Andrew Whitworth – författare

Mapping Information Landscapes presents the first in-depth study of the educational implications of the idea of information literacy as ‘the capacity to map and navigate an information landscape’. Written by a leading researcher in the field, it investigates how teachers and learners can use mapping in developing their ability to make informed judgements about information, in specific places and times.

Central to the argument is the notion that the geographical and information landscapes are indivisible, and the techniques we use to navigate each are essentially the same. The book presents a history of mapping as a means of representing the world, ranging from the work of medieval mapmakers to the 21st century. Concept and mind mapping are explored, and finally, the notion of discursive mapping: the dialogic process, regardless of whether a graphical map is an outcome.

The theoretical framework of the book weaves together the work of authors including Annemaree Lloyd, Christine Bruce, practice theorists such as Theodore Schatzki and the critical geography of David Harvey, an author whose work has not previously been applied to the study of information literacy.

The book concludes that keeping information landscapes sustainable and navigable requires attention to how equipment is used to map and organise those landscapes. How we collectively think about and solve problems in the present time inscribes maps and positions them as resources in whatever landscapes we will draw on in the future.

Information literacy educators, whether in libraries, other HE courses, high schools or the workplace, will benefit by learning about how mapping – implicitly and explicitly – can be used as a method of teaching IL. The book will also be useful reading for academics and researchers of information literacy and students of library and information science.

Banks have been at the heart of economic activity for centuries, but since the 2008 financial crisis scrutiny of their activities and regulation of their actions has become the focus of fervent academic, policy and political activity. This focus takes for granted the existence and nature of banks.

In Regulating Banks, Andrew Whitworth looks one stage deeper to question what a bank really is, and what the implications of that are. He argues that the institutional form of a bank represents the political compromise of a specific time and place - and can therefore change. This has implications for financial stability. Far from creating stability, he argues, the regulatory impulse of policy-makers inevitably leads to greater financial instability.

Whitworth examines the postwar period of UK banking to show how regulation influences the nature of banks as much as their behaviour. Regulation, by changing the nature of what is regulated, encourages banks and other actors over time to alter their behaviour, which leads to future boom and bust cycles. These cycles then require further regulation to rein in the disruption their new pattern of behaviour inevitably instigates.

Regulating Banks reveals the cyclical nature of banking regulation, the inherent mismatch between political impulses and market reactions, and the price banks, banking and society pay for such instability.

Banks have been at the heart of economic activity for centuries, but since the 2008 financial crisis scrutiny of their activities and regulation of their actions has become the focus of fervent academic, policy and political activity. This focus takes for granted the existence and nature of banks.

In Regulating Banks, Andrew Whitworth looks one stage deeper to question what a bank really is, and what the implications of that are. He argues that the institutional form of a bank represents the political compromise of a specific time and place - and can therefore change. This has implications for financial stability. Far from creating stability, he argues, the regulatory impulse of policy-makers inevitably leads to greater financial instability.

Whitworth examines the postwar period of UK banking to show how regulation influences the nature of banks as much as their behaviour. Regulation, by changing the nature of what is regulated, encourages banks and other actors over time to alter their behaviour, which leads to future boom and bust cycles. These cycles then require further regulation to rein in the disruption their new pattern of behaviour inevitably instigates.

Regulating Banks reveals the cyclical nature of banking regulation, the inherent mismatch between political impulses and market reactions, and the price banks, banking and society pay for such instability.