Information literacy strategies in the digital age

This workshop-concept is the result of an investigation about the consequences of information literacy strategies within a digital world, where trends in information seeking behaviour are changing as younger generations become more familiar with internet technologies. The research, which is ongoing, aims to identify the implications of changing patterns of information seeking behaviour for information literacy strategies. Library-led information literacy initiatives, particularly in academic libraries shifted from training users to locate information in printed resources, to using and evaluating electronic full text and other sources. Although students are increasingly digitally literate and have highly developed skills in interacting with an online environment - does digital literacy affect information seeking behaviour? Are today’s students more proficient in locating information relevant to their needs than their predecessors, and is their learning enhanced within an electronic environment? Writers such as Allan Martin (2005, 2006), David Bawden (2001), Diana Oblinger (2003), and Lorenzo et al (2006a, 2006b) have commented on digital literacy and its implications for learning and information seeking behaviours amongst different user groups, while Nicholas et al (2004, 2005) and Spink et al (1999, 2001) have studied information seeking behaviour by the means of log analysis of scholarly databases and search engines. These studies have identified a paradigm shift in approaches to information seeking in the digital environment, noting a tendency for searchers to dip in and out of information sources without pursuing searches to any depth. The research is being carried out by reviewing the literature and analysing transaction logs of searches carried out on scholarly databases at UCL’s Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER) in the School of Library Archive and Information Studies. While it has been shown (Nicholas et al (2004), Spink et al (1999, 2001)) that the characteristics of information seeking behaviour are transformed within the digital environment, with searchers ‘bouncing’ from page to page, and employing quick and dirty search techniques, evidence of generational differences is currently being investigated. It is expected that the research will indicate the relevance of current information literacy programmes to increasingly digitally literate users, who are defining new information seeking behaviours. The trends identified in this paper will be of value to new entrants to the LIS profession to enable them to design information literacy strategies to meet the information needs of future students and lifelong learners, based on new paradigms in information seeking behaviour.