Information Literacy: Essential skills for the information age

Acacia Wilson

IL

Eisenberg, M. B. (2008). Information literacy: Essential skills for the information age. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 28(2), 39.

Summary: This article discusses The Big6 process for information literacy. The process has six steps: (1) Task definition, (2) information seeking strategies, (3) location and access, (4) use of information, (5) synthesis, and (6) evaluation. Students have to understand the task before they can begin the process, they then move into information seeking strategies, which may include selection of possible sources and how to find the most appropriate/reliable sources. Next, is the actual location of sources, followed by using the information from the sources and determining how to do that. Then students will synthesize sources to determine how to organize and present them. Last, students will evaluate the process and the results to determine effectiveness and efficiency. He also discusses how to integrate and teach technology during the information process and the importance of embedding information literacy instruction into real units, instead of creating units simply to teach information literacy.

Review: This article does a great job of breaking down the information process and giving tips for how to teach it effectively. The break-down is easy to understand and the author gives clear steps to follow. A few seem to overlap and seem similar. Mostly step two and three, which sound the same and are a bit difficult to distinguish between. From what I understand step two must be teaching information seeking strategies, where step three is actually seeking the information. Overall, I recommend it as a helpful article for breaking down the process and giving a good overview of information literacy and how to go about teaching it.