School Libraries Worldwide Volume 7, Number 1, 2001, i-v

Editorial

Perspectives on Information Literacy

Dianne Oberg, University of Alberta, Canada

My interest in the topic of information literacy comes from nearly 30 years working
with students as a classroom teacher, as a teacher-librarian, and as a university
instructor. Although the ages of the students that I work with have changed and the
topics they are interested in have changed, there seem to be some common themes
related to information literacy—how learners decide they have a need for information,
how learners experience the process of inquiry, and how library instruction can best
support learners. My own views on the topic of information literacy have changed in
the course of those 30 years. Here I try to outline one aspect of my current
understanding of this complex topic, and then I highlight the contributions of the
authors writing about information literacy in this issue of School Libraries
Worldwide.

Information in Abundance
Information of all types in all kinds of media—picture books, science textbooks,
television news broadcasts, video games, websites—are available to teachers and
students today in their schools and their homes in the much of the Western world.
Being literate in this eclectic resource environment involves two interrelated concepts:
being "media literate" (savvy to the processes and protocols of the media) as well as
being "literate through the media" (using the media as conduits through which the
basic literacy skills of reading, writing, and comprehension are achieved). The
Canadian media theorist Marshall McCluhan pointed out in the 1960s that "the
medium is the message"—that content is inseparable from and shaped by the medium
through which it is carried or presented. I wonder if, in our use of the term
information literacy, we have forgotten the importance of the media through which
the information is presented.

Defining Information Literacy

The definition of literacy has changed and continues to change. Teachers and teacher-
librarians today need to rethink the nature of literacy in the 21st century, to think about
literacy in terms not of particular media or symbol systems, but in terms of helping
learners understand and deal with the world of media and information. Media and
information are interrelated phenomena. It is hard to think of a media form or "text"
without thinking about the information it conveys; it is hard to think of information
without thinking of

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the form in which it is conveyed. Literacy is often defined in terms of reading and
writing; it is less often defined in terms of listening and viewing or speaking and
image-making. In schools that I am familiar with in Canada, we spend a lot of time
addressing the meaning of printed texts, particularly literary texts, but little time
addressing the meaning of other media texts that are much more pervasive in young
people's lives.
As we know, different media have different characteristics. Picture books,
textbooks, video, graphic formats, models, CD-ROM, and the World Wide Web bring
different kinds of information, and they present information in varying levels of
abstraction. Seeing television images of the conflicts between Jews and Palestinians in
Israel gives a very different message from traveling through Israel as a visitor to
historic sites and green agricultural areas.
We also know that different media demand different "reading" strategies: reading a
trade information book is different from viewing a video on the same topic. Browsing
the WWW is different from browsing a textbook. The WWW holds challenges for
evaluating information for accuracy and objectivity that are different from those for a
newspaper or magazine. A particular media resource might be selected by a teacher or
student because it provides a new perspective on a topic, because it provides more
depth of information on a topic, or because it accommodates a preferred learning
style.

Importance of Understanding Media

Why is developing our understanding of media an important part of information
literacy? First, the purpose of information literacy education, likother forms of
literacy education, is to build essential skills for success in complex, information-rich
environment. Second, the school must address students' cultural experiences as a
totality if it is to be relevant to students’ lives. Including those media that are part of
their world beyond the school recognizes and validates young people's experiences.
Third, expanding students' encounters with a wide range of media texts and involving
students in making their own texts extends their creative capabilities. Students need to
be and to see themselves as creators as well as consumers of information if they are to
be the independent learners and decision-makers we say we are educating them to be.

Developing an Integrated Approach to Education for

Information Literacy
We have tended in school library programs to think in terms of two separate process-
related focuses: use of information and appreciation of information. For example, in
the school library program model developed in my part of Canada, these themes are
presented as (a) Information Retrieval, Processing and Sharing, and as (b)
Appreciation of Knowledge and Culture.

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 The first focus, use of information, looks at information from a utilitarian point of
view. The students use information in order to gain knowledge about a topic, to
answer a question, or to solve a problem. The students are engaged in learning how to
use information for a purpose. This is often developed through library research
projects. Students are taught a systematic approach for planning their research, for
finding and evaluating resources, for extracting relevant information from resources,
for organizing that information, for creating a new information resource, and for
sharing the information with an audience. Use of information involves locating,
creating, organizing, and sharing information for learning about a topic, for answering
a question, or for solving a problem that is outside the process of using information.
The second focus, appreciation of information, involves the understanding of
information itself as something that is created, organized, and shared and as
something that affects and is affected by both creators and consumers. This theme has
often been narrowly interpreted in school library programs to mean literature
appreciation and/or reading promotion. A broader view of appreciation of information
would encompass the exploration of all information media, whether that medium be a
picture book, a television news broadcast, an encyclopedia, or an Elizabethan drama.
In the school library program and in other curricular programs, students should
develop an understanding of a diverse range of media through learning of, learning
about, and learning through media. In learning of a particular medium, students are
exposed to and immersed in experiencing that medium. In learning about a particular
medium, students learn how that medium is created and how that medium affects and
is affected by its creators and consumers. In learning through a particular medium,
students develop an understanding of that medium by creating and sharing ideas
through that medium.
The two focuses of the school library program, use of information and appreciation
of information, have often been developed as two independent but complementary
focuses of the program. However, the two are strongly intertwined. In library research
projects, where use of information is paramount, often questions of accuracy, purpose,
and bias that touch on the appreciation of information must be addressed. In the study
of the medium of the picture book or the television news broadcast, where
appreciation of information is paramount, use of information activities such as
research into the work of the illustrator or into the history of television may be
required.
The separation of information use and information appreciation in the school
library program mirrors its separation in other parts of the school curriculum. Rarely
do we look at literary works in terms of social and economic significance; rarely do
we look at television or magazines in terms of genre or in terms of codes and
conventions. Perhaps we can examine our own practice by thinking about how we
involve our students in using and appreciating media and information.

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 The focus of a program of media and information education should be on
developing students' understanding and appreciation of and participation in the world
of information. The content of the program centers on how information is created,
organized, and shared, on how the creators and consumers of information affect its
meaning, and on how to create, organize, and share information. These key ideas
should be explored through topics and activities selected from the curriculum and
from the personal interests of students and teachers.
Education for media and information literacy can and should be integrated into the
school's curriculum programs. Most teachers incorporate some of the basic features of
education for media and information literacy especially in terms of print-based media,
into their language learning and other curriculum programs. Students' understanding
of the world of me and information can be enhanced when their teachers engage them
in exploration, understanding, and creation of an expanded range of information and
media. There is no one best model or approach to education media and information
literacy. Each school's approach will be shaped the school's curriculum, the needs of
the students, and the resources available for its implementation. The effective
approach is identified in the end by the extent to which students are confident and
competent learners, able understand the world of information, and willing to use and
to create information within and beyond their school environment.

Looking at the Information Literacy Theme Articles

In the article, "Information Literacy Planning for Educators: The ILPO Approach,"
Jenny Ryan and Steph Capra describe their award-winning project which was
developed to support teachers and teacher-librarians in planning information literacy
programs. They emphasize the importance of a school-wide approach to using the
framework and to adapting the framework to suit local school circumstances. In the
research report, "Information-Seeking Processes of Junior High Students: A Case
Study of CD-ROM Encyclopedia Use," Jennifer L. Branch points out that young
adolescents need both instruction and practice to develop the skills and strategies
needed for full-text searching of CD-ROM encyclopedias. In investigating what
motivated old students to complete research assignments, Lois Barranoik found that
access to information, task perception and understanding, the research purpose and
time were factors that appeared to encourage students to complete their research and
develop confidence in their ability to create meaning. In the article, "The Cultured
Word: Cultural Background, Bilingualism and the School Library," Denise E. Agosto
argues that cultural background create' framework through which people view,
interpret, and assign meaning texts. She outlines why these issues are important to
school librarians and offers suggestions for making multicultural materials central
aspects school library collections and curricula.

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Research "Of Special Interest" from Around the World
In the article, "Evaluating the Impact of the School Library Resource Centre on
Learning," Dorothy Williams and Caroline Wavell report on research in the United
Kingdom that investigated the impact on learning of the school library resource
center. They offer some recommendations for those seeking to evaluate the impact of
their own SLRC on learning. Cherrell Shelley-Robinson reports on a nationwide study
of "The Voluntary Reading Interests of Jamaican Sixth Graders." The author points
out that, in general, as in previous research in developed countries, gender played a
strong role in the students' reading interests, but geography played a stronger than
expected role. These and other interesting differences in the students' responses
suggest that librarians need to consider local culture and other conditions in collection
development. In the article, "School Libraries in The Netherlands," Albert K.
Boekhorst and Maarten J.P. van Veen report research conducted to gain insight into
the position of school libraries in secondary education in their country. They suggest
that the person of the school librarian seemed to be the most important factor in the
success of a school library. However, few school libraries were staffed by persons
with library training. This lack of professional staff often led to the exclusion of the
school library from policy-making decisions and from integration into the educational
system.

Changing Our Views of Information Literacy

The articles in this issue of School Libraries Worldwide suggest some of the
complexities involved in developing programs of information literacy instruction in
schools. I want to express my appreciation to the authors who have contributed their
ideas to our ongoing consideration of this topic. It is my hope that the articles in this
issue will challenge you to think about how information literacy programs that meet
our students needs might be implemented or enhanced. Certainly, the authors have
each given me pause for thought and reflection on my own work!