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A National Focus for Information Literacy
Development
CJ de Jong, University of Winnipeg
session 2a / Thursday, May 11 / 1:30 - 3:00
pm
Research has indicated the rising importance
of the knowledge economy in Canada, where workers in a variety of sectors rely
increasingly on information and their abilities to handle information
effectively (Baldwin & Beckstead, 2003). Many librarians have been working
to introduce information literacy skills into the curriculum programming at
their institutions for many years. They have worked with faculty, teachers, and
administration to highten awareness, create information literacy skills focused
assignments, and develop support for information literacy programming. Yet,
Canada falls behind many countries who have national standards for information
literacy skills and policies for developing information literacy in educational
programming.
This session will look at a variety of nations
and the information literacy policies they have developed on a national level
and how their education systems implement information literacy development.
This will be compared to Canadian provincial and federal government levels.
Also, the efforts of Canadian organizations, who work on a national scale to
promote information literacy in Canada, will be reviewed together with key
documents that have been produced. Finally, discussion will be stimulated
around developing a framework for information literacy development on a
national scale, so that we may chart a Canadian course for information literacy
instruction.
Baldwin, J. R. & Beckstead, D. (2003).
Insights on the Canadian Economy: Knowledge workers in Canada's economy, 1971
to 2001. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada.
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