Research Skills
REVIEWS
Information
Literacy. . .
Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve,
analyze, and use information.
The beginning of the 21st century has been called the
Information Age because of the explosion of information
output and information sources. It has become increasingly
clear that students cannot learn everything they need
to know in their field of study in a few years of college.
Information literacy equips them with the critical skills
necessary to become independent lifelong learners.
Too often we assume that as students write research
papers and read textbooks they are gaining sufficient IL skills.
This is not so. IL skills
may be introduced
but what is needed is
a parallel curriculum
in IL forming a strong
foundation of a
college education.
As the American
Library Association
Presidential
Committee on
Information Literacy
(January 10, 1989,
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Washington, D.C.) says
“Ultimately, information literate people are those who have
learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they
know how knowledge is organized, how to find information,
and how to use information in such a way that others can
learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong
learning, because they can always find the information
needed for any task or decision at hand.”
Why is Information Literacy important?
Have you ever heard of Data Smog? A term coined
by author David Shenk, it refers to the idea that too much
information can create a barrier in our lives.
This data smog is produced by the amount of information,
the speed at which it comes to us from all directions, the
need to make fast decisions, and the feeling of anxiety that
we are making decisions without having ALL the information
that is available or that we need.
Information literacy is the solution to Data Smog. It al
lows us to cope by giving us the skills to know when
we need information and where to locate it effectively and
efficiently. It includes the technological skills needed to use
the modern library as a gateway to information. It enables us
to analyze and evaluate the information we find, thus giving
us confidence in using that information to make a decision or
create a product.
Who needs Information Literacy?
The concept of Information Literacy may seem
too broad and overwhelming. Why should students
learn all this? Because we want to remove the
obstacles to creativity which are caused by lack of
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