INDEPTH


Lift-off for the media and information literacy alliance


As reported in the October-November issue of Information Professional, the Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA) is a new initiative, co-sponsored by CILIP and the CILIP Information Literacy Group, aimed at securing greater recognition for information and media literacy (MIL) in society at large. Stéphane Goldstein discusses MILA’s aims and how it will achieve them.


MILA was successfully launched during UNESCO’s Global MIL Week at the end of October, with two online webinars run on consecutive days in England and Scotland. Having laid some foundations over the summer, the Alliance is now ready for lift-off.


The case for MILA Why MILA, and why now? Information literacy (IL) has long been promoted by academic librarians and has a substantial body of peer review research at its foun- dation. But in the UK, IL has mostly been poorly understood and has not featured in the worldview of policymakers and practi- tioners beyond the information professions. For many years, CILIP’s Information Liter- acy Gropup (ILG) has sought to engage with a variety of players, including civil servants, third sector bodies and educational organ- isations, but with limited success. While such organisations have often understood the arguments in favour of IL, for the most part, they’ve not really been able or willing to integrate them in their strategies, policies and practices. Advocating for IL, and even just raising awareness of it, has therefore often been challenging, in part because many players have not understood how IL differs from digital skills and digital literacy. Attitudes may now be starting to shift, albeit slowly. Arguably the most notable factor influencing this shift was the publi-


32 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL


Stéphane Goldstein is Executive Director of InformAll. He is the coordinator for MILA and Advocacy and Outreach­


­Officer­for­CILIP’s­Information­Literacy­Group.


cation, in July, of the Government’s Online Media Literacy Strategy (https://bit.ly/3ru9nuC), driven by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), alongside the Draft Online Safety Bill (https://bit.ly/3AeZgh6)


January-February 2022


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