Information Literacy and Public Libraries

"Public Libraries and the Internet." Public Libraries and the Internet. University of Maryland, 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.

For this week's supplement to the reading, I chose a website that directly links information literacy (the topic of our readings) and public libraries. The site is called Public Libraries and the Internet and is run by the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. What I like about the site is that it supplies a lot of useful information ranging from the definition of information literacy to statistics on computer usage in public libraries. The goal of the website is to provide public librarians a tool to advocate improving information literacy in their libraries. It's a great tool for the working professional, because it's a one stop source of relevant data and statistics. One of the cooler features of the website is that it gives statistics about internet connectivity for each state  (here's the page for Wisconsin). For example, as of 2012 in Wisconsin 65% of libraries offer the only free internet access in their communities. It's information like this that helps librarians show that libraries are working to close the digital divide and offer new suggestions on how to improve what they are doing.