Webber & Johnston, Hepworth and Boekhorst

Webber & Johnston define information literacy as an efficient and ethical information behaviour.

"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).

 

Hepworth (2000) highlights two main approaches to information literacy that are evident:

  • the most common tries to identify discrete skills and attitudes that can be learnt and measured and highlights works of Doyle (1992), the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000) and the SCONUL approach (SCONUL, 1999).
  • The other emphasis the information literate mindset associated with how an individual experiences and makes sense of his/her world, the work of Bruce illustrates this approach. This analysis seems to reflect to some extent the approaches identified by Bruce (1997) and is described as the behavioural, constructivist and relational approaches to information literacy.
Albert Boekhorst

Albert Boekhorst (2003), from the Netherlands, finds that all definitions and descriptions of information literacy presented over the years can be summarized in three concepts:

  • The ICT concept: Information literacy refers to the competence to use ICT to retrieve and disseminate information.
  • The information (re)sources concept: information literacy refers to the competence to find and use information independently or with the aid of intermediaries.
  • The information process concept: information literacy refers to the process of recognizing information need, retrieving, evaluating, using and disseminating of information to acquire or extend knowledge. This concept includes both the ICT and the information (re)sources concept and persons are considered as information systems that retrieve, evaluate, process and disseminate information to make decisions to survive, for self-actualisation and development.
He also sees the process of becoming information literate as a lifelong endeavour that should be started at primary school and be a part of formal training in all phases and all subject areas during the whole education process and suggests the consideration of information literacy/illiteracy in information-rich versus information-poor context.

 

 

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Sirje Virkus, Tallinn University, 2009