Information literacy is the ability to find information, evaluate it, and use it effectively.
In today's global information environment, the ability to locate, analyze, synthesize, and use information is a skill critical to sorting through the information overload created by new and expanding communications media. These skills are so integral to higher education and life beyond it that the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools has identified information literacy as one of the essential components of a college education. Information literacy skills that prepare students to navigate effectively in a paper or electronic environment are interdisciplinary skills that can be applied to virtually any field. As students consider college majors, graduate, and make career changes, those with information literacy skills will be active participants in the marketplace of knowledge workers. They will be able to find the resources they need to make the best consumer, career, and community decisions.