The panel’s objectives are: to propose ways to develop an international research agenda for Information Literacy (IL); and to gather specific ideas from the panel's audience about how this can be achieved. Whilst a few research agenda have been drawn up for IL, these have been restricted in a number of ways, tending to focus on a specific sector or specialism, and often in the context of a specific country (e.g. ACRL IS Research and Scholarship Committee, 2021; Hicks et al., 2024; Partridge et al., 2008). They have also involved a restricted group of contributors, generally library and information practitioners and/or researchers. This excludes contributors to the IL research base outside the library and information community, such as researchers in other disciplines and policy researchers (see Webber & Johnston, 2025). The ILIAD (Information Literacy Is A Discipline) collaboration aims to lead the development of a more inclusive and wide ranging IL research agenda, building on the work in Kaufmann & Maybee (2025).
Topics will include: Who should be involved in developing the agenda; How the different contributors could be involved; Practical ideas for developing, promoting and implementing the agenda; Some possible themes and mission for the agenda. The audience will be engaged by soliciting feedback and ideas in person and through online contributions (via Slido or Padlet) and participants will also be informed how they can be involved after the session.
Sheila Webber (Chair and panelist) will outline the different groups who contribute to the IL knowledge base, and the contextual factors affecting them. John Budd will speak to the traditions and history of information literacy. Karen Kaufmann will identify how cross-institutional and international collaborative research can be drawn on to develop an agenda. Clarence Maybee will highlight efforts to explore the role of IL in addressing information challenges in various contexts. Bill Johnston will propose ways of engaging contributors using inclusive and deliberative methods. We will conclude by identifying ways forward to make the ILIAD collaboration into an ongoing organisational focus for building a research agenda, and the potential role of The European Conference on IL (ECIL) and its contributors.
[Note that we did not make the abstract longer because if it was longer it did not fit on one page]
References
ACRL IS Research and Scholarship Committee. (2021). Research agenda for library instruction and information literacy. https://tinyurl.com/3as9rfc7
Hicks, A., Grant, V. & Jenkins, C. (2024) From hierarchies of exclusion to participant-led inclusion: A qualitative research agenda for health information literacy. Library & Information Science Research, 46(2), Article 101295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2024.101295
Kaufmann, K. & Maybee, C. (Eds.). (2025) [Forthcoming]. The information literacy handbook: Charting the discipline. Facet Publishing.
Partridge, H., Bruce, C. & Tilley, C. (2008). Community information literacy: Developing an Australian research agenda. Libri, 58(2), 110-122. https://doi.org/10.1515/libr.2008.013
Webber, S. & Johnston, B. (2025) [Forthcoming]. Information literacy: framing the discipline. In K. Kaufmann & C. Maybee (Eds.). The information literacy handbook: Charting the discipline. Facet Publishing.
