News:

• Project Information Literacy's (PIL's) latest research report, Lessons Learned: How College Students Find Information in the Digital Age was released on Tuesday, Dec. 1 (42 pages, PDF, 3 MB).

• Slate Magazine, November 4, 2009 – “National Awareness Month Awareness Month” – a synopsis of presidential proclamations

• Proliteracy highlights the October, 2009 National Information Literacy Awareness Month presidential proclamation

• The National Forum’s campaign a resounding success - President Obama declares October as National Information Literacy Awareness Month!

• Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy support Presidential Proclamation establishing October as National Information Literacy Month

• Gov. Schwarzenegger issues Executive Order on ICT Literacy

• New Project Information Literacy Video Released

• Vice President Appointed as Endowed Chair on Information Literacy

Dr. Sharon A. Weiner, Vice President of the National Forum on Information Literacy, has been appointed the W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair in Information Literacy in Purdue Libraries, Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. Read the Press Release >>

• 20th Anniversary Celebration:

The National Forum on Information Literacy will be celebrating its 20th anniversary on October 15th & 16th, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The theme for the two day celebration will be "Empowering Future Generations: Information Literacy." Plan to join us!
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• Project Information Literacy Progress Report:

The University of Washington Project Information Literacy Progress Report (.pdf) presents findings from college student discussion groups. Research will continue with a large-scale student survey. Alison J. Head, Ph.D. and Michael B. Eisenberg, Ph.D. are Co-Principal Investigators.

• Final Reports of the UNESCO Training-the-Trainers in Information Literacy Project just published!

What is Information Literacy?

What is the Forum?

- Information Literacy is defined as the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.

Alexandria Proclamation Team
Beacons of the Information Society
"Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning"

- The National Forum on Information Literacy was created in 1989 as a response to the recommendations of the American Library Association's Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. These education, library, and business leaders stated that no other change in American society has offered greater challenges than the emergence of the Information Age. Information is expanding at an unprecedented rate, and enormously rapid strides are being made in technology for storing, organizing, and accessing the ever-growing tidal wave of information.

The combined effect of these factors is an increasingly fragmented information base, a large component of which are available only to people with money and/or acceptable institutional affiliations. In the recent past, the outcome of these challenges has been characterized as the "digital divide."