Making This World A Better Place through Information Literacy: In4skill Campaign for Rural Communities

Abstract

This presentation explores the appropriate model of information literacy for rural societies to assist them in education, human development, economic development, social development and lifelong learning. Information literacy is a main catalyst for educational change transforming the rural societies of today to an information society of tomorrow, and to ensure that they are information literate societies. This will enable them to improve living standards, increase economic value and rise social welfare. Producing such societies will require a library to promote, integrated and teaching information literacy in to their programs. High information literacy (IL) skills will enable rural societies to improve their decision making skills, innovation capabilities and lifelong learning ability. The National Library of Malaysia (NLM) offers and provides comprehensive training to improve the IL skills among rural societies, with efficient instruction and high-quality training materials. The NLM specifically designed a training program to achieve the national agenda, including Vision 2020, development of a knowledge society and a knowledge-based economy. The NLM has also produced an IL model and module to develop practical and focused IL competencies, such as information searching techniques, information evaluation, etiquette and use of information to enhance the skills in this information-rich world. An In4skills campaign was also launched by the NLM to promote information skills among the Malaysia society. The NLM also facilitates IL education by providing free databases and building partnerships with other organizations to enable rural societies to access accurate information sources and gain the information needed. This presentation will share the experiences of the NLM in developing and implementing a program, module and teaching method that can be used by other libraries. It also proposes guidelines for developing effective media and information training for the rural society.