Visual literacy, is an important part of a strong information literacy program. While the nature of the text has been considered in theoretical circles for the last fifty or more years, the internet boom of the last decade has brought these considerations to the forefront. Our students research, write, communicate and socialize in an environment dependent upon word and image as texts that interoperate and connect to further texts. Subtle cues move researchers through hyperlinked pages of content in one seemingly extensive, unending text; and students must alternate between an image-based learning environment online and one that is more word-based in the classroom. Images convey a range of social and cultural ideas. In this right, images can open up scholarship to a wider range of learners due to interpretative meanings.

Visual Literacy Sources, held by Boatwright Memorial Library

Bogdan, Catalina. The Semiotics of Visual Languages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Schriato, Tony and Jenn Webb. Understanding the Visual. London: Sage Publications, 2004.

Elkins, James. Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: Sage Publications, 2001.

Bolter, Jay David. "Hypertext and the Question of Visual Literacy." In Handbook of Literacy and Technology Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1998.

Pauwels, Luc. Visual Cultures of Science: Rethinking Representational Practices in Knowledge Building and Science Communication. Dartmouth College Press, 2005.