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In recent years the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Public Schools have displaced over 1,800 teachers and professional staff. While there is an extensive job loss literature, there is no information available on the adjustments encountered by displaced teachers. Survey data were obtained from a random sample of teachers and licensed staff who were downsized from 2000–2001 through 2003–2004. The majority of downsized teachers reported difficulty in finding another teaching position, in large part because many of them were laid-off during the summer after other districts had completed their hiring. Continuing lay-offs have cut deeper into the seniority roster, exacerbating job insecurity tension for downsizing survivors.

This chapter draws on recent literature in I/O psychology, management and sociology to posit a relationship between organizational structure and temporal structure and develops the construct of layered-task time. Layered-task time is similar to polychronic time (P-time) in the inclusion of simultaneous, multiple tasks but includes additional dimensions of fragmentation, contamination and constraint. The chapter links the development of this new time and its resultant time-sense to variation in the degree to which organizations are hierarchical and centralized and develops propositions about these relationships. The chapter contributes to the growing literature on workplace temporalities in the contemporary economy.

In this chapter, we propose an educational framework to position Information Literacy (IL) and Higher Education (HE) in relation to Lifelong Learning (LLL): comprehensive enough to make sense of, and give educational direction to, future development of people in information literate populations. We identify crucial changes in the HE environment, particularly in the United Kingdom; analyse the concept of IL as a discipline, and situate the IL person in the changing information culture and society. In doing this we draw on our own work and that of Schuller and Watson (2009). We propose a curriculum for an information literate lifecourse, sensitive to the context of the individual within a changing information culture. The curriculum is framed, on the one hand, by the nature of the information economy, technology, organisational culture, local/national culture and society, and personal goals. It is also framed by the life stage of the individual, using the four key stages and transitional points proposed by Schuller and Watson (2009). Academics and librarians have a key role in designing and facilitating these IL capabilities for the 21st century citizen.