Developments in Information Literacy in Pakistan: Background and Research.

This paper provides an overview of information literacy (IL) developments and reviews related research in Pakistan. Although there is sizeable literature on IL worldwide but that reported from Pakistan is very limited. The academic insituations do not make any provisions for imparting IL training in their curriculum. The IL instruction offered, to a large extent, is at the stage of infacny which does not succeed in achieving the basic goal of developing students' IL self-efficacy. Library orientation is the most popular which incorporates some searching techniques. The involvement of faculty and management in IL instruction is almost non-existant. Lack of IL policy, lack of training opportunities, poor liaison between librarians and faculty, lack of awareness about the importance of IL instruction by the management, faculty and students were the primary impediments for developing and implementing it. This review overwhelmingly indicates a critical need for a comprehensive, large scale, and nationwide examination of students' IL skills and information anxieties in Pakistan. It is proposed that Higher Education Commission should take initiative for developing a national IL programme for all educational institutions in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]