Information literacy: What is it?

Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning. An information literate individual is able to:

• Determine the extent of information needed
• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally

—ACRL Information Competency Standards for Higher Education

Information literacy (IL) is defined as a process by which students come to

• Recognize when they have a need for information
• Identify the kinds of information needed to address a given problem or issue
• Develop a search strategy and find and evaluate the needed information
• Organize the information and use it effectively to address the problem at hand
• Use the information legally and ethically.

—CUNY Council of Chief Librarians: Information literacy white paper

Information literacy is:

• the ability to recognize when information is needed
• and to locate,
• evaluate
• and use effectively the needed information.

 —American Library Association (ALA)

Information literacy is the ability to locate, evaluate, and use information to become independent life-long learners. 

—Commission on Colleges, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Criteria for Accreditation, Section 5.1.2 [Library and Other Information Resources]. 10th ed.

CUNY Library Information Literacy Advisory Council (LILAC) is the CUNY library faculty committee formed to advise the Chief Librarians and promote the integration of information literacy across the City University of New York.    Our blog is here:  information literacy@CUNY   

Our students are surrounded by information: information from textbooks, television, radio, parents, friends, spouses, newspapers, monographs, novels, letters, the internet in its many guises, and more.  Beyond these familar resources, a whole new world of academic information is available to them.  A student able to navigate and exploit this world will write better term papers, carry out better research, and carry information skills with him/her into post-college life. 

Most students appear inseparable from their favorite digital devices.  But we should be careful in our assumptions that our digital-native students are using information and communication technologies fluently, navigating search engines effectively and interpreting information encountered thoughtfully.  We know, anecdotally and from formal studies elsewhere, that young people are not as skilled in this area as they, or we, might like to think. 

By the time students graduate, they should be familiar with the literature of their discipline area, and how it is produced and disseminated. They should be able to carry out a literature review, analyze the resources found and use them to draw conclusions and develop new ideas. They should be familiar with the investigative methods in their discipline – e.g. lab work, fieldwork, etc, and the unique information resources available – e.g. case studies, datasets. These are all information literacy skills (taken from A checklist of information competencies for college students developed by California State University and California community college librarians).  

A presentation from Thomas Hapke, Hamburg University of Technology.

The best known information literacy models include:

• SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy: core model for higher education. Updated and expanded April 2011.  [SCONUL exists to promote excellence in library services in higher education and national libraries across the UK and Ireland.]
• The Big Six: Widely used by school librarians for K-12 students in the United States.  Debveloped by Eisenberg and Berkowitz, 1990.
• Seven Faces of Information Literacy in Higher Education. Developed by Australian Christine Bruce. 
• Kuhlthau's Model of the Stages of the Information Process. 1993.