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Information Literacy in the United States: Contemporary Transformations and Controversies

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Information Literacy. Lifelong Learning and Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century (ECIL 2014)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 492))

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Abstract

While acknowledging that efforts in information literacy are a global, the paper concentrates on information literacy efforts in the USA. The American Library Association (ALA) issued in year 2000 a set of standards that provided a framework for assessing the information literate individual. By 2013 it was realized that many changes require an update and even new approaches to information literacy. At the start of 2014 ALA proposed an initial draft of a new framework for information literacy for higher education. A new definition of information literacy was offered, together with a new framework based on threshold concepts– critically reviewed in the paper. During 2014 several public debates were conducted; the new framework is scheduled to be finalized in 2015. The paper summarizes these debates, with particular emphasis of description and critiques of threshold concept, which is at the core of the new framework.

A much shorter version of this paper was presented at the 11th International Scientific Conference “Western Balkan Information Literacy,” Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 2014.

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Saracevic, T. (2014). Information Literacy in the United States: Contemporary Transformations and Controversies. In: KurbanoÄźlu, S., Ĺ piranec, S., Grassian, E., Mizrachi, D., Catts, R. (eds) Information Literacy. Lifelong Learning and Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century. ECIL 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 492. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14136-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14136-7_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14135-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14136-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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