Mobile Information Literacy: Mobilising existing models?

Just a few years ago it was the norm to access the internet through a fixed line, with perhaps small numbers of users using WIFI to connect devices such as laptops. Increasingly, as this conference recognises, it is now becoming the norm to connect wirelessly through devices as diverse as laptops, netbooks, iPads, cell phones, handheld gaming devices and even digital cameras. A Morgan Stanley (2009) report on the mobile internet said in December 2009, “The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years.” Our search behaviours must surely be changed once more by the ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere’ nature of the mobile web. In this presentation I will discuss how the mobile web is changing what it means to be information literate and challenge us all to start the development of new models of mobile information literacy.