Visual Literacy in the Age of Participation

Abstract

We like to categorize and name things. Naming helps us to create meaning about ourselves and our role in the world. The naming of our times has followed a rich lineage starting with the Hunter/Gatherer Age, moving to the Agriculture Age, the Industrial Age, and most recently leading us to the Information Age. The Information Age has defined much of what we do in our professions for the last several decades, and most library and information science practice derives from notions of the Information Age. However, we are now faced with a changing world of information and services, one that potentially goes beyond information. Can we still characterize our times as the Information Age? The answer to that question has an influence on both user expectations and our role as information profes sionals, especially as we examine the skills and competencies the current age requires, among them visual literacy. There is no shortage of theorists trying to determine the answer to the question of what to name the current era in which we live, floating names such as the Web 2.0 Age,2 the Conceptual Age,3 and the Age of Participation.4 The Information Age, as we know it, began in the mid-twentieth century when the economic base of much of the world shifted from the production of physical goods (Industrial Age) to the production and manipulation of data or information. This shift really took hold in the mid-1980s with the development of the personal computer and blossomed further in the 1990s with widespread development and adoption of the Internet. Just a decade after what many are now calling Web 1.0, a potential new age is upon us. The Information Age and associated Web 1.0 era is being eclipsed by a new Web 2.0 era. In 2004, Tim O'Reilly coined the buzzword Web 2.0 to describe a trend in the use of Web tech