Information literacy and the curriculum in Latin American higher education

Abstract

This article presents the theoretical analysis of various authors on the importance of Information Literacy (IL) as one of the central aspects in the curriculum for Latin American universities. This analysis seeks to determine the causes that affects the integration into the curriculum and finds, among others, that the teaching of this skill is taught by professors who are not researchers, there is a lack of effective communication between the library and the university, and pedagogical preparation of librarians for their teaching. Subsequently, some recommendations of the possible solutions are made to integrate into the study plans, such as involving the librarians together with the academics in the curricular design, generating new librarian profiles, offering library subjects in the first semesters of the degree, developing the interest of students in learning this skill, as well as influencing their curiosity to investigate.

Keywords

• information literacy
• research skills
• information technologies
• curriculum
• higher education