Information Fluency

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” Thomas JeffersonUVA

Why bother?

It has always been important to be educated, to be informed. What has changed dramatically from the past is both the quantity of information we’re dealing with today and the exponential way this information continues to grow.

An IBM study predicts that by 2010 digital information will double every 11 hours C-Net
In 2002 (almost 7 years ago) we were producing 5 exabytes of new data in a single yearHow Much Information?. That’s the equivalent of 37,000Libraries of Congress How Much Information? or every word ever spoken by human beingsPowers of Ten.
92% of the new information created in 2002 was stored on hard disks or other magnetic media. Only .01% was printed on paperHow Much Information?.
In July of this year there were about 12 billion searches made. Google was used for about 62% of those searchesSearch Engine Watch.

With the increased access to information and the exponential increase in content being created remaining “well-informed” has become both far easier and far more complex. The informed citizen of this generation will have to quickly sift through huge amounts of data. To do that efficiently and effectively requires a structure and an awareness of how their thought process impacts this process. Students must be able to think critically about what they’re looking for, the quality of what they find and then how to use it to the best advantage.

While access to information from a myriad of sources is virtually instant, today’s society requires the informed citizen to:

QUESTION – determine exactly what it is they need to know
LOCATE – effectively and efficiently find needed information in an increasingly vast sea of data
EVALUATE – correctly assess information looking for bias, accuracy and applicability in a world where media manipulation is increasingly complex
ORGANIZE – archive and organize the information they find in ways that will facilitate its current and future use
USE – re-purpose that information in a way that is ethical, useful and powerful

Information fluency is the ability to recognize what information is needed as well as to efficiently find, evaluate and ethically and effectively use that information.Association of College and Research Libraries Schools have always addressed these needs but now the application of these skills have changed and the need for all students to be masters of these skills has increased with the move from an industrial to an information based societyInformation society refers to a situation where information and communication technologies are integrated in industrial production and information dissemination in all fields. Technology instigates a new approach to the production, distribution and consumption of information. Information society refers to a situation where information becomes a source of income generation; where employment is found mostly in the information sector. Furthermore, information society embodies the utilisation of this information in the creation of knowledge. Washington Statue University.