What Is Information Literacy, and Why Does It Matter?

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the phrase “information literacy” began to make its way from the library and information science contexts in which it had previously been used and into the general vocabulary of higher education. At its 1998 Spring conference, the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) sponsored a special session on information literacy for college and university administrators. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), one of six regional associations that accredit public and private institutions in the United States, now lists development of information literacy competencies among its standards (http://www.wascweb.org/), as does the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) (http://www.msache.org/charac02.pdf). [The current version of the accreditation standards for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which accredits NMSU, does not explicitly use the phrase “information literacy,” but it does include competencies characteristic of information literacy among its standards (www.sacscoc.org/SecV.htm).] Disciplinary accrediting bodies are also mandating information literacy: the Professional Standards for Accreditation of Schools, Colleges, and Departments of Education of the National Council for Teacher Accreditation explicitly mentions information literacy (http://www.ncate.org/2000/unit_stnds_2002.pdf), as does the National Guidelines and Suggested Learning Outcomes for the Undergraduate Psychology Major from the Task Force on Undergraduate Psychology Major Competencies (http://www.apa.org/ed/draft10.html). There are now Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (http://www.csusm.edu/acrl/il/toolkit/standards.html), and the August 2001 “Thriving in Academe” section in the National Education Association (NEA) Advocate focused on “Why Information Literacy?” (http://www.nea.org/he/advo01/advo0108/front.html).

As described in these various contexts, “information literacy” means more – much more – than facility in using computer applications, knowledge of the services and resources of a particular library, or skill in using particular electronic databases or Web search engines. Rather, information literacy encompasses various skills relating to:

1.     the ability to determine the nature and extent of the information needed,

2.     the ability to access needed information effectively and efficiently,

3.     the ability to evaluate information and its sources critically, and to incorporate selected information into one’s  knowledge base and value system,

4.     the ability to use, individually or as a member of a group, information effectively to accomplish specific purposes, and

5.     understanding of economic, legal and social issues surrounding information use.

The current focus upon information literacy competencies reflects awareness of the rapidly changing information environment in which we now live. In the not too distant past (into the early and mid-1950s, in fact), researchers in most fields felt hampered by the lack of available information. Today’s researchers, however, work amidst an excess of information – and this information, as well as means for accessing and storing it, changes constantly. Consider the following:

¨      “A weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a life-time in seventeenth-century England.” (Richard Saul Wurman, Information Anxiety (1989))

¨      “By 2020 the available body of information will double every 73 days.” (Patricia Senn Breivik, Student Learning in the Information Age (1998))

¨      Half of the pages on the World Wide Web disappear every month, and yet the Web continues to double in size every year. (Kelly Russell, “Libraries and Digital Preservation: Who Is Providing Electronic Access for Tomorrow?” (pp. 1-30) in Charles F. Thomas, ed., Libraries, the Internet, and Scholarship: Tools and Trends Converging (2002))

¨      “Twenty percent of the knowledge generated within a company becomes obsolete in less than a year.” (Jeremy Rikin, The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience (2000))

¨      “By the time a student studying engineering graduates, half of his knowledge is already obsolete.” (Don Tapscott, Growing UP Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (1998))

¨      “Today's employees spend an average of 9.5 hours a week obtaining, reviewing, and analyzing information.” (Mary Corcoran and Anthea Stratigos, Knowledge Management: It's All about Behavior (2001))

What all these quotes suggest is that contemporary students will not be able to use a body of knowledge they acquired in college throughout their professional careers. They will need to continuously seek out new information to update their knowledge base, acting as life-long learners. They will work in an information-intensive economy. They must become truly adept at finding and using information. The old skills of using Library materials placed on Reserve, of finding the periodicals in a particular library, or even of using a particular database will not be sufficient in a post-collegiate world where there are no faculty members to put “good” materials on reserve for use, where they will have to use multiple types of libraries (academic, public, special, etc.), where databases will change their user interfaces and their content continuously.

Information literacy education requires real partnership between library and disciplinary faculty in ensuring that all students have these necessary skills. Information literacy is not an absolute skill that one either has or lacks; it is a continuum of skill levels – best developed by different activities in different phases of students’ academic training and personal development. Information literacy skills are also embedded in language and in disciplinary domains. For example, one key information literacy skill is the ability to identify key concepts and terms describing an information need. One might be able to do this (and hence be information literate) in Spanish without being so in English (or vice versa). Similarly, one not trained in chemistry or history might not be able to formulate the proper disciplinary terms for effectively retrieving needed information in these fields. One fifty minute “library lecture” in a course, or even one three credit course in information literacy, will not be sufficient to ensure that students become maximally information literate. Rather, students need opportunities to learn and practice information literacy skills throughout their collegiate careers.

The NMSU Library Instruction Program is here to work with disciplinary faculty in developing information literate students. If you are interested in a closer partnership with the Library Instruction Program in terms of your own classes and students, please contact Kate Manuel, Instruction Coordinator, at 646-6932 or kmanuel@lib.nmsu.edu. 

Send comments and questions to Kate Manuel at: kmanuel@lib.nmsu.edu