National Information Literacy Awareness Month!

October is National Information Literacy Awareness month. Information literacy has been defined as a set of abilities requiring individuals to articulate their information needs, identify various types of information and formats, understand how to effectively access and critically evaluate information, effectively use information to accomplish a specific purpose, and understand economic, legal and social issues related to accessing and using information ethically and legally.

The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) recently established a new Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education that includes six core concepts. The core concepts, also known as “threshold concepts”, serve as gateways for students to apply information literacy as consumers and creators of information. The concepts are reflected in the six core areas listed below. To learn more about the Framework for Information Literacy and the threshold concepts, please see the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education at http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf

Information literacy has also been recognized by several professional associations including the American Library Association and Association of College & Research Libraries  (ALA/ACRL), American Association of School Librarians (AASL), Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE), and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).