Overdue: Incorporating social justice into the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

Abstract

The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education was adopted by the ACRL Board in 2016. Many librarians, particularly those interested in critical librarianship and critical information literacy, were disappointed that social justice did not explicitly appear anywhere in the Framework. To be fair, multiple elements of the Information has Value frame describe social justice work, specifically the Knowledge Practice: “understand how and why some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information.”