On Thursday, June 27, at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego, CA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced the launch of its nationwide Information Literacy Initiative. The multipartner project provides a website, InformationLiteracy.gov, that offers a wide range of ready-to-use tools and resources for library and museum professionals—trusted educators—to engage their communities to find, understand, evaluate, and share accurate information.

The website includes lesson plans and worksheets, community engagement and social media materials, examples of innovative work being done, and suggestions for partnership outreach—an important component for smaller libraries with limited resources—to support financial, health, and digital literacy skills. These areas of focus may expand in the future; the website will be updated quarterly.

The initiative “recognizes the importance of information literacy, writ large, to people’s daily lives,” IMLS Acting Director Cyndee Landrum told LJ. “The primary focuses right now are core areas for supporting people to make good life decisions, health decisions, financial decisions. That’s the starting point.”

In 2022, with the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, the U.S. Congress and White House invited IMLS to explore ways to improve information literacy across the country. Its goal is to disseminate training and technical assistance resources for professionals in libraries, museums, zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, arboretums, nature and science centers, archives, and other community-serving institutions.

To that end, IMLS assembled a task force of 14 additional agencies that have comprehensive and robust information literacy programs and/or federal financial backing, to help develop guidance, instructional materials, and strategies to improve information literacy skills. They include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Library of Congress, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Office of the Surgeon General, Social Security Administration, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Treasury, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Five convenings took place in 2023 to help develop the project’s approach, bringing together partner agencies and colleagues in the library and museum fields. In addition to finding out what resources the federal partners could contribute, “We wanted to learn how practitioners would use those resources, or what their approaches were, so that we can ensure that making those resources available were going to support them in the work they already do,” said Landrum. “Also, for them to do some sharing about the innovative practices that they engage in when they’re thinking about information literacy, whether that’s programs or resources that they develop that are information literacy–focused, or if they’re building information literacy into the design of programs and services that they [already] offer.”

In addition to gathering information from the initiative’s partners, IMLS has also funded recent pilot projects in libraries and museums that center the work it wants to showcase. “We know there are some states that are looking at information literacy as a critical skill set that needs to be built,” said Landrum, “and there are some existing projects in the museum and library world that needed to be amplified. We thought it would be a great opportunity to scale those up, because they could serve as a wonderful model for their colleagues across the fields.”

IMLS will be available at Booth 1853 at the ALA Library Marketplace throughout the conference, showcasing Information Literacy toolkits and answering questions about the project. The agency also welcomes feedback, and requests that library and museum professionals or other community stakeholders reach out at infolit@imls.gov with any questions or ideas.