An article on Information Literacy

An article on Information Literacy


A discipline-based approach to information literacy
By Ann Grafstein
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28(4): 197-204, 2002.

If someone is looking for useful guidance on implementing information literacy programme in academic institutions, I would recommend this 2002 article, By Ann Grafstein.


This article proposes a "discipline-based approach to teaching information literacy, argues that the responsibility for teaching information literacy should be shared throughout an academic institution, rather than limited to the library. An outline of the complementary responsibilities of librarians and classroom faculty in teaching information literacy is presented" in the article.

Article outline:

• Librarians and IL: a historical context

• IL: the library and beyond

• Teaching IL: goals and objectives

• The focus of teaching: content or process?

• What is constantly changing?

• The risk of isolating process from content

• Librarians and classroom faculty

• The role of librarians: generic information skills

• Searching skills

• Generic critical thinking skills

• • timeliness.

• • authority.

• • bias.

• • verifiability.

• • logical consistency.

• The role of classroom faculty: discipline-specific skills

• • evaluating the content of arguments.

• • assessing the validity of evidence.

• • proposing original solutions.

The article concludes stating that "Librarians are responsible for imparting the enabling skills that are prerequisite to information seeking and knowledge acquisition across the curriculum. While classroom faculty have the responsibility of teaching those skills that are required for subject-specific inquiry and research."

Full-text available online at: LINK

R. Venkata Kesavan

Updated on Sunday, August 29, 2010 at IST 9.00 PM


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