By cultivating information literacy in your community, you can empower community members to navigate today’s complex information environment and make informed decisions. Adapt the steps on this page to build information literacy in your community.
Learn more about this page and how you can use it to support your own information literacy work.
Know Your Community
Building information literacy starts with learning about your community’s needs. Listening to and learning from community members is the best way to identify skill gaps that can make it harder for people to find, access, and use information. For example, some people in your community may not know how to use a computer or where to find accurate information online. Keep in mind that community members may face different challenges depending on factors like age, cultural background, income level, and experience with technology.
Real-World Examples
Find out how library, museum, and education professionals across the country have learned about their community’s needs.
The Kansas Children's Discovery Center developed Learn, Play, Protect Classroom Kits to promote childhood vaccination and address vaccine hesitancy in the local community. To inform program planning, the Discovery Center team asked community members what they needed and how the Discovery Center could help. They learned that listening is the most important step to implementing a similar community-based information literacy program.
The SLC Public Library serves thousands of refugees every year. Community members frequently ask for help with online tasks like navigating websites, managing passwords, and creating email accounts. Through these interactions, the library identified gaps in digital literacy skills and created the Digital Navigation Program. More than 500 participants showed an improvement in digital literacy after completing the program. The library also developed the Digital Navigator Toolkit so other practitioners can implement similar programs in their communities.
ULC provides support to a network of over 190 libraries across the U.S. and Canada and the communities they serve. ULC leverages data and research from a variety of sources like news, maps, books, and local politicians to identify the communities and populations that would benefit most from an information literacy program. The organization also explores how identity, social determinants of health, and systemic barriers may impact literacy rates and social outcomes within community groups.
Design an Approach
When know your community’s needs, you can design a tailored approach to information literacy programming. Consider the cultural norms, communication preferences, preferred information sources, and trusted local leaders in your community. Throughout this site, you’ll find resources to help plan information literacy programming. If you have a small budget or limited staff, consider incorporating these existing resources or adding information literacy elements to an existing program instead of starting a new program from scratch.
Download ready-to-use materials. Streamline your information programming by using our lesson plans, tip sheets, community engagement templates, and more. Get started:
- Use the Tools to Teach toolkit to deliver digital, financial, and health literacy lessons in your community
- Explore the Tools to Engage toolkit to find resources to spread the word about your programming and connect with community members
Real-World Examples
Find out how library, museum, and education professionals across the country have designed information literacy programming for their communities.
FSU focuses on climate and environmental literacy, working primarily with Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking high school students and students in vocational tech schools. The university leverages current programs and resources from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create heat maps. NOAA provides the equipment for data collection at no cost and youth participant collect the data as part of the initiative to build climate and science literacy skills. In addition to collecting data, the youth participants also conduct research. They use their findings to create communication campaigns and design materials, including posters for their communities.
Kansas Children’s Discovery Center took an innovative, playful approach to designing an intervention to increase health literacy skills and address vaccine hesitancy among Kansas families. The Discovery Center developed Learn, Play, Protect Classroom Kits in partnership with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to improve health equity and increase vaccination rates, focusing on communities with high rates of infectious disease transmission. This collaboration with the state health department established the museum as a trusted resource for potential funders looking for partners to achieve their goals.
In addition to working with public health experts and teachers, the Kansas City Discovery Center asked children to test their activities. This provided an opportunity to improve children’s health literacy skills and ensure the Learn, Play, Protect Classroom Kits would resonate with the priority audience.
Develop Partnerships and Find Funding
Partnerships can help you share resources and expand your reach in the community. Consider partnering with:
- Community leaders
- Community-based organizations, including nonprofits
- Schools
- Local health departments
- Community health workers
- State and local governments
- Local philanthropic foundations
You can find funding through federal and non-governmental grants for information literacy initiatives.
Real-World Examples
Find out how library, museum, and education professionals across the country have developed partnerships and identified funding for information literacy initiatives.
Highwood Public Library's programs are a great example of partnering with trusted community leaders and foundations to gain local support and funding. Highwood Public Library’s community includes many Hispanic residents who have recently immigrated to the U.S. The community lacked bilingual information literacy resources, which hindered finding employment and navigating health issues. The community trusts the library and has turned to their librarians for resources. The library has worked to address its community's needs and build trust, one person at a time. The library has also established a rapport with local elected officials.
The Cranston Public Library launched the Healthy Families Program to connect community members with health information, specifically focusing on households that speak more than one language. A partnership with a federal agency — the Network of National Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) — enabled the library to receive a Health Information Literacy Grant. That grant enabled the library to train staff to use Medline Plus to provide health information to patrons in up to 45 different languages. The library also invited doctors to train staff on multi-lingual and multi-cultural communication.
The Healthy Families Program was a collaboration between the library, the mayor’s office, firefighters, school districts, and other local community-based organizations like the OneCranston Health Equity Zone and the Cranston Senior Enrichment Center. By leveraging these local partnerships, the library provided information, services, and programs to address local issues in the community.
Evaluate and Sustain Information Literacy Efforts
Evaluate the impact of your program to assess whether community members have developed key information literacy skills. Demonstrating how your program has made a measurable impact in your community may help you secure funding to continue the initiative.
Keep in mind that evaluation doesn’t always have to be formal — it can be as simple as listening to feedback and making a change. The key to effective evaluation is collecting feedback regularly and using it to inform decisions.
Real-World Examples
Find out how library, museum, and education professionals across the country have evaluated the impact of information literacy programs.
The Leap into Science program — a partnership between the National Girls Collaborative (NGCP) and The Franklin Institute Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Scholars Program — set a goal to empower children to build literacy and critical thinking skills. Leap Into Science identified these key metrics of success:
- Foster positive attitudes toward science and literacy among children and adults who participate in the program
- Increase critical thinking and literacy skills for children
- Increase educator knowledge, confidence, and skills in facilitating science and literacy programs
More than 41,000 children and adults have participated in Leap programming, and more than 2,500 educators have been trained to deliver the program across 23 states. Children who participated in the program demonstrated information and scientific literacy skills like observing, questioning, and explaining. Parent participants showed a better understanding of how children learn science and literacy skills. Finally, educators who completed Leap training showed increased knowledge, confidence, and skills in leading science and literacy activities.
After its successful pilot launch in 2011, Leap into Science expanded to a national level in 2017 with a presence in 23 states under a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This successful sustainment and expansion reflect the strong partnership between a small, private, nonprofit organization and a large science center. Additionally, the initiative’s flexible and adaptable curriculum enabled local information literacy programs across the country to adapt the program based on their communities’ needs.