Information literacy

“Information Literacy encompasses 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 lifelong
learning" (Information Literacy Meeting of Experts, 2003)
“Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and
how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner” (CILIP, 2005).
“To be information literate, a person must be able to recognise when information is needed
and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information"
(American Library Association, 1998)
“Information literacy is the adoption of appropriate information behaviour to obtain, through
whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs, together with
critical awareness of the importance of wise and ethical use of information in society"
(Johnston and Webber, 2003).
Boekhorst (2003b) highlights the technization, differentiation and globalisation process of
our modern society and notes that in this process we see the following effects related to
information flows: (1) a exponential growth of information, information media, information
channels and information services (2) a growth of technology, tools and applications to
retrieve, process and disseminate information (3) changes in communication patterns and
behaviour. Thus, while people move forward through time and space (Dervin & Nilan, 1986)
they need knowledge: knowledge on themselves and on their social and technical
surrounding. While moving forward people are confronted with the fact that their knowledge
is not enough to go on with their activity, to make decisions or start a new activity. There is a
knowledge gap and an information need. Such a situation can arise because something
changes in a person or in his or her surroundings. Depending on the importance of the
situation and the degree of uncertainty, a person will search for information to satisfy an
information need, to reduce uncertainty and update his or her knowledge. In this way people
can survive, develop themselves, perform tasks and relax.
The vast amount of information available online means that it can be hard to distinguish
accurate from inaccurate sources
Paul Zurkowski was the first to use the notion “information literacy”. The American
researcher states that persons with skills in information area are “educated people with the
purpose of applying information resources in their work place” (Zurkowski 1974). The
conceptual foundation was made by the American Library Association (ALA): “in order to
have information literacy, a person needs to be aware of the information necessity, to be able
to locate it, assess and use it efficiently. People acquainted with information literacy are those
who learned how to learn” (ALA 1989).
The American Library Association defines information literacy “as a set of abilities requiring
individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate,
and use effectively the needed information” (ALA 2018). The Alexandria proclamation on
Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning of 2005 states: Information Literacy lies at the
core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and
create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational
goals. It is a basic human right in a digital world and promotes social inclusion of all nations.
(IFLA 2005)
• Information accessing—the user should access information in a sensible and efficient way; •
Information evaluation—the user should evaluate information in a critical and competent
way; and • Use of information—the user should use information in a correct and creative way

Paul Zurkowski was the first to use the notion “information literacy”. The American
researcher states that persons with skills in information area are “educated people with the
purpose of applying information resources in their work place” (Zurkowski 1974). The
conceptual foundation was made by the American Library Association (ALA): “in order to
have information literacy, a person needs to be aware of the information necessity, to be able
to locate it, assess and use it efficiently. People acquainted with information literacy are those
who learned how to learn” (ALA 1989). During the time from Paul Zukorwski—1974 until
the 1989 definition given by ALA, the concept had some changes according to methods of
information retrieval and represented the basis of intellectual work techniques.
The American Library Association defines information literacy “as a set of abilities requiring
individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate,
and use effectively the needed information” (ALA 2018).

Objectives of Information Literacy

Education in information literacy is one of the priority objectives of the learning process.
Information literacy consists of:
 Creating a thinking style that is appropriate to the demands of the contemporary
information society expressed by information access capacity, analysis of the
information environment and development of alternative information systems;
 Creating skills and working abilities with information sources; and
 Independent solution for each problem by accessing, processing, storing and sending
information.
Standards of information literacy
Information accessing—the user should access information in a sensible and efficient way;

Information evaluation—the user should evaluate information in a critical and competent

way; and

Use of information—the user should use information in a correct and creative way.

To put it differently, Information Literacy skills empowers individuals with set of abilities
and, critical thinking skills, which will assist them in becoming independent lifelong learners.
Given this information explosion, it has become increasingly obvious that students cannot
learn everything they need to know in their study fields during the years at college and the
university. This is why information literacy has to fill in this gap through equipping students
with the necessary critical thinking for effective problem solving and becoming lifelong
learners. As the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information
Literacy (1989) explains. "Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned
how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how
to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from
them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the
information needed for any task or decision at hand".

The importance of Information Literacy ( IL)

Information literacy stands at the core of freedom of expression and information -
since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information
providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and
producer of information and media content.
Information Literacy is of immense importance to institutions of higher education.
One reason is that some undergraduate students acceding university have limited background
of fundamental research and information competency skills. They may not have acquired the
necessary skills to effectively search for information, or evaluate, synthesize and blend ideas;
or may not have learned how to use information in original work or give proper citation and
reference for information used. While some students may have acquired basic computer skills
to send electronic mail, navigate the web, and share files, they may not have been taught how
to effectively search the Internet or effectively use library E-resources for academic research.
This is where Information Literacy skills are essential and make the difference to the success
of students. If these latter are given the opportunity to follow such programs, they will
certainly face fewer difficulties while writing papers. Like many academic institutions across
the globe, Mohammed VI Library at Al Akhawayn University is faced with the major
challenge of making users information literate as opposed to library literate. In response to
this, the strategic plan of the Library, which also serves the wider strategic plan of the
university as a whole, has expanded over the past ten years from merely providing students
with information into teaching them how to better utilize information resources and become
lifelong readers.
An Information literacy initiative at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco
Al Akhawayn University is an independent, public, not-for-profit, coeducational
university committed to educating future citizen-leaders of Morocco and the world through a
globally oriented, English-language, liberal-arts curriculum based on the American style. The
University enhances Morocco and engages the world through leading-edge educational and
research programs, including continuing and executive education, upholds the highest
academic and ethical standards, and promotes equity and social responsibility. The university
serves more than 2072 students from its campus. Al Akhawayn University library, named
Mohammed VI Library, is an oasis of information resources and services, whose mission is to
serve the University’s liberal arts educational system and provide access to information
resources to the University community and to other researchers to enhance learning, teaching
and research activities.
The Library provides a growing collection of print and electronic resources, and
actively engages faculty and students through various outreach activities, information literacy
workshops and trainings that are designed to enrich their learning, teaching and research
experiences. The owned holdings of the university Library include over 97,100 print
volumes, 2,223 audio/video items and over 137,000 electronic books, and the collection is
growing at a rate of approximately 1,200 items a year. The Library guarantees access to 38
online databases that provide content from over 58,000 electronic journals and other research
materials in all major subjects. The Library’s document delivery service also provides journal
articles for teaching and research, directly or through the website (http://www.aui.ma/library),
if they are unavailable in the Library collections. A detailed list of collection development
procedures is featured on the Library website. Most of the print collection growth has come
from faculty requests. Roughly 84% of the Library’s print holdings are in English, with
materials in French and Arabic representing the bulk of the rest. The Library is open 96 hours
per week when classes are in session, including 6 hours on Saturdays and 10 hours on
Sundays. During exam periods, the Library is open 24/7 for three weeks.
The collaboration between the Library and the university teaching faculty at Al
Akhawayn University comes through several venues. Faculty members may request library
training workshops for their students; AUI students can request individualized research
consultations; the University’s three schools collaborate with the library in creating and
uploading customized Course Guides that fits curricular needs; and Mohammed VI
Librarians reach out to faculty to share ways in which they can encourage their students to
participate in information and research activities and better utilize the library’s varied print
and electronic resources. Another proved effective approach, one which promotes faculty-
librarian collaboration, is the library’s systematic creation of Course Guides to aid AUI
students in various academic programs.
Mohammed VI Library’s information literacy initiative involves teaching AUI
students how to search for, find, and correctly use quality academic information made
available from the library’s print and electronic resources. The library has set specific
objectives and actions to promote and enhance its role as a learning hub though faculty
outreach initiatives and information literacy. This latter is conducted in collaboration with the
coordinators and faculty of the first-year foundation programs, dubbed “FAS - Strategic
Academic Skills”.
Since 2007, the university library has been active in ensuring that students are
provided with the necessary search skills to access and use information. Approximately,
Mohammed VI Librarians facilitates more than 50 information literacy workshops for
students each year in support of various classes and have served over 7279 students during
the last six years. The focal objectives of the information instruction program at Mohammed
VI Library is to : (a) improve the ability of university students and library users to make
effective use of the library resources, services, and library staff, (b) to make library users
aware of the library technological search tools and teach them how to effectively use them,
(c) to equip library users with the necessary skills that will enable them better evaluate and
retrieve authoritative scholarly information for their research.
Information literacy Instruction at Mohammed VI Library is not offered as a credit-
bearing course for undergraduate and graduate students within the curriculum on a regular
basis, but as a separate supportive library service and comprehensive training program, which
enables students to develop and acquire the necessary literacy skills to deal independently
and skillfully with substantial amount of information. Each semester, Mohamed VI Library
provides a variety of instructional sessions ad training workshops for sophomore Strategic
Academic Skills students (FAS 0210 and FAS 1220), Race, Religion, and Minorities in the
United States’ graduate class (SSC 3331 / SSC 5321) and Research Methods’ graduate class
(SSC 3303). During each Information literacy class, students generally attend and participate
in a 30 minutes long training presentation as well as 15 minutes long practical application
session. Usually, most of these library training sessions are held at the library multimedia
learning center (MLC), which is a learning hub for both students and faculty, where they
have a librarian-led information literacy instruction class. Students also receive library-
provided handouts to reinforce the learning process and practice on their own more
effectively.
Four professional librarians, all of whom are fluent in at least 3 languages, are
involved in the library instruction program, working collaboratively with the faculty members
in supporting bibliographical instruction at the university. Having such dedicated team of
librarians, who guide the students to the best available library resources, makes the
Information Literacy program unique and complementary with other university-related
academic programs.
 The Information Literacy initiative is still in its nascent stages at Al Akhawayn
University Library, albeit witnessing an impressive growth and spread during the past five
years. Irrespective of what future ameliorations and direction this initiative may take,
however, any plans the university makes to further embed information literacy concepts into
the wider curriculum will significantly impact the academic performance of students.
Information Literacy at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco is a user-experience
practice, the aim of which is to familiarize new students with the library services, collections,
and facilities. Library orientations and tours, conducted at the beginning of each academic
semester, enable students to learn more about the Library’s collections, resources, services,
and physical set up of the building. During these library orientation tours, students may ask
questions. Tours at Mohamed VI Library are usually 10-20 minutes in length and may vary in
content and format depending on the level of students. In addition to these comprehensive
library tours, Mohammed VI Library offer newly enrolled students the opportunity to attend
and participate in a very practical face-to-face introduction Library workshop, designed to
help them better use Library resources and facilities. It includes a bibliographical instruction
session which comprises instruction on the use of library resources, LC classification system,
Library Online Catalog and reference sources (dictionaries, encyclopedias).
Following these initial library training, a subsequent Information Skills training is
offered to students, which includes an introduction to Electronic resources (the library
subscribes to about 38 database), how to effectively search EBSCO Discovery
Service (OneSearch), how to access Ebook collections, and how to cite sources correctly
using a variety of different style guides. The information literacy initiative at Mohammed VI
Library has grown intensely in recent years to reach 87 instruction sessions for 1,506 students
in 2012-2013. Each year, close to 95% of all freshmen are introduced to Library services
through the Library/FAS collaborative information literacy program in order to ensure that all
AUI students become familiar with resources available to them during their first academic
year
Reference

American Library Association (1998). A Progress Report on Information Literacy: An

Update on the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information
Literacy: Final Report. American Library Association, Chicago. Retrieved 15 October 2005
from: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/whitepapers/progressreport.htm.

Boekhorst, A. K. (2003a). Becoming information literate in the Netherlands. Library Review,

52 (7), 298-309.

Boekhorst, A. K. (2003b). Information Literacy in The Netherlands. On becoming

Information Literate in The Netherlands. In: Carla Basili (ed) Information Literacy in
Europe: a first insight into the state of the art of Information Literacy in the European Union.
Roma: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 187-205.

CILIP (2005) Information Literacy: definition. London: CILIP. Retrieved 30 October 2005
from http://www.cilip.org.uk/professionalguidance/informationliteracy/definition/

Johnston, B. and Webber, S. (2003). Information Literacy in Higher Education: a review and
case study. Studies in Higher Education, 28 (3), 335-352

A. Landøy et al. 2020, Collaboration in Designing a Pedagogical Approach in Information

Literacy, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34258-6_3

References
Rockman, I. F. (2002). Strengthening connections between information literacy, general
education, and assessment efforts. Library Trends, 51 (2), 185.
Doyle, C. 1994. Information Literacy in an Information Society: A Concept for the
Information Age. New York, ERIC Clearinghouse on Inform At ion Resources.
Coonan, E., & Secker, J. (2013). Rethinking Information Literacy: A Practical Framework for
Supporting Learning. London: Facet Publishing.
Information Literacy Instruction That Works: A Guide to Teaching by Discipline and Student
Population. (2013). Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman.
Adler, R.P. 1999. Information literacy: advancing opportunities for learning in the digital age.
[Online]. Available: http://www.aspeninst.org/aspeninstitute/files/Img/pdf/infolit.pdf
Bundy, A. 2001. For a clever country: information literacy diffusion in the 21st century.
[Online]. Available: http://www.library.unisa.edu.au/about/papers/clever.htm
Paul G. Zurkowski | National Forum on Information Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2015,
from http://infolit.org/paul-g-zurkowski/
About. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2015, from http://www.aui.ma/library/about
MIL as Composite Concept | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2015,
from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/
media-literacy/mil-as-composite-concept/
Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education | Association of College &
Research Libraries (ACRL). (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2015,
from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency
Bundy, A. 2001. For a clever country: information literacy diffusion in the 21st century.
[Online]. Available: http://www.library.unisa.edu.au/about/papers/clever.htm
Doyle, C.S. 2003. A concept for the information age. [Online].
Available: http://learning.kern.org/tlc_resources/stories/
MIL as Composite Concept | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved July 12, 2015,
from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/
media-literacy/mil-as-composite-concept/
Morrow, Debbie, "Helping College Students Climb Onto the Lifelong Learning Scaffold and
Grapple with Real Life Skills" (2011). Presentations. Paper 6.
http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/library_presentations/6
Mr. Aziz El Hassani is Multimedia Librarian at Al Akhawayn University Library. He
coordinates Information Literacy Instruction Sessions for AUI Library Services. He holds a
Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratization from the University of Malta. He is
currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah in Fez,
Morocco - (The  Laboratory of Discourse, Creativity and Society: Perception and
Implications). His doctoral research explores the role that Information Literacy plays in
higher education, focusing on the experience of two Moroccan universities.
Email: a.elhassani@aui.ma
© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved