Generic and Discipline-Specific Information Literacy Competencies

Abstract

SUMMARY The Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Educationengage in a complex balancing of generality/universality and discipline-specificity in both their intended application and constituent competencies, the implications of which for library instruction have largely been unexplored. This article explores some of the tensions between discipline-specific and generic information literacy (IL) competencies as they relate to the sciences and suggests that disciplinary needs can largely be addressed through the application of generic standards. More problematic for IL in the sciences is the ahistorical and decontextualized nature of “general” discussions of IL and library instruction; misconceptions that the sciences are unreceptive to library instruction; and some of the rhetoric generally surrounding IL.

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