Newcastle University

There are many varying understandings of the term "information literacy" These pages are based on the following perception:

Information literacy is about an individual's attitude to their learning and research such that they are explicitly thinking about how they "use, manage, synthesise and create information, in a wise and ethical manner, to the benefit of society", as part of their learning life. In this view, information literacy is central to learning and research and is about changing people's learning attitudes and habits so that they understand how information fits into their learning lives. [Bent, M, New Review of Information Networking, 13 (2) 2007]

As well as involving a broad understanding of the information world, information literacy encompasses specific information skills, which can be learned as transferable skills and competencies within a subject context. At Newcastle we have based our information literacy programme on the UK SCONUL Seven Pillars model of Headline Skills for Information Literacy.

We want to encourage all staff and students at Newcastle to become more information literate in aspects of their lives. You can join the IL Forum to find out what others are doing here, use the IL Toolkit to discover resources and ideas to use in your teaching and follow the links for further information about information literacy.

Contacts: if you have any queries about information literacy, please contact Moira Bent or your Liaison Librarian.