* Dr. Muhammad Fathi Abdel Hadi

Initially: the term Information Literacy is used interchangeably with other terms such as: information illiteracy eradication, information awareness, information culture, and information competence. There are many definitions for (Information Literacy): perhaps the most prominent is: the ability to determine the need for information, search for it, access it, understand it, evaluate it, and use it efficiently in making decisions, solving problems, and other purposes. In another way, information literacy is: knowing: - When do you need information? and why? - Where do you find it? - How do you evaluate, use, and communicate it in an ethical way? It means a set of skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to know when information is needed to help solve a problem or make a decision, how to formulate this information need in search terms, then search effectively for information, retrieve it, interpret it, understand it, organize it, evaluate its truth and reliability, estimate its relevance, communicate it to others when necessary, and then use it or benefit from it to achieve various purposes. It is in this form a way of learning, or a mixture of ways to acquire the experience of using information. It is worth noting that information literacy is a member of the family of literacy necessary for the individual in the twenty-first century, which are: Basic or Core Literacy: which is sometimes called functional literacy, meaning: learning reading, writing, and performing arithmetic or digital operations so that the individual can have the minimum ability to live in society and deal with it. Computer Literacy: it means: the set of skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to understand and operate the basic functions of information and communication technology, including devices and tools. Such as: personal computers, laptops, iPods... etc. It is divided into two types: hardware literacy and software literacy. Hardware literacy means: identifying the basic features and functions of personal computers and laptops... etc. while the second type refers to learning how to use different types of application software packages, such as word processing and so on. Media Literacy: means the set of skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to understand and use the different types of media through which information is communicated from the sender to the receiver, and thus using newspapers, magazines, radio, television, compact discs, mobile phones, and text formats HTML and PDF. Cultural Literacy: it means: knowledge and understanding of the influence of cultural factors on the creation, storage, processing, communication, preservation, and archiving of data, information, and knowledge using technologies. In other words, an important element in understanding information literacy is the knowledge of how cultural factors positively and negatively affect the effective use of modern information and communication technologies. The information literate individual: is the one who realizes the importance of information and knows how to determine the need for information, how to find it from different sources, evaluate it and use it effectively, and then refer to it correctly, which makes others learn from him after that.

Information Literacy Life Cycle Stages:
These stages can be generally identified in four stages as follows: • Identifying the need for information. • The ability to search for information and access it. • The ability to analyze and evaluate information. • Using information efficiently. They can also be detailed as follows: First Stage: Verifying that there is a need or problem that requires information for a satisfactory solution. Second Stage: Knowing how to accurately determine the information needed to meet the need, solve a problem, or make a decision. Third Stage: Knowing how to decide or determine whether the needed information exists or not, and if it does not exist, knowing how to create the unavailable information (i.e., creating new knowledge). Fourth Stage: Knowing how to find the needed information if it has been determined that it already exists. Fifth Stage: Knowing how to create the unavailable information needed; sometimes called: creating new knowledge. Sixth Stage: Knowing how to fully understand existing information, or knowing where to for help when needing to understand it. Seventh Stage: Knowing how to organize, analyze, interpret and evaluate information including the source's credibility. Eighth Stage: Knowing how to communicate and display or present information to others in usable forms and appropriate media. Ninth Stage: Knowing how to use information to solve a problem, make a decision, or meet a need. Tenth Stage: Knowing how to preserve and store information and reuse, record, and archive it for future use. Eleventh Stage: Knowing how to dispose of information that is no longer needed and preserve information that must be protected. Gaining Information Competence:
It was previously said: an information-literate individual is one who possesses the skills, knowledge, and experience to search for information and use it efficiently to achieve his als in the shadow of an electronic environment moving with rapid steps in development. The question now is how can an individual acquire the necessary information competence? This can be done through education and training. Education might be by introducing information literacy into curricula and linking it to various specialties, across different stages of education, i.e., starting from primary education until university education. It is also possible to be done by introducing a study course within the study programs for students specific to information skills. This has already been implemented in many Arab countries under different names: such as the (Library and Research) course in general education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the (Research and Library Skills) course in the secondary stage in schools in Qatar, and a course for students on information skills in Qatar University and others. This comes after many studies confirmed the general weakness in testing basic competencies for information and self-learning and the necessity of having credit-hour study courses on information skills within university curricula. One study indicated that it was found that the educated graduate is not the one who has an amount of information facts in a field, but rather the person who knows how to find the information he needs, evaluates it, and uses it in an effective way. In addition to independent courses or activities embedded in general education courses, there is training that can be done through multiple methods, including what is now available on the internet. Thus, acquiring the skill of using information tools, sources and technologies has become a basic weapon before any individual looking forward to a better future, and training is considered the basic door to possessing these skills and enjoying their advantages. Generally, information literacy for students requires cooperation between educational leaders, teachers, administrators and librarians, and this last catery has an important role because libraries are the repositories of knowledge and its gateways. Four important things remain to be noted in this regard: - Information literacy for the average citizen, where building this literacy requires using multiple means to reach making the culture of using information and communication technology part of the society's fabric and thought. - Information literacy for children, where this field needs a real breakthrough to build a new culture stimulating this trend for all the society's children. - Technology applications for the disabled, where information and communication technology proved its great importance in integrating the disabled into society. - Training the elderly on modern technological means, as these elderly people were not born in an electronic environment, but they live in it now, and there is no escape from learning how to deal with this new environment so they can adapt to it and reap its fruits. Role of Libraries in Information Literacy:
Libraries play an important role in information literacy for their users as gateways to traditional and electronic information. Hence, they work on obtaining appropriate information sources, and providing easy and fast access to information sources in all their forms, as well as training users for effective exploitation of information sources, and taking the lead in raising information literacy levels in the institutions to which they belong. Note that the information specialist in the library is the human mediator who deals effectively and efficiently with sources, equipment and users within a harmonious system; he is also the teacher, guide, mentor and assistant for those in need of him. Information Literacy Standards:
Given the importance of an individual being information literate in the era of information society so he can deal with the requirements of this society, some professional and educational institutions in many countries, such as the USA, Britain and Australia, have set standards for information literacy. Examples of these standards: Information quality standards for student learning: issued by the American Association of School Librarians, a branch of the American Library Association in 1998. The standards aim to provide a conceptual framework and general evidence to describe the information literate student. The standards are divided into three cateries, including nine standards and twenty-one performance indicators. Information quality standards (Australian): issued by the Council of Australian University Librarians in 2001. The standards are divided into two parts: Part One: as an introduction clarifying the term, the information literate individual, the need for information literacy, and information literacy in higher education. As for Part Two: it included the standards, numbering seven standards. Information literacy competency standards for higher education: prepared by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in the United States in 2000. It provides a framework for evaluating the information literate individual, consisting of five standards and 22 performance indicators. The standards focus on the needs of students in higher education, listing a series of outcomes to evaluate students' progress towards information literacy. They serve as guidelines for teachers, librarians and others to develop appropriate ways to measure student learning and help in determining the abilities we want students to develop or grow. The five standards are: - Standard One: The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed. - Standard Two: The student accesses the needed information effectively and efficiently. - Standard Three: The student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his knowledge base. - Standard Four: The student uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose. - Standard Five: The student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally. Some suggestions: - Considering (Information Literacy) a national issue not specific to a certain field or institution or a specific group of society, as it turns out that many countries set national programs for information literacy as one of the components of the modern information society. There is no meaning for wealth of information and the penetration of modern technological means in all life activities if the individual cannot benefit from them or deal with them due to the lack of ability for od use. - The need to set Arab standards for information competence that can be used as a guide in planning for information literacy programs and also in evaluating them. - Encouraging the establishment of associations for information literacy or branches or specific groups for information literacy affiliated with existing library and information associations. - Attention to introducing independent courses on information skills carefully planned within general and university education, as well as attention to setting comprehensive plans for training in the field of information literacy, and it can be done through centers specialized in this field affiliated with universities or large libraries. - Attention to preparing qualified cadres to achieve education or training efficiently in the field of information literacy.

* Faculty of Arts – Cairo University