Research

INFORMATION LITERACY AND THE RESEARCH PROCESS

"It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts.... it is to teach them to think, if that is possible, and always to think for themselves."

~ Robert Hutchins ~

The emergence of the Information Age provides society with advantages and progress, but is accompanied by enormous challenges. The greatest challenge for society is to keep pace with the knowledge and technological expertise necessary for finding, applying, and evaluating information. People need to be able to obtain specific information to meet a wide arrangement of needs, yet have to deal with the fact that information changes and expands all the time. The skills to do this are generally referred to as "information literacy skills".

In his discussion of Information Literacy, Cory Laverty, Instructional Services Librarian at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, explains that most people think of information literacy as a set of skills requiring technical ability, or more simply, as 'doing'. "True information literacy", he says, "involves both thinking and doing. Given the ever-expanding sea of information at our disposal, analysis of an information need, knowledge of resource types, evaluation of access tools, and interpretation of results are critical to successful information retrieval."

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ALA Report on Information Literacy

A Presidential Committee Report by the American Library Association depicting the importance of Information Literacy and the need for schools to prepare students for what is now called the "Information Age".

Information Literacy

An excellent discussion on Information Literacy by Cory Laverty, Instructional Services Librarian at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario). The term is defined and aspects such as Critical Thinking and Information Use are discussed. Useful guidelines on the planning of research assignments and links to other sites are provided.

Pathways

This web links page by Follett Software provides direct links to some of the best web sites for help in teaching information literacy skills. Information is organized into six categories: information literacy, authentic learning, authentic resources, interactive learning, research and web-based tools.

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