Information overload and information literacy: a survey of Venetian public libraries users

Abstract

The article aims to describe the features of the relationship between the contemporary era readers and the mass of communicative stimuli characterizing a documentary landscape in a continuous and exponential growth: the concept of information overload has recently been introduced, to show the complexity of the current information environment and the orientation difficulties within a documentary over-production condition. After a theoretical review about the libraries’ contribution in facilitating the bibliographic paths of users, and in providing a set of cultural tools intended to an effective and autonomous interpretation of a boundless documentary landscape, in the final section of the study, conducted in 2016 at the Venice Libraries Network (RBV), the fundamental traits of information overload experience are investigated from a multidimensional perspective, along with an in-depth analysis of the potential of the services offered by public libraries in alleviating the undesirable effects of the phenomenon.