Information Literacy: An International State of the Art

Information Literacy State of the Art Report

September, 2007

Judith Peacock

Information Literacy Coordinator

Queensland University of Technology Library

Brisbane, Australia

[e-mail]

A. Introduction
Information literacy in Australia is an increasingly well-established and widely understood and accepted concept. This awareness is supported and cultivated through sophisticated practices and models underpinned by rich research.
Informed by a national framework of standards and principles, Australian library professionals are developing and implementing models of success for the broader development of information literacy via an interplay of teleological and practical strategies. These strategies range from intensive engagement with policy development and strategic planning processes, to the implementation, testing and evaluation of methods which support the specific embedding of information literacy into educational curriculum and/or through to the application of information literacy in the civic and social activities of the broader population.
In general, much of the work in the area of information literacy is founded on a common understanding that:
“Information literacy is an intellectual framework for recognising the need for, understanding, finding, evaluating, and using information. These are activities which may be supported in part by fluency with information technology, in part by sound investigative methods, but most importantly through critical discernment and reasoning. Information literacy initiates, sustains, and extends lifelong learning through abilities that may use technologies but are ultimately independent of them.”¹
In Australia, information literacy is closely associated with the concept and goal of lifelong learning, and many key documents and policy statements advocate the central role of information literacy in the lifelong learning process. In 1994, Candy, Crebert and O’Leary’s seminal report, Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education” connected information literacy with lifelong learning. Its profile of the lifelong learner included the following information literacy qualities or characteristics:

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  knowledge of major current resources available in at least one field of study;
  
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  ability to frame researchable questions in at least one field of study;
  
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  ability to locate, evaluate, manage and use information in a range of contexts;
  
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  ability to retrieve information using a variety of media;
  
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  ability to decode information in a variety of forms: written, statistical, graphs, charts;
  
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  diagrams and tables; and
  
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  critical evaluation of information².
  

However, in seeking to identify the uniqueness of the concept of information literacy, [Australian discourse] has endeavoured to accommodate and respect other perspectives on lifelong learning³. Likewise, the importance of information literacy in workplace learning, lifelong learning and participative citizenship, as expressed in the Australian Library and Information Association’s 2001 Statement on information literacy for all Australians (see Section 3), is also prominent in much of discussion and activities which form the information literacy learning environment in Australia.

The interrelationship and differences between information literacy and technological literacy is also articulated and understood by administrators and practitioners. Bundy defines this relationship, stating that “information literacy initiates, sustains, and extends lifelong learning through abilities that may use technologies but are ultimately independent of them.”⁴
A number of federal and legislative imperatives have had a significant impact on the growth and development of information literacy education in Australia, and on the strategic buy-in by public and private organisations and educational institutions. However, while information literacy development is understood, supported and advanced across a wide range of organisations and sectors, unquestionably, within Australia, the predominant sphere of influence and activity resides within the post-compulsory educational sectors.
In 1998, the Review Committee on Higher Education Financing and Policy, chaired by Roderick West, released its final report Learning for Life. The Commonwealth Government commissioned the Review Committee in January 1997 to recommend reforms to equip Australia’s higher education institutions for the next twenty years.
Commonly known as the West Review, this report recommended a useful framework for Australian graduate outcomes in higher education… including “research, discovery, and information retrieval skills and a general capacity to use information”⁵. Although no university has yet adopted a university-wide strategy for curriculum integration and assessment focussed on generic skill development⁶, it is clear that most have defined a core set of graduate outcomes which explicitly or implicity identifies information literacy as one of the core attributes to be acquired as an outcome of a tertiary qualification.
Most Australian universities are now working towards embedding lists of graduate attributes into the curricula and developing strategies for assessing and recording outcomes. As Bundy notes, “progressive universities have recognised that their teaching, and learning outcomes should be liberating, not domesticating… This is implicit in their attempts to develop and integrate graduate attributes into their program approvals, curricula, pedagogies and assessment.”⁷ In this context, it is generally agreed that “achieving information literacy requires an understanding that such development is not extraneous to the curriculum but is woven into its content, structure, and sequence”⁸. Since 1998, all Australian universities have been required to specify their generic graduate attributes in quality assurance and improvement plans, which are submitted to the Department of Education, Science & Training⁹.
Quinn believes that “when we commit to a vision to do something that has never been done before, there is no way to know how to get there.... we simply have to build the bridge as we walk on it.”¹⁰ Australian library professionals continue to build that bridge that links Australians with the skills and knowledge to function as information informed citizens and productive members of the communities in which they live and work.