Literacy in an Information Society.

Abstract

t one time people were considered literate if they could write their names. But society has grown more complex, and today literacy i s more appropriately defined as the ability of individuals to find, read, and evaluate the information needed to function as productive members of soci ety. This expanded concept supports all the various literacies (for example, cultur al, technical) inherent in the information age. To promote this broader notion of literacy, we must individually and collec tively face and resolve two major issues. First, educators must examine their programs in light of the ever-changing, information-abundant environment in which current and future generations must exist. To meet today's information needs, many educators are already mov ing away from prepackaged materials to learning. Placing less emphasis on lectures, textbooks, work books, reading lists, and reserve materi als, they are directing their students toward resources from a variety of disci plines and from multiple information sources: on-line databases, videotapes, government documents, and journals. This resource-based encompasses the resources of the school library media center, the community, and the world. Pushing back the walls of the classroom, it allows students to explore the many forms in which infor mation appears. This variety allows for variances in preferred learning styles among students who may. for example, learn more comfortably with visual ma terials or computer-assisted mediums than solely with print materials. It also provides more up-to-date information than print materials and creates new pos sibilities for student work, such as video term papers, audiotaped oral history, film criticism, and the like. Second, citizens who are serious about improving teaching and learning must support their community, school, and academic library media centers. Once a means of education and a better life for many of the 20 million immi grants of the late 1800s and early 1900s, public libraries endure today as poten tially the strongest and most far-reaching community resource for lifelong learn ing. But libraries need adequate funding to maintain their print and nonprint collections and to network with elec tronic databases, including those of other libraries. Despite initial costs, co operative sharing among schools, the public, and academic libraries can achieve real savings over time. With their expertise in information, its organization, and its technology, librarians complement teachers subject area strengths. Such partnerships are now necessary for using real-world resources to achieve learning objectives for courses. But face it—such partner ships are difficult to achieve because li brarians have image problems. That is. many educators do not perceive them as dynamic contributors to the learning process. But they can be—and should be! After children learn to read, teach ers and librarians must work together to have children learn how to find and use information from CD-ROMs, networks, audiotapes. and so on. Knowing how to locate and select the information they need is a means of per sonal empowerment for students. It allows them to verify or refute expert opinion and to become independent seekers of truth. By letting students ex perience the excitement of their own successful quests for knowledge, this kind of literacy creates the motivation for pursuing learning throughout their lives. In our efforts to combat illiteracy, information literacy—not just teaching people to read—should be our goal. Lj

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