I spotted this interesting feature about information literacy this morning so decided to tweet and blog. That is the pure immediacy of social media – finding something interesting and share it within minutes. There are multiple information literacy communities out there and joining them is easy, just by following them on Twitter or choosing another social medium. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Information Literacy Group defines a compilation of What is Information Literacy? When, where and how would you apply it to practice, and how does it relate to other literacies and skills sets? According to UNESCO, the Prague declaration of 2003 defines information literacy as encompassing:
“knowledge of one’s information concerns and needs, and the ability to identify, locate, evaluate, organize and effectively create, use and communicate information to address issues or problems at hand; it is a prerequisite for participating effectively in the Information Society, and is part of the basic human right of life long learning.”
While SCONUL (The Society of College, National and University Libraries) famously developed the Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model in 1999, with the most recent version published in 2011. The latest version recognises that becoming information literate “is not a linear process”, rather, individuals can take different paths to become information literate and may learn different skills at different points.
The following ‘lenses’ have been created which take the seven pillars and observe them through the eyes of individuals engaged in the following types of activities:
For anyone who is interested The Information and Literacy Group has a good website and blog which contains useful links, articles and suggested further reading.
Checking for copyright cleared used to be a minefield – but not now. LibreStock, a multi search engine for CC images, does the work for you (humble courtesy to Phil Bradley’s informative weblog– Where librarians and the internet meet). Librestock is an amazing free multi search engine that will check through over 40 different websites to find images that you can use. Phil quotes from the site: “I know it’s hard to understand complex legal licenses so let me break it down for you. all the photos indexed on LibreStock are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. this means you can use these pictures freely for any legal purpose.” This means that they are free to use, even commercially, you can modify, copy and distribute, and you don’t need to attribute. I find this a relief as images inform, brighten and act as a visual aid for presentations or blog like this one (look above!).