Patricia Breivik introduced Erin Carney, Program Coordinator, Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc. National Capital Area and William Gordon, Executive Director, American Library Association.

The 1991 definition of literacy is to read, write and speak in English. The more advanced definition includes a spectrum of skills and life goals. The United Nations defines literacy as a basic human right. There are one billion people with low literacy skills in the world, they cannot compute and solve problems. One of five people in the United States is not literate. The National Institute of Literacy publication "Equipped for the Future" lists standards for literacy including cultural issues. (http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/eff.html)

Globalization of information literacy has resulted in recommending standards to UNESCO to help bring about information literacy worldwide. Cultural differences may affect literacy teaching and learning.

How does basic literacy and information literacy relate to the general population? Literacy has always implied the ability to function well in one’s society. In an Information Age, this means that individuals not only need to read but also need to be able to find, evaluate and use information to enhance their quality of life. Failure to access such information leads to a broadening gap between the haves and have nots. Key to success in meeting this challenge in many localities is public libraries working with community agencies to promote adult and information literacy--helping people achieve quality of life.

The minutes were approved as distributed.

The National Commission has had a continuing interest in the information literacy and three major activities in 1999 demonstrate this:

A White House millennium project involving sister cities pares US school age children with children from foreign countries using libraries and computers in child-to-child demonstration. The need for information literacy has become apparent.

A UNESCO initiative to broaden public access to government information worldwide using electronic access, there may even be initiatives in the future to broker information literacy standards.

The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science will address information literacy and related initiative at their February meeting in California.

Public library are very involved in working with their community to provide adult literacy and information literacy for their citizens.

There are many grant proposals related to literacy and information literacy. The State Library of Illinois has literacy outcome information. In 2000 the Institute will have $166 million available, $138 of this will go to State Library Agencies to support technology and outreach in all types of libraries. About $ 10 million are available for competitive grants in the National Leadership grant program. The museum grants fund has been increased by $500,000 and a new program Museums Online will be funded from the $19 million allocated for museums. Awards for library services will be announced in April during National Library Week.

IMLS is examining issues related to digitization and will clarify its role in helping libraries enhance the lives of the American people through access to digitized resources. Four goals have been identified to help IMLS in the examination of these issues to assess the status of current activities, to determine library administrators' interest and to identity how IMLS can promote this.

March 15-17 IMLS will host an invitational digital library conference in Washington, "Web-Wise: A Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World" with a focus on digital library development and IMLS support for digital library work.

The national conference for K-12 schools will be held February 22-24, 2000 in Washington, D.C. under the theme "Digital Divide or Electronic Equalizer?" It will examine school networking from the school district, state and national perspective in the area of technological leadership, content and integration, emerging learning tools and professional development in a visual world. The consortium is also developing a one-day workshop for school building personnel to increase core competencies of technology coordinators, media/library specialists, principals and others. A train-the-trainer format is being developed along with a comprehensive workbook underwritten by the Bell South foundation.

The Friends Annual Health Information Infrastructure conference will be held information consumer and the implications for healthcare providers in an increasingly digital world. The focus will be on consumer and health information on the Net, privacy/security in a digital world, telehealth and telemedicine and emerging tools and trends.

The US Commerce Department will visit various regional libraries like the New York Public Library and hold outreach workshops in New, Texas Los Angeles and California. The Network for People Conference included a panel on information literacy in which Breivik participated.

The recent activities of the National Council for Social Studies include workshops on information literacy. One of the conferences featured a panel of experts from various levels of education who discussed issues and trends facing educational technology for the 21^st century. The Council published "Surfing the Social Studies: The Internet Book" in November 1999 to assist in teaching the Internet for problem-based learning and to help assess Internet-based activities. To order the manual call 1-800-683-0812 or go to www.ncss.org/bookstore.

The Association established a Center of Accountability Solutions to gather use and report meaningful data on student, school and district performance. It is hoped that the Center will be especially helpful to superintendents in the area of statistics. The Association will holed its national conference on education March 3-6, 2000 featuring Steven Spielberg as speaker.

The last national conference of the Association, which focused on "Building Information Power – Partnerships," featured 25 session on information literacy.

AECT’s primary contribution has been our partnership with AASL to produce and then promote "Information Power: Building partnerships for Learning." (see http://www.ala.org/aasl/ip_implementation.html). Many of its affiliated organizations have held conferences and workshops devoted to putting these standards to work for students, and it was the focus of one strand of our "summer Institute in Scottsdale, AZ."

The Council has revised standards for teacher education including guidelines for technology in schools. A draft of the revision is available and comments are invited by March 1.

Published a brochure on information literacy to prepare teachers for technology and to integrate technology into teaching and to help teachers become information literate.

The Center specializes in providing legal services for the poor and has an information management advisory group for legal information.

The Association provides a forum for many teaching and learning initiatives and historically has offered many programs on information literacy.

The Association is working on information literacy with its members. Hinkle urged that the Forum

TeacherFest, the first national online conference for English and language arts educators held in October1999 drew over 1200 registrations. The conference used computer technology so that participants did not have to leave home. It was a highly successful conference and helped educators share information online in a real time environment.

Announced that there will be an online conference including international participants in March 2-4, 2000 entitled "Y2K Shakespeare" in the Folger Library in Washington DC. The Council is still working on validity issues of information on the Internet.

Announced that Educational Leadership vol. 57 for October 1999 includes an article on "redefining information literacy."

Althea Jenkins, Executive Director of the Association of College and Research Libraries, reported that a task force composed of representatives from academic librarians, faculty and accrediting agencies develop outcome measures for information literacy standards. Drafts of these standards have been shared with various professional organizations. Forum representatives discussed the proposed standards and gave suggestions for revisions.

Information literacy has been of much interest among librarians in Canada, Australia, Sweden, China, Taiwan, and Mexico.

Australia held their fourth national information literacy conference in December 1999 in Adelaide, South Australia. An outcome of this conference was the establishment of a working party to recommend guidelines for a National Information Literacy Institute. A draft statement is in preparation on "Information Literacy for the Nation." The 11^th Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians will be held in Singapore in April 2000 and will feature a segment on information literacy in the community and with business.

An outcome of the second national conference on information literacy in Mexico in September 1999 was a draft statement for information skills standards and instruction for Mexican librarians and higher education.

Discussions centered around planning an international leadership conference for information literacy in the United States after the International Federation of Library Associations conference in Boston, August 2001.