Building information literacy

Library and Information Update magazine has a piece this month about encouraging information literacy among staff

The article describes information literacy and how it has become more important to organizations as they become "flatter" and information technology plays a larger and larger role in the way people communicate within the organization. I was pleasantly surprised to find the following, as I had been promoting "Working Intelligently Lunch" as a lunchtime discussion of how to get more out of the tools sitting on our desktops, focused on helping to organize and personal effectiveness. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything more about this "Working Smarter" program.

The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) has spent several months analysing IL needs and is planning a programme called 'Working Smarter'. This is an organisation where everyone has a large workload and a wide range of contacts and networks, and where sharing and transferring information and good practice is the core of its activity. For the IDeA, literacy isn't an option, it is essential to its work. Workshops about the concept have proved popular and have stimulated discussion about the skills required to operate effectively in a knowledge- and information-rich organisation.

Components of information literacy? The article lists "Find; Organise; Create; Use; Share; and Value" and gives a summary of what information literacy programs do to address each of these.