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The purpose of this paper is to debate the evolving relationship between libraries and users, and to justify the idea of participatory library and the use of the “participatory library” term. The paper also discusses the development trend of the participatory library and calls for empirical research on this area.

Various sources of literature are collected and examined. Together with the inclusion of personal ideas and experience, a wide range of opinions on the contemporary library is compared and synthesised.

The paper presents changes in the relationship between libraries and users in various periods of library development. It indicates an excessive attention on Library 2.0 while neglecting the participatory nature of the contemporary library. It also suggests that the term “participatory library” should be used as this term reflects the true nature of the contemporary library, and calls for empirical work on participatory library.

This discussion is moving forward and challenging our thinking about the participatory library. It provides librarians, library managers, scholars, and the library community with a fresh perspective on the contemporary library.

Researchers debate whether tacit knowledge sharing through information technology (IT) is actually possible. However, with the advent of social web tools, it has been argued that most shortcomings of tacit knowledge sharing are likely to disappear. The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: first, to demonstrate the existing debates in the literature regarding tacit knowledge sharing using IT; and second, to identify key research gaps that lay the foundations for future research into tacit knowledge sharing using the social web.

This paper reviews current literature on IT‐mediated tacit knowledge sharing and opens a discussion on tacit knowledge sharing through the use of the social web.

First, the existing schools of thought in regards to IT ability for tacit knowledge sharing are introduced. Next, difficulties of sharing tacit knowledge through the use of IT are discussed. Then, potentials and pitfalls of social web tools are presented. Finally, the paper concludes that whilst there are significant theoretical arguments supporting the notion that the social web facilitates tacit knowledge sharing there is a lack of empirical evidence to support these arguments and further work is required.

The limitations of the review include: covering only papers that were published in English, issues of access to full texts of some resources, and the possibility of missing some resources due to search strings used or limited coverage of databases searched.

The paper contributes to the fast growing literature on the intersection of KM and IT particularly by focusing on tacit knowledge sharing in social media space. The paper highlights the need for further studies in this area by discussing the current situation in the literature and disclosing the emerging questions and gaps for future studies.

This paper aims to outline research that explores the information literacy experiences of English as a foreign language (EFL) students. The question explored in this research was: how do EFL students experience information literacy?

This study used phenomenography, a relational approach to explore the information literacy experiences of EFL students. Phenomenography studies the qualitatively different ways a phenomenon is experienced in the world around us.

This research revealed that EFL students experienced information literacy in four qualitatively different ways. The four categories revealed through the data were: process, quality, language and knowledge. This research found that language impacted on EFL students’ experiences of information literacy and revealed that EFL students applied various techniques and strategies when they read, understood, organised and translated information.

This research was conducted in a specific cultural and educational context; therefore, the results might not reflect the experiences of EFL students in other cultural or educational contexts.

The findings from this research offer an important contribution to information literacy practice by providing important insights about EFL students’ experiences and perceptions of information and learning that can be used to inform curriculum development in second language learning contexts.

There is currently a lack of research using a relational approach to investigate EFL students’ experiences of information literacy. There is also limited research that explores the impact language has on information literary and learning in EFL or English as a second language (ESL) contexts.