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Library and its Users

Notes

Information Literacy is a most important part of education. Sunita, DLIS. It is
also a vital part of university-level education.

12.1 Information Literacy—Definition and Need

The phrase information literacy first appeared in print in a 1974 report by Paul G. Zurkowski, written
on behalf of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Zurkowski used the
phrase to describe the “techniques and skills” known by the information literate “for utilizing the
wide range of information tools as well as primary sources in molding information solutions to
their problems”.
Subsequently a number of efforts were made to better define the concept and its relationship to
other skills and forms of literacy. Although other educational goals, including traditional literacy,
computer literacy, library skills, and critical thinking skills, were related to information literacy and
important foundations for its development, information literacy itself was emerging as a distinct
skill set and a necessary key to one’s social and economic well-being in an increasingly complex
information society.
A seminal event in the development of the concept of information literacy was the establishment of
the American Library Association’s Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, whose 1989
final report outlined the importance of the concept. The report defined information literacy as the
ability “to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use
effectively the needed information” and highlighted information literacy as a skill essential for
lifelong learning and the production of an informed and prosperous citizenry.
The committee outlined six principal recommendations: to “reconsider the ways we have organized
information institutionally, structured information access, and defined information’s role in our
lives at home in the community, and in the work place”; to promote “public awareness of the
problems created by information illiteracy”; to develop a national research agenda related to
information and its use; to ensure the existence of “a climate conducive to students’ becoming
information literate”; to include information literacy concerns in teacher education; and to promote
public awareness of the relationship between information literacy and the more general goals of
“literacy, productivity, and democracy.”
The recommendations of the Presidential Committee led to the creation later that year of the National
Forum on Information Literacy, a coalition of more than 90 national and international organizations.
In 1998, the American Association of School Librarians and the Association for Educational
Communications and Technology published Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning,
which further established specific goals for information literacy education, defining some nine
standards in the categories of “information literacy”, “independent learning”, and “social
responsibility”.
In 1999, SCONUL, the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the UK, published
“The Seven Pillars of Information Literacy” model, to “facilitate further development of ideas
amongst practitioners in the field ... stimulate debate about the ideas and about how those ideas
might be used by library and other staff in higher education concerned with the development of
students’ skills.” A number of other countries have developed information literacy standards since
then.
In 2003, the National Forum on Information Literacy, together with UNESCO and the National
Commission on Libraries and Information Science, sponsored an international conference in Prague
with representatives from some twenty-three countries to discuss the importance of information

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