Information shapes our world. Information empowers individuals to create and critically use new knowledge for social change, democratic activities, and personal or professional advancement. Information literacy skills help people become confident in finding, evaluating, and using information efficiently and ethically. An information literate individual can navigate information overload and filter bubbles and can look at scientific research through analytical and critical lenses.
An information literate society is more just, fair, and open. IL practices can be used to critique ideas and to examine policies and worldviews. IL skills are gained through practice and persistence and shift people from consumers to creators of information who will contribute to ongoing debates in academia and beyond.
Librarians alone cannot provide an effective information literacy program for the entire student body on campus. When departmental faculty and librarians share the responsibility for the information literacy program, it can be implemented with a more coherent and systematic approach throughout the campus. The information literacy curriculum can:
Information literacy therefore depends on collaboration among classroom faculty, academic administrators, librarians and other information professionals. In order to effectively implement a program all parties must be involved.
"Information literacy programs require the leadership and support of academic administrators. Such leadership is not limited to budgetary support. It also includes helping create a supportive atmosphere and practical opportunities for cooperation among librarians, classroom faculty and information technologists. Such leadership should promote a vision of liberal education as an empowering and transforming endeavor that develops students with the necessary skills to be independent learners."
