Presentation to SLA Europe networking event, 21 May 2015, by Stéphane Goldstein (Research Information Network and InformAll inititiative) How is information literacy relevant in workplace settings? It is not usually recognised as a term and a concept by employers, but it is present implicitly in many of the attributes and competences that employers look for; and also in the information-sharing practices that organisations deploy. IL can be shown to be associated with important organisational success factors, such as operational efficiency and competitiveness. The challenge is to demonstrate more explicitly to employers across all sectors – commercial, public and not-for-profit – that they have an interest in ensuring that their staff are competent and confident in the way that they use, analyse and disseminate information. It is therefore important to persuade enterprises of the value that an information literate workforce can bring.

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The value of information literacy
to employers
Stéphane Goldstein – Research Information Network / InformAll
SLA Europe
University of Liverpool (London Campus) – 21 May 2015

2. • A coalition of partners working together to promote the value of information and
research data literacy in HE and beyond
• A collectively-run programme to enable activities which help to advance LIS
knowledge and skills
• Grant-funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England until early 2015,
managed by the Research Information Network
• Changed its name from RIDLs June 2014
Important premise:
• Partners not limited to the library world: others players have a stake!
• Important to build a network that capitalises on different outlooks
• Academic librarians, data management specialists, career & professional development
experts, information sciences researchers… and now reaching out to stakeholders
beyond academia
What is InformAll?
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3. Some recent developments on IL and employment
• Report on IL as a transferable attribute for individuals moving from HE into
employment (Goldstein, 2014)
• Annotated bibliography on IL in the workplace (Williams, Cooper and Wavell, 2014)
• Literature review on IL as an attribute of employability (Inskip, 2014)
• Roundtable on information competencies in the workplace, organised jointly by CILIP
and InformAll, March 2015
• New project on the value of IL for employers, commissioned by the CILIP IL Group
and undertaken by InformAll in association with the University Manchester, March-June
2015
• This work reflects an emerging dialogue between interlocutors at the interface
between HE and employment to consider jointly how IL relates to their policies and
practices
How might we capitalise on this work?
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4. IL is relevant to employment settings…
…even if not recognised explicitly
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“Librarians, college educators and accrediting agencies are placing increased
emphasis on promoting the development of information literacy skills in their
students. At the same time, the business community has acknowledged the
importance of the “knowledge worker”. The problem is that corporations do not
yet formally recognize information literacy as a core competency for their
workers, even though these same corporations do in practice require information
literacy skills on the job”
Klusek and Bornstein, 2006
This was true nine years ago, and it probably still is…

5. Information literacy by another name
How might IL be recognised in the workplace?
• Workplace IL places an emphasis on:
– social, informal, contextualised processing of information
– ability to make sound judgements about information in the workplace (‘information discernment’)
– the transformation of information into knowledge
– information creation, packaging, and organisation
– data sharing
• IL contributes to factors that are more obvious or familiar to employers, e.g.:
– problem-solving
– analytical skills
– research skills
– ability to handle large volumes of data
• In the workplace, people are key information sources – tapping into their expertise and
accumulated knowledge; information processing is a shared activity
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6. The value of information literacy to businesses
• Operational efficiency and business opportunities, through the promotion of
company-wide knowledge creation, sharing and using
• Underpinning important workplace processes, including information processing,
information/records management, R&D, professional ethics/code of conduct
• Organisational competitiveness and profitability, through:
– the competence to use information effectively
– a strategic approach to information
• Success in the marketplace, through recognising the impact and significance of
accurate and timely information
• Critical business value, through the fostering among staff of confidence and
competence in interacting with information
• Conversely, lack of IL has a significant financial cost, through time wasted as a
result of inefficient information search strategies
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7. Further business challenges that IL might address
• Business communications
• Workplace learning
• Dealing with information overload
• Coping with uncertainties
• Decision-making
• Ensuring evidence-based practice
Scholarly literature in recent years suggests that all these factors are
influenced by IL in the workplace
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8. Digital literacy: a means of promoting IL?
• Digital literacy and skills increasingly recognised as a policy issue over the
past year (and also as something of value to the economy and society):
– UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Strategy (April 2014)
– UK Digital Taskforce report, Digital Skills for Tomorrow’s World (July 2014)
– House of Commons report on Responsible Use of Data (November 2014)
– Go ON UK’s definition of digital skills (2014)
– House of Lords report on the UK’s Digital Future (February 2015)
– and at a European level, Framework for Digital Competence, under the auspices of
the European Commission (Ferrari, 2013)
• Digital literacy often perceived by policymakers as a ‘tecchie’ issue: ICT skills,
computing skills, coding… This perception needs to be corrected!
• Digital literacy overlaps with IL, and because of its currency, it could be used
as a vehicle for carrying messages about the value of IL
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9. Conclusions
• In order to underline the value of IL for employers, important to explain how IL
relates to attributes and factors that are important to them, and relevant to their
respective businesses
– Explaining what IL means in order to set out clearly the skills, competencies and capabilities that it
relates to
• Need to demonstrate how IL contributes to employability
– Translating the information competences acquired through education (particularly the higher-level
competences associated with critical thinking) into know-how that is useful for employers
– Looking at complementary roles that schools, colleges, universities and employers can play in
training to ensure that IL forms part of the employability ‘package’ – important role played by
careers advisers/employability managers
• Getting key players to incorporate IL into their thinking and practice
– CBI, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, National Centre for Universities and Business…
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10. References
• Ferrari, A., 2013. A Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence in Europe. Joint Research Centre, for the
European Commission. Available at http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC83167.pdf
• Go ON UK, 2014. Basic Digital Skills Definition. Available at http://www.go-on.co.uk/basic-digital-skills/
• Goldstein, S., 2014. Transferring information know-how – Information literacy at the interface between higher education and
employment. InformAll. Available at http://www.researchinfonet.org/infolit/ridls/transferable-skills/transferable-il/
• HM Government (Cabinet Office), 2014. Digital Inclusion Strategy. Available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-inclusion-strategy/government-digital-inclusion-strategy
• House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, 2014. Responsible Use of Data. Available at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmsctech/245/24502.htm
• House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills, 2015. Make or Break: the UK’s Digital Future. Available at
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/digital-skills-committee/news/report-
published/
• Inskip, I., 2014. Information literacy is for life, not just for a good degree: a literature review. CILIP. Available at
http://www.cilip.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/IL%20in%20the%20workplace%20literature%20review%20Dr%20C%20I
nskip%20June%202014.%20doc.pdf
• Klusek, L. and Bornstein, J., 2006. Information literacy skills for business careers. Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship,
11(4), pp. 3-21. Abstract at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J109v11n04_02#.VRQH_-G2rGw
• UK Digital Skills Taskforce, 2014. Digital Skills for Tomorrow’s World (interim report). Available at
http://policy.bcs.org/sites/policy.bcs.org/files/Interim%20report.pdf
• Williams, D., Cooper, K and Wavell, C., 2014. Information Literacy in the Workplace: an annotated bibliography. Robert Gordon
University Institute for Management, Governance & Society (IMaGeS) in association with InformAll. Available at:
http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Workplace-IL-annotated-bibliography.pdf
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11. Thank you for taking part!
Interested in joining InformAll? Go to
www.informall.org.uk - #informall
Stéphane Goldstein – stephane.goldstein@researchinfonet.org
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