Thank you to University College London for contributing this blog post.
For many of us who work in Higher Education, the reappearance of leaf buds and migratory birds also marks the start of dissertation season; that period when students begin to lay the groundwork for the research that forms the culmination of their MA studies. Ideas that have been taking root over the last few months start to blossom and debates about high or low risk ethics approval and the value of interviews or surveys begin to form an increasingly loud dawn chorus. One of the most persistent calls that you might hear at this time comes from supervisors asking about the research gap; what makes this study justifiable or interesting to the reader? In effect, what is missing from prior literature and how does the proposed study address this? Beyond helping to rein in projects that risk becoming too unwieldy, this question is also designed to help students think about their own positionality within the project as well as to connect their work to ongoing conversations in the field.
Yet, for all the value that the research gap question poses, it can be all too easy to slip into deficit thinking; this research is needed because prior studies have been inadequate or prior researchers have been lacking. Or, my own personal bugbear, this niche piece of niche research is needed because no-one has ever been niche enough to think in this niche way before. We have made so much progress in pushing back on the deficit thinking that has so often defined our professional standards and pedagogy yet research is still often seen as fair game. The end result can be increasingly esoteric studies that become more about how the researcher is going to fix things – information literacy and white saviourism anyone?- rather than, arguably, the topic and the subjects of the research itself. What Thompson refers to as the “me-me-me-look at me” approach may be what current neoliberal publishing models demand but I also wonder about the impact on information literacy itself, particularly given how undervalued the field is outside of our home discipline of library and information studies.
There is, however, another, more creative way to approach the research gap question, which is to consider how the current status of the field might prove to be a jumping off point for experimentation. This approach forces us to recognise what the research gap might allow us to see and do- what we might learn from what has and has not been the focus of prior work rather than judging omissions. It also, importantly, encourages us to consider how we might identify problems in our favoured knowledge traditions or challenge additive models of knowledge; after all, as Thompson goes on to point out, the research gap framing is often fundamentally about preserving rather than objecting to the status quo.
It is this alternative way of considering the research gap that drives how we research and teach for information literacy in the PhD, MA and PG Dip programmes in Library and Information Studies at UCL. From the very first week of teaching on our standalone information literacy optional MA module, students are encouraged to see the field as an “open space” for investigation; to reflect on implicit assumptions or to consider how current thinking stands up in light of their personal experiences or prior academic knowledge. This questioning stance also forms the backbone of MA dissertations and PhD theses when our award-winning lecturers, who include information literacy researchers and practitioners, Alison Hicks, Meg Westbury, Darren Flynn and Alice Corble, amongst others, work one-on-one with students to give shape to the puzzles and enigmas that strike them; why is it that the field has never considered X or picked up on strand Y and what might Z approach bring to the table? Leading to incisive, nuanced and humbling research that we consider to be critical to our field, this approach, which is grounded in each of our lecturers’ professional expertise in academic, health, school, special and public library contexts, has been why our students have consistently been presenting and publishing on many of LIS’ most pressing identified strategic research topics in recent years.
LILAC 2025 is no exception, and we encourage you to attend the exciting range of UCL presentations that are happening in Cardiff to get a flavour of our approach to information literacy research and practice! Recent MA graduate, Lucy Dodge, for example, takes the voices of workplace information literacy practitioners as a starting point for her presentation, questioning how a focus on professional identity might provide insight into considerations of teaching librarian agency. Amelia Haire, who has also recently graduated with an MA and is a nominee for the Information Literacy award, has issued a similarly powerful challenge to workplace information literacy research through her exploration of how a consideration of neurodivergence might undermine established truths about how people use information to learn. On a different note (pun intended), our other recent MA graduate, Richard Douglas, picks up on the turn towards embodiment (started by UCL Professor Emeritus, Annemaree Lloyd) to argue for the inclusion of corporeality within a consideration of music information literacy and, in particular, how sound and the body become a vital information source for conservatoire singers. To the trio of MA graduates, we also add the ground-breaking work of current PhD student and lecturer, Darren Flynn, whose work critically interrogates what a consideration of social class might mean for information literacy practice. Arguing that a focus on academic librarian background – or what he terms information hinterlands – allows us to analyse ingrained assumptions about the dominant discourses of our field, this research also reflects on how information literacy might benefit from closer engagement with sociological theory.
If this short overview of what we are up to has intrigued you and you might be interested in hearing more about our PhD or MA/PG Dip programmes, please do approach either Alison Hicks or Darren Flynn for an informal chat at any point during the LILAC conference!
