Information Literacy Divide: The language factor

Abstract

The research reported on this poster sought to investigate how language proficiency affects information literacy. Using visual representations and some text, this poster will seek to illustrate the axiom that language barriers are a significant contributor to the information literacy divide worldwide. Practical implications from the study are presented: the study provides working definitions of the terms Information Literacy Divide and Multilingual Information Literacy (MLIL), and proposes several solutions to the problem of language barriers, primarily, the use of multilingual information access tools (MLIA) and includes examples of these. The study highlights the role(s) that different stakeholders could play in promoting and facilitating Multilingual Information Literacy. The stakeholders include among others: Information Retrieval (IR) system designers, Library & Information Science professionals, translators, online information service providers and publishers. Collaboration amongst these stakeholders is seen as key to achieving success in enhancing multilingual information literacy and in turn reducing the information literacy divide. The study also highlights the role that international library and information science organizations such as the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Librarians Without Borders (LWB), Global Information Literacy Network (GILN) and International Librarians Network (ILN) could play in initiating and facilitating collaborative partnerships.