Information Literacy as a Human Right

A clear line of argument can be set out to link the (passive) intellectual freedom rights by Article Nineteen of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human , to a consequent responsibility on governments, professionals and civil activists for the (active) creation of suitable conditions for the effective of intellectual freedom. Commentators on media in society and socially computing are also increasingly drawing conclusions of this kind and the importance of Media Literacy and Computer Literacy. This line of naturally directs attention towards the rationale currently offered for Literacy as a focus of professional activity. Whilst there are many worked-out programmes for Information Literacy instruction, these so far been largely derived from practical perceptions of need. However, broad such as the Prague Declaration ‘Towards an Information Literate Society’ 2003 and the Alexandria Proclamation of 2005 can be seen as beginning to point a rationale for Information Literacy activities rooted in human rights, Article in particular. The contention is that starting from a human rights perspective towards a strong, inclusive interpretation of Information Literacy. This Media Literacy, Computer Literacy, Web Literacy and, to a considerable , Civic Literacy into a model that serves human needs rather than the priorities of information professionals. The value of this approach for both and research is stressed.