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3. The Worldwide Multilingual
Information Literacy Resources
Project
To deal with multilingual issue, it was felt that a simple inventory of
some of the most important, but at the same time selected,
information literacy resources in many, if not most of the world’s
major languages, as well as many of the less widely used
languages, could be useful not only to LIS and other professionals,
but especially to ordinary people, students and non-specialists as
well, especially those with lower educational achievements. It could
be useful, too, to people who do not have any, or very few
opportunities to attend workshops, seminars, or other similar
gatherings where information literacy is taught, learned and
discussed, because of geographic, financial, government
entitlement, or for other reasons. Also, those living in remote rural
and isolated communities are at a distinct disadvantage, as
mentioned earlier.
In other words, while most senior LIS professionals are bilingual
and fluent in both English and their native language(s), many less
highly educated people, including ordinary laypersons, students,
non-specialists and disadvantaged persons are neither very fluent
in English, nor even bilingual in a second major language other
than English such as French or Spanish, but are, of course, fluent in
their native language(s), which may include one or more regional
languages and/or dialects. And while they may be passably fluent
in speaking English, many more are neither fluent in reading nor in
writing English. Many non-anglophone junior professional staff
fresh from college and university training, K- 12 students, a
sizeable fraction of young and middle aged adults, most older
ordinary citizens (especially those with lower educational
Overview of Information Literacy Resources Worldwide |28