Information Literacy is the ability to identify when information is needed, understand how information is organized, critically choose and evaluate the best sources necessary to sufficiently satisfy an information need, find the resources deemed most appropriate, and disseminate the given information as needed. In a nutshell, Information Literacy is the ability to take all of the skills learned in school and apply those skills to satisfy an information need. When a student cannot come up with an answer on her own, an information-literate student knows how to find the answer using the resources she has at her disposal. Information Literacy challenges students to utilize their critically thinking skills in order to obtain the most relevant, accurate information possible on any given topic efficiently and effectively.
A librarian is an individual who has received his Master's degree in Library and Information Science from an accredited college or university. There are many different types of Librarians that specialize in many different library environments. Becoming an Academic Librarian or Media Specialist requires library school graduate students to focus their studies on creating and maintaining academic libraries. Academic Librarians spend time and energy researching and understanding the information needs of their students and as a result create resources and search strategies to help students satisfy these needs. One of the goals of Academic Librarians and Media Specialists is to ensure that students know how to use the library (both in the traditional sense, as well as the non-traditional/digital sense) to satisfy their information needs both as students and as lifelong learners.
There are a variety of ways that Librarians incorporate Information Literacy training into the general education requirements of a school's curriculum. In elementary school Librarians often design workshops and seminars for students that teach basic library skills. These skills include how to locate information in a library using a library catalog, how books are arranged on the shelves using the Library of Congress classification or Dewey Decimal system and how to use library databases to find scholarly journal articles. As students get older they learn how to execute more advanced search strategies to find more specific information in academic databases, and they also learn how to use their critical thinking skills to search the Internet for credible information online.
In college, it is expected that students know how to use a library to conduct effective research. University-level Information Literacy activities focus on using a student's critical thinking skills to identify what sources are most appropriate for satisfying an information need in addition to fine-tuning a student's Internet-searching skills. Much of the focus in college Information Literacy classes revolves around learning when to use the Internet and when not to, in addition to learning how to evaluate Internet sources for credibility.
In today's digital world, critical thinking and Information Literacy skills are more important than ever. The Internet has revolutionized the way we search for, receive and process information. While the Internet is an amazing tool, it is also one that is unorganized, uncensored, and unreliable if one doesn't have the skills necessary to know the difference between a good source and a bad one. The Information Literacy skill set taught by a Librarian teaches students how to utilize their critical thinking skills in order to be able to navigate through academic and Internet sources effectively and efficiently.