Information and education policies in Europe: key factors influencing information literacy academic policies in Europe

Information Literacy is a multidimensional phenomenon, intensively discussed in the literature as a skill and from the library perspective rather than as a policy issue. This is the main reason why in 2001 the author started the European network on Information Literacy1 (EnIL), with a research perspective focusing on the policy and research dimensions of Information Literacy and special interest in developments in the European Higher Education area. More specifically and according to the EnIL perspectives, the paper analyses Information Literacy as an issue regarding both education and information policies and discusses items related to the inclusion of Information Literacy in Higher Education curricula. The cross-borders view of Information Literacy - between Information and Education policies - widens the concept of Information Literacy, traditionally limited to the Information policy scope. Such a wider perspective is required due to a number of influential factors arising from the full establishment of the so-called Information Society, such as the mass access to information, the uncontrolled production process of large amounts of information, the constraints imposed on Higher Education by the market and by a new kind of demand from the labour market. After a look at Higher Education developments and trends, a set of building blocks for the "Bologna Process" applied to Information Literacy is outlined in the last section of the paper.