Information Literacy: An International State of the Art

C. Publications

1. 
   Guidelines for information literacy
   

The only national IL guidelines on information literacy in the Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil are those published in Mexico (Cortés, J., González,. D. & Lau, J., Et al, 2002). The guidelines were drafted and approved by a large group of participants at the Information Literacy Conference organized in Ciudad Juárez, 2002 by the UACJ. They were endorsed by the National Council for Library Affairs of Public Higher Education Institutions (CONPAB-IES), the major academic library association in Mexico. The information literacy standards have been promoted and used to develop training programs, like the distance web-based credit course created in Veracruz, and the regular one offered in Juarez. There is a great need for countries to work on guidelines for the different types of users, especially at the different education levels. Some of this work is already being done at the Universidad Estadual de Campinas, Brazil that recently published the strategy to assess basic education teachers on information literacy (Belluzo, 2004). Other guidelines are published at different sources, i.e. Angulo’s work (2003) on assessing information competencies, which includes a practical example;

2. 
   Information Literacy monographs of international coverage or impact
   

Nations with books on the subject are Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The Universidad do Campinhas published the first book in this field in Brazil (Belluzo, 2005), and there is another one edited by Rosemary Passos and Gildenir Carolino Santos (2005). Edilma Naranjo Vélez (2003) published a book on IL in Colombia. Mexico has, on the other hand, about seven IL books edited; a couple of them by CUIB/UNAM (Hernández, 1998; Palacios & Vega, 2000), four by UACJ (Lau & Cortés. 2000, 2000, 2004; www.jesuslau.com) and one by Universidad de Yucatán. The number of monographs is an indicator of the information literacy activity in these countries. Other nations may have some publications but they were not identified.

3. 
   Theses of international relevance
   

A wider search has to be done to identify theses on information literacy at library science schools. The countries that submitted theses were Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba. The subject matter of the works varies from feasibility of information literacy studies to the implementation of IL programs. Some of them are: Cruz, 2006; Duzdiak, 2001; García, 2004; González, 2005; Guzmán, 2003; Hatschbach, 2001; Jiménez, 2006; Martí, 2006; Medina, 2006; Ortíz; 1971; Palacios, 2003; Palacios, 2006; Pérez, 2003; Rodríguez, 2006; Ruíz, 2004; Uribe, 2004; Vazquez, 2000; Vega, 2003; Vélez, 2006; Viera, 2006; Viveros, 2000, López, 2005.

4. 
   Translations of key international documents to different languages
   

5. 
   Serials (Journals)
   

There is no specific journal devoted to information literacy in these countries, but the library serials include articles on the subject, some of them with more than one contribution to the field. Federation of Library Associations from Brazil has just released an issue (FEBAB, 2006) of its journal to information literacy. The main library journal of the region, the Centro Universitario de Investigaciones Bibliotecológicas has Published some articles in the field.