Information Literacy: An International State of the Art

C. Organizations
Efforts are being made by library associations to provide a platform for discussion and developments in IL at both national and regional levels. The Standing Conference of African National and University Libraries of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (SCANUL-ECS) held a conference on Information Literacy in 2004 in Kampala. One of its recommendations was for SCANUL-ECS members to provide case studies of IL developments in their institutions. The case studies were aimed at getting all participating institutions to provide valuable information on how they run their IL programs if they have programs in place and identify challenges which could be addressed collectively at either national or regional level.
The national library Associations have not yet established Bodies or committees to deal specifically with IL issues at national or regional level. I
The resource sharing by institutions and organizations is in terms of capacity building activities through workshops and training of librarians on areas which would better equip them for the information literacy skills programs. The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publicans (INASP) http://www.inasp.info/training/ is one organization which has made significant contributions through its INTERNET traveling workshops in the region which aimed at training librarians for effective use of the Librarians in the effective use of the INERNET for teaching learning and research purposes thus making a positive contribution to both African universities Libraries and Public libraries towards equipping those to take responsibility in IL programs. Materials on all training programs are available for downloading from the INASP website.
In 1995, the INFOLIT program was initiated in South Africa to promote information literacy education on a regional approach within South Africa. Its objectives were to:

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  Promote the concept, value and importance of information literacy in the context of globalization and redress to key players in the region
  
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  Launch a series of pilot projects which explore and establish various means of spreading information literacy education in the region
  
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  Investigate information literacy models, programs and initiative in other countries that could be adapted to local conditions
  

This South African INFLOLIT initiative has achieved a number of its objectives Underwood (2002) as evidenced from the development of IL in South African Universities as compared to other countries in the region.