Information Literacy
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Department of
Information Studies
Sheffield University

Page updated 3 September 2006
copyright Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston

Information Literacy: Standards and statements

This page begins with a brief introduction to this topic, highlighting key developments, particularly in higher education. It concludes with links to national standards and position statements by professional bodies, a couple of position statements on information literacy, and related references.

Introduction

There has been work for the higher education and the school (in the USA "K12") sectors, carried out by librarians and information professionals. There has also been work carried out by a UK information consultancy to identify competencies required by information literate employees. Each of these is briefly reviewed here.

In the higher education sector, Library and information professional bodies in the USA (the Association of College and Research Libraries, ACRL) and Australia (Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy) have produced standards for information literacy, and a UK body (Society of College, National and University Libraries, SCONUL) has produced a model for information literacy. There have been translations of the ACRL standards, and the IFLA Information Literacy Section has also worked on a framework for information literacy.

The US higher education standards emerged from work done for the American Library Association on information literacy. They focus on defining key areas of desirable behaviour in the information literate student, namely:

  • The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.
  • The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.
  • The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.
  • The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
  • The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.
For each of these areas, performance indicators and indicative outcomes are listed. For example, the measurable outcomes for determining whether the student is able to determine whether the new knowledge has an impact on the individual's value system and take steps to reconcile differences are that the student
  • Investigates differing viewpoints encountered in the literature; and
  • Determines whether to incorporate or reject viewpoints encountered

ACRL runs an annual "immersion" programme for librarians to prepare them for teaching information literacy (and encourages US regional events) and has ongoing work e.g. identifying what it sees as institutional ACRL defines as best practice. They also are looking at versions of the standards for particular disciplines, starting with Science and Engineering/technology with the working version of the standards for these fields at http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/infolitscitech.htm

ACRL have proposed an "international" approach to information literacy standards (see Snavely, 2001) but it must be said that this approach is based on translating the US standards into other languages. There are some translations of these standards into other languages: you can find links (at the foot of the page) to translations into Greek and Spanish at http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitstandards/adapting/adaptingstandards.htm. There is a translation into German in an article:
Homann, B. (2002) "Standards der Informationskompetenz Eine Übersetzung der amerikanischen Standards der ACRL als argumentative Hilfe zur Realisierung der 'Teaching Library'" . Bibliotheksdienst, 36 (5), 625-638. http://bibliotheksdienst.zlb.de/2002/02_05_07.pdf

The Australian standards were based upon the US ones, but had some significant changes and additions. For example, we think the Australian standard is somewhat more inclusive than the US version, in that it talks throughout about the information literate person rather than the information literate student. This would imply that it relates to lecturers as well and perhaps to non-academic settings. In the first edition of the standards, a particularly interesting change was the addition of standard seven

The information literate person recognises that lifelong learning and participative citizenship requires information literacy
However, this standard was removed from the 2nd edition (which was renamed Framework rather than Standards) and there are overarching principles namely that information literate people:
  • "engage in independent learning through constructing new meaning, understanding and knowledge
  • "derive satisfaction and personal fulfillment from using information wisely
  • "individually and collectively search for and use information for decision making and problem solving in order to address personal, professional and societal issues
  • "demonstrate social responsibility through a commitment to lifelong learning and community participation
This 2nd edition also has a useful introduction about information literacy and learning, and examples of the Framework in use in libraries.

In the UK, SCONUL began by drawing up a model rather than a set of standards, the Seven pillars of information literacy. SCONUL started with an Information skills Task Force, but this has now become the Working Group on Information Literacy. SCONUL identifies seven headline skills:

  1. The ability to recognise a need for information
  2. The ability to distinguish ways in which the information 'gap' may be addressed
  3. The ability to construct strategies for locating information
  4. The ability to locate and access information
  5. The ability to compare and evaluate information obtained from different sources
  6. The ability to organise, apply and communicate information to others in ways appropriate to the situation
  7. The ability to synthesise and build upon existing information, contributing to the creation of new knowledge
SCONUL also created a diagram proposing a spectrum of competence, from the novice who is learning basic library and IT skills, to the proficient information literacy expert.

As regards the school curriculum, there has been a lot of work done by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). In 1998 they published Information power which sets out nine standards grouped into three categories: Information literacy; Independent learning and Social responsibility. There have been further publications and work in this area encouraged by the AASL.

In Canada, the Ontario School Library Association has drawn up a very useful document which provides a framework for educating for information literacy from Kindergarten until school leaving. In the UK, the Primary school library guidelines include a section on information literacy. This sets information literacy in the context of lifelong learning and recommends it is integrated in the curriculum. It reproduces the Extending Interactions with Text (EXIT) model, outlined in a DFEE (now Department For Education and Skills) document. This charts a 10 stage process and suggests a teaching strategy for each.

As regards the workplace, a UK information consultancy, TFPL, carried out a study on skills for knowledge management for the UK's Library and Information Commission (a body which has now become part of re:source, the council for libraries and museums). This included a consideration of the need for all employees to be information literate. TFPL's report emphasises that all staff need to be able to find, appraise and use information, requiring the following skills:

  1. "take a structured approach to defining questions;
  2. navigate through information sources;
  3. evaluate the relevance, reliability and quality of information obtained;
  4. filter out irrelevant and superfluous information;
  5. synthesise and apply to the decision making process;
  6. record conclusions and reasoning."

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Links to National standards

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Statements by professional bodies

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Statements by international bodies

There have been two key statements produced from meetings organised by the US National Commission on Libraries and Information Science in cooperation with UNESCO in Prague and by IFLA with UNESCO in Alexandria. They both position information literacy as a right and part of lifelong learning. The importance of information literacy for society, health and citizenship, as well as economic and intellectual development, is stressed.
  • High-Level International Colloquium on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. (2005) Alexandria proclamation. http://www.infolit.org/International_Colloquium/index.htm Available in many languages on this page.
  • Information Literacy Meeting of Experts. (2003) The Prague declaration: Towards an information literate society. Washington: National Commission on Library and Information Science; National Forum on Information Literacy & UNESCO. Go to top of the page

    Statements by commercial companies

    There have been two meetings which called themselves 21st century literacy summit, with the 2nd appearing not to recognise/realise that the 1st one had taken place. The 1st one mentioned information literacy, the report from the 2nd one doesn't, concentrating, rather, on digital literacies (e.g. "Otaku Literacy")
    • Bertelsmann Foundation and AOL TIme Warner Foundation. (2002) 21st Century Literacy Summit: White paper Berlin: The Foundations.
      This used to be at http://www.21stcenturyliteracy.org/white/WhitePaperEnglish.pdf but unfortunately it seems to have disappeared (the whole domain as well as the document) from the web. The emphasis was on use of information technology, but information literacy and Knowledge Management were also mentioned. Included a good number of one page examples of best practice.

    • New Media Consortium (2005) 21st Century Literacy Summit. Austin: New Media Consortium. http://nmc.org/summit/
      The Consortium includes Adobe, Apple, Sun, Cisco and some others, plus a large number of US universities and colleges.
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    Contact Sheila Webber (s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk) with any comments