Information Literacy in the Workplace

This report summarises the outcomes of literature-based research undertaken by IMaGeS1 at Robert Gordon University as a contribution to the work of InformAll2 on the relevance of IL in the workplace.
The research specifically addressed two key issues: How should we describe information literacy within workplace settings? What are the priority/key information skills and abilities related to the effective use of information in the workplace? Is there any evidence of the value and/or impact of information literacy in the workplace?
English language publications spanning the last 15 years were examined in relation to these questions. The analysis was restricted to publications which addressed IL and/or information use in the workplace. It was beyond the scope of this research to examine the wider range of material in associated areas such as learning and decision-making in the workplace: while such material could offer scope for a wider examination of the contexts within which information is used, the objective in this study was primarily to explore the ways in which IL is described (e.g. language used, priority skills areas, etc) in workplace settings and how this compares with more generic descriptions, and whether there is any evidence of the value and impact of information literacy in workplace settings.
This summary highlights the main findings with reference (by item number) to some of the specific contributions made by the 41 items in the accompanying table. The annotations in the table provide a brief summary of the content of each item. Notes are also provided in the right-hand column where the publications refers explicitly to the definition of IL.