2/18/2015 Update: the framework has been approved! View it here.

Recently it was announced that the final draft of the new Information Literacy framework was submitted to the ACRL Board. This framework will be updating the existing Information Literacy standards which were approved in January of 2000. Following the 10 year review cycle, ACRL took up the task and determined that they should be significantly revised.

Starting on page 7, the final draft framework can be found here.

The updated Information Literacy framework is a radical shift from the existing IL standards. In it, ACRL has abandoned learning outcomes instead choosing threshold concepts as their main focus. “Threshold concepts are core tenets in a particular discipline that are transformative, irreversible, integrative, bounded, and potentially troublesome” (Meyer and Land, 2006, 7-8).

A lot has been written about threshold concepts but an excellent primer is the Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy article by Townsend et al. Also, for those that have the means, check out the Information Literacy Summit at Moraine Valley Community College in Illinois on April 10th.

These changes are applicable to academic librarians, but school librarians and media specialists should be aware of these changes too. As always, high school seniors who are going off to college will need to be familiar with Information Literacy!