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A short history of visual literacy: the first five decades

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2017

Alan Michelson
Alan Michelson*
Affiliation:
Head, Built Environments Library 334 Gould HallUniversity of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-5730USA Email: alanmich@uw.edu
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Abstract

The origins and history of Visual literacy (VL) are summarized in this article, from the 1960s writings of John L. Debes, Marshall McLuhan and others of the Rochester School, to the influence of the Internet in the 2000s. ERIC and Google Scholar searches are used to analyse the evolution of its literature over time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 42 , Special Issue 2: Information Literacy in UK and US Art Libraries , April 2017 , pp. 95 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © ARLIS/UK&Ireland 2017 

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References

1. Levie, W. Howard, “A prospectus for instructional research on visual literacy,” Educational Communication and Technology 26(1) (1978): 25–36 Google Scholar

2. Hattwig, Denise, et al. “ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education,” Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), October 2011, accessed December 8, 2016, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy.

3. R. A. Braden, “Twenty-five years of visual literacy research,” ERIC Number: ED370548, 1993. Available https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED370548. Accessed on 8 December 2016.

4. Rochester, NY, became a fertile source for visual literacy theorizing in the late 1960s and 1970s, due to the presence of the Australian philosopher Colin Murray Turbayne (1916–2006) and education professor Clarence Myron Williams (1921–2004) at the University of Rochester as well as the location in the same city of two significant companies doing varied research into visual information collection and storage, Eastman Kodak and Xerox. Debes was a longtime employee at Kodak, its “Coordinator of Visual Learning” from 1970–1977. Simultaneous with his work at Kodak, Debes also earned a B.S. in General Studies at the University of Rochester (1971) as well as a Master of Education (1973). The first conference of the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) was held in Rochester in March 1969, and was co-chaired by Debes and Williams; it attracted 350 attendees and helped to elevate the concept of visual literacy to academic prominence. For more on the Rochester School, see Moore, David M., and Dwyer, Francis M., Visual Literacy: A Spectrum of Visual Learning. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, 1994), p. 24 Google Scholar. See also “International Visual Literacy Association Records 1969–2001,” Arizona Archives Online, Arizona State University, accessed March 4, 2017, http://www.azarchivesonline.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/asu/ivlarec.xml;query=visual%20literacy%20collection;brand=default and “John L. Debes III Collection 1964–1985,” Arizona Archives Online, Arizona State University, accessed March 4, 2017, http://www.azarchivesonline.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/asu/debes.xml;query=visual%20literacy%20collection;brand=default.

5. Debes, J. L., “Chapter 8. visual literacy,” in American Education in the Electric Age: New Perspectives on Media and Learning, ed. Klinge, Peter L. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, 1974), 113 Google Scholar

6. Debes, “Chapter 8. Visual Literacy,” 115.

7. Ibid., 117.

8. Ibid., 118

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15. Ibid., 88.

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