Scope of information literacy support provided by university libraries in the Czech Republic: state of the art report

Abstract

The diversity of university libraries in the Czech Republic is currently not represented by number of foreign students with different social or cultural background, as these numbers are relatively low in the meantime. The real diversity is introduced by variety of approaches to information literacy education and amount of professional services provided to students and teachers as well as to the academic staff in general. In the paper the system of university libraries in the Czech Republic will be shortly presented as well as the main conceptual and legislative documents whose influence on the shape of information literacy education may be recognized as critical. The level of information literacy among students will be presented based on data acquired in surveys from 2004 and 2005. Baseline facts and information on key players in the field of information literacy at university libraries in Czech Republic will be given (e.g. Information Education and Information Literacy Working Group, IVIG). On the basis of information literacy surveys from 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008 the diversity, scope and progress of information literacy support provided by university libraries will be presented in detail together with the main educational tools (face-to-face and eLearning courses) and approaches used in Czech university libraries. Paper focus as well on the information literacy projects which affects the environment of information literacy education at Czech universities (e.g. portal on information literacy INFOGRAM, conference of the Czech information literacy working group IVIG). In conclusion current projects and their assumed impact will be mentioned (e.g. National Cluster of Information Education in the Czech Republic). Even though there is number of successful ongoing projects in the field of information literacy in the Czech republic, we are still facing a considerable number of problems which may need to be carried out by a reasonably targeted information literacy initiative. The main problems, aims and possible solutions will be foreshadowed in the paper.