Educators of the Information Society: Information Literacy Instruction in Public and Academic Libraries of Canada

As information literacy is a key competence of the information society, information literacy instruction in public as well as academic libraries is crucial. Today, librarians do not only act as providers of information but also as educators of the information society’s citizens. This study aims to assess the perceived quality of information literacy instruction in libraries of Canada’s informational cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Therefore, librarians were interviewed by means of a questionnaire inspired by the SERVQUAL diagnostic tool. The questionnaire comprises of two parts: The first part consists of questions regarding information literacy instruction, in the second part the focus is on the seven competence areas of information literacy. Based on the difference between the librarians’ “Expectation” and “Experience” scores, gap scores for all questionnaire items were calculated and are now being presented and discussed. At the same time, results of public and academic libraries are compared to show the differences in information literacy instruction and the perceived value of the different information literacy competence areas.