Page 243 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

242 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 7, 2015

makes the evaluation more comprehensive. It also clarifies the duties of the government
and the public library, that is, the public library should make effects to improve service
effectiveness and the government should provide conditions for the public library to enhance
its service capacities. In this process, the public library is confronted with great challenges
and opportunities.

On generation characteristics, changes of information environments and
innovation of information literacy education for college students

1 ∗
Jian ZHOU , Yan WANG & Iris XIE
College students of network generation have the basic ability to retrieve and judge
information, and the ability to share information and collaborate with others with social
platforms. However, university teachers and the executives in the job market maintain that
the ability of information literacy of current college students is not satisfying, which reflects
a deviation in the present objectives of information literacy education in universities. Besides,
current college students favor personalized training, interactive learning through e-media,
task-based learning and autonomous learning instead of traditional “chalk and talk” or
teaching in a big classroom.
This paper aims at analyzing the objective requirements of different information environments
for college students’ information literacy. In the meantime, based on the characteristics of current
college students and the characteristics of their information behaviors, it puts forward some
strategies of developing the students’ information literacy and innovating the main body of
education in the present information environment.
This paper adopts empirical method and literature analysis method. Through a survey on
the information behavior characteristics of the freshmen in a university, education activities
in the university library and education activities of information literacy in China and the
United States, it explores the generation characteristics of current college students and the
differences of information literacy education between Chinese and American universities.
Through the literature analysis of information literacy in the past 20 years, this paper finds out
the objective requirements of information literacy for college students in different information
environments.
The findings suggest that, first, the development of information literacy ability of college
students includes a three-layer structure, namely, the lower level of information retrieval skills,
and then critical thinking skills and IT capability closely related to their own professions, the
higher level of“independent thinking, epistemological cognition”ability and finally the ability

* Correspondence should be addressed to Jian ZHOU, Email: zhoujcn001@163.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-0780-5085