Information Literacy

Information Literacy can be termed as a set of individual abilities to identify, retrieve, evaluate and use information that is appropriate to a particular requirement. It is the adoption of appropriate information behaviour to identify, through whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs, leading to wise and ethical use of information in society. 
To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information. The information literate individuals are those who have learned how to learn. Scholars who develop information literacy skills will be more successful in their studies and their daily lives. These skills are an essential element in becoming a lifelong learner. An Information Literate student is one who is able to: 
• Recognise his information requirements
• Analyse and formulate queries based on his information requirements;
• Identify and locate potential sources of information; 
• Design, develop and successfully use various search strategies;
• Evaluate information gathered from various sources and in various formats;
• Use information in critical thinking and problem solving;
• Use information ethically; 
• Integrate new information into the existing body of knowledge;
• Effectively communicate the knowledge and ideas with rest of the world;
Introduction
Historically the term information literacy was first used in print by Paul G. Zurkowski in 1974 in a report written on behalf of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. The phrase was used to describe the "techniques and skills" known by the information literate "for utilizing the wide range of information tools as well as primary sources in molding information solutions to their problems". Although other educational goals, including traditional literacy, computer literacy, library skills, and critical thinking skills, are related to information literacy and important foundations for its development, information literacy itself has emerged as a distinct skill set and a necessary key to one's social and economic well-being in an increasingly complex information society". 
The complete information environment is changing rapidly, be it the form, format or resources. The abundance of information available through the Internet in public domain in the form of subject gateways, e-books, e-journals, subject and subject concept based web pages, etc., as well as the information available through different subscription based databases made available by various hosts and aggregators, is bound to play a very important role in teaching, learning and research, particularly in higher education and R&D institutions.

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