Transitioning From Digital Literacy to Digital Citizenship: Issues and Challenges of Information and Library Professionals

Abstract

Efforts are afoot globally to make literacy the driving force at all levels of the teaching-learning processes and at all echelons in Higher Educational Institutions. UNESCO has always underscored the crucially important services of Library and Information Professionals (L&IPs) who are instrumental in motivating and facilitating the return of adult males and females to academic pursuits. Of late, in many and varied contexts encompassing not only educational institutes of every description but also work settings of all kinds, two critical aspects are being acknowledged as the real imperatives viz., Information Literacy  and Browsing the Internet for building a knowledge society. Digital Literacy (DL) skill is a more contemporary concept but is limited to practical abilities to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate, and create information using a range of digital devices and technologies. This article examines the issues and challenges of L&IPs in the transformational journey of DL to Digital Citizenship.