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Call for Papers
Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science
The Global Challenge of Information Literacy
In his speech to the 1999 graduating class at the
University of Toronto, Anthony Comper, then President of the Bank of
Montreal, stated: "Whatever else you bring to the 21st century
workplace, however great your technical skills and however attractive your
attitude and however deep your commitment to excellence, the bottom line
is that to be successful, you need to acquire a high level of information
literacy. What we need in the knowledge industries are people who know how
to absorb and analyze and integrate and create and effectively convey
information—and who know how to use information to bring real value to
everything they undertake."
Indeed, full engagement in our "information society" is
impossible without some level of information literacy. Success in school,
postsecondary education, the workplace, and everyday life is dependent to
some degree on information literacy. This dependency crosses all
geographic and demographic contexts; information literacy truly is a
global concern.
However, information literacy is a complex and
often misunderstood concept, encompassing a range of skills, processes,
attitudes, and understandings about information.
As Shapiro and Hughes (1996) note, "… information
literacy should … be conceived … as a new liberal art that extends from
knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection
on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its
social, cultural and even philosophical context and impact - as essential
to the mental framework of the educated information-age citizen as the
trivium of basic liberal arts (grammar, logic and rhetoric) was to the
educated person in medieval society."[1]
Given the recognized importance of information
literacy, what is its place on the policy agenda? What are the outstanding
theoretical issues with respect to information literacy that should be
debated? Who is being tasked with developing information literacy among
citizens, and how are these efforts being resourced and promoted? Many
stakeholders have responsibility for information literacy promotion and
education, including governments, librarians, teachers, and parents—how
should relationships among these various groups be managed? What are best
practices for information literacy instruction? How can we effectively
measure the impact of education for information literacy?
Articles related to any aspect of information literacy
are invited for Vol. 32, Number 1 (Winter 2008) of the Canadian Journal
of Information and Library Science (CJILS). The deadline for
submission is June 29, 2007. Complete manuscripts of approximately 5000
words should be sent to Heidi Julien, School of Library & Information
Studies, University of Alberta, 3-20 Rutherford South, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada T6G 2J4. For manuscript guidelines please refer to "Notice to
Contributors" which is included in each issue of the CJILS and on
the journal’s website (http://www.cais-acsi.ca/journal/guidelines.htm).
[1] Shapiro, Jeremy J. and Shelley K. Hughes.
"Information Literacy as a Liberal Art." Educom Review. Vol 31 No.
2 March/April 1996.
http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/review/reviewarticles/31231.html
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