To lack the skills and resources to be online in today's world means being excluded from a great many activities and opportunities essential for life and growth. Government departments, corporations, community organisations and mass media now rely on the Internet, and a significant portion of the information found there is hard to find and impossible to retrieve from any other source. Governments are now requiring members of the community to perform activities online that once could be handled in person or by phone. And this trend is growing exponentially. Libraries are increasingly becoming the primary or only access point for people to become digitally literate and to have access to the digital world.
In Digital literacy and digital inclusion, the authors examine the inter-relationships between digital literacy, digital inclusion and public policy. They emphasise the impacts that policy decisions have on the ability of individuals and communities to successfully participate in the information society and the obligations these policies create. They bring together much of the dispersed related literature (witness a bibliography referring to almost 550 print and electronic resources) in order to explain the impact of policy decisions and to offer recommendations for improvements geared towards informing practice in libraries. Drawing on examples, programmes and policies from around the world, this book paints an international picture of what is being done to improve digital inclusion and support libraries in framing digital literacy, inclusion and advocacy-oriented policies.
Approaches range from strong government intervention to market-based solutions and all hybrid approaches between. Obviously more research is needed, particularly in the areas of evaluation and assessment, to measure the effectiveness of programmes already in place, to identify best practice and to investigate improvements. Libraries need to establish how people are using the library programmes, what benefits they are receiving and how additional disadvantaged groups can be encouraged to participate. Public policies recommended by the authors include maintaining budgets and involving library staff in policy decisions. Library staff, for their part, are encouraged to take the initiative in advocacy campaigns and encouraging collaboration with schools, non-profits and local government agencies to meet unique local community needs for twenty-first century information skills.
This book is an important and invaluable resource for library staff, managers, planners and policy makers as well as teachers and students. Digital literacy and digital inclusion are social justice and human rights issues, and it is not simply a matter of providing technology and assuming people will be able to use it. The unique knowledge and skills of library staff are a central part of protecting these rights.