institutions have. Furthermore, we want to suggest that LAMs should continue to develop such activities and to frame themselves as sites for learning. To this end, establishing literacies, including their different narrower institution-specific forms, as a guiding concept of relevance for all LAMs provides a solid foundation for framing and communicating their social role as sites and facilitators of learning and education alike.
________________________________________