© Copyright 2000 State University of New York & Ulster County Community CollegeWe must keep in mind that information or raw data is not knowledge. Individuals achieve knowledge by using their own experience, distinguishing the important from the irrelevant and making critical value judgments. In 1989 a Presidential Committee on Information Literacy said: "To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." (American Library Association) Just being in print does not make something accurate. Data is Not Knowledge
In the earliest version of this course, several years ago, one student had enrolled for a specific reason: to learn to research her mother's health problem. A few months after the course ended, she wrote and said that the information she had located in MEDLINE (a medical database) had been sent to her mother who then asked her doctor to read it. The doctor read it, tried the treatment recommended in this recently published article, and her mother made a complete recovery. This student became an influential advocate of information literacy - even before that term was coined. An Example
So welcome to Information Literacy (LIB 111).
