History of the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy

The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy is one of the best-known models for teaching and understanding information literacy. It is especially associated with higher education, academic libraries, research skills, and student information use.

SCONUL stands for the Society of College, National and University Libraries. The model became influential because it gave librarians, teachers, and higher education institutions a clear structure for explaining how learners develop information skills. It showed that information literacy is not only about finding sources. It also includes recognizing information needs, planning searches, evaluating sources, managing information, and presenting findings ethically.

Background Before the Model

Before the Seven Pillars model appeared, libraries and higher education institutions were already concerned with students’ ability to find and use information. Students needed to search catalogues, use indexes, locate books and journal articles, understand references, and use information in academic assignments.

As higher education expanded and information sources became more complex, these skills became more important. Students were not only expected to receive information from lecturers. They also needed to search independently, evaluate sources, and use information in essays, reports, projects, and research.

At the same time, the growth of computer-based searching and electronic resources changed the way students accessed information. Information skills were no longer limited to physical library use. Students increasingly needed both library skills and information technology skills.

This background helped create the need for a model that could explain information skills in a structured way.

The 1999 SCONUL Position Paper

In 1999, the SCONUL Working Group on Information Literacy published Information Skills in Higher Education: a SCONUL Position Paper. This document introduced the Seven Pillars of Information Skills model.

The 1999 model was important because it presented information skills as a developmental process. It recognized that students needed more than basic library or IT skills. They needed a wider ability to understand information needs, search effectively, evaluate results, and use information appropriately.

The model helped answer an important question for higher education:

What should an information-literate student be able to do?

The model was especially useful for academic librarians and teachers because it gave them a language for planning information skills teaching. Instead of treating research skills as one general ability, the model divided information literacy into related areas of development.

Why the Model Became Influential

The Seven Pillars model became influential because it was practical. It could be used by librarians, lecturers, teachers, and learning support staff to design information literacy sessions, research skills lessons, and student guidance materials.

It also became useful because it connected information skills with academic success. Students in higher education need to identify research questions, search for sources, judge quality, manage references, avoid plagiarism, and communicate findings. The model gave these tasks a clear structure.

Another reason for its influence was that it could be adapted. Although it was developed in a higher education context, its ideas were relevant to many learning situations. Teachers and librarians could use it with different subjects, levels, and research tasks.

The model also helped show that information literacy was not only a library issue. It was part of learning, teaching, research, and academic development.

Why the Model Needed Updating

By 2011, the information environment had changed greatly. Students were using search engines, online databases, digital journals, websites, electronic books, social media, digital media, and many new forms of online communication.

The meaning of information literacy had also expanded. It was no longer enough to speak only about library and information skills. Learners also needed to deal with digital information, visual information, media messages, academic literacy, information handling, data management, and ethical use of online content.

Because of these changes, the original model needed to be updated. The basic idea of the Seven Pillars remained useful, but the language and scope needed to reflect a wider information world.

The 2011 Core Model

In April 2011, SCONUL published the updated Seven Pillars of Information Literacy: Core Model for Higher Education. This version shifted the language more clearly from “information skills” to information literacy.

The updated model described information literacy as an umbrella term. It included related areas such as digital literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, academic literacy, information handling, data curation, and data management.

The 2011 model also presented the Seven Pillars in a more flexible way. It was not meant to be a rigid staircase where every learner moves through the pillars in exactly the same order. Instead, information literacy development was described as continuing, holistic, and shaped by the learner’s context.

This is important because real research is not always linear. A student may begin with a question, search for sources, discover new information, revise the question, search again, evaluate sources, and change the final presentation. The learner may move between pillars as understanding develops.

The Idea of “Lenses”

A major development in the updated model was the idea of lenses. A lens is an adaptation of the core model for a particular group, purpose, or context.

For example, one lens might focus on researchers, another on digital literacy, another on a particular educational level or learner group. The core model remains the foundation, but the lens helps apply it to specific needs.

This made the model more flexible. It allowed teachers, librarians, and institutions to adapt the Seven Pillars rather than use a single fixed version for everyone.

For teacher education, this idea is useful because different learners need different kinds of support. A school student, undergraduate, trainee teacher, researcher, and professional educator may all need information literacy, but not in exactly the same way.

Timeline of Development

Influence and Use

The SCONUL Seven Pillars became influential because it helped educators organize information literacy teaching. It gave a common language for discussing what students need to do when they work with information.

The model is useful for:

• library instruction
• research skills teaching
• academic writing support
• teacher education
• digital literacy planning
• source evaluation lessons
• plagiarism prevention
• student project work
• ICT-supported learning

For teachers, the model is helpful because it breaks research into teachable parts. If students produce weak research assignments, the problem may not be laziness. They may be struggling with one part of the information process: identifying the question, planning the search, evaluating sources, managing notes, or presenting findings.

The model helps teachers locate the problem and provide better support.

Common Mistakes

A common mistake is to think the Seven Pillars began as a digital literacy model. The original model was introduced in 1999 as a model of information skills in higher education. It later became broader as digital information environments expanded.

Another mistake is to treat the 2011 Core Model as a completely new model with no connection to the 1999 version. The 2011 version updated and expanded the earlier model while keeping its basic principles.

A third mistake is to treat the Seven Pillars as a fixed checklist. In real research, learners may move back and forth between pillars. They may revise their question after finding sources, change their search plan after poor results, or return to evaluation while preparing a final presentation.

The history of the SCONUL Seven Pillars shows how information literacy changed from a focus on information skills into a broader understanding of how learners find, evaluate, manage, create, and communicate information in complex academic and digital environments.