By the year 2020, those now commencing school will have emerged into a variety of contexts. Despite their years of education, these young people may lack the skills of information literacy that an information age demands. One reason for this could be a lack of information literacy vision on the part of their educators. The term Information Literacy was coined in the1970s and has, since then, developed a substantial academic literature. Despite the acknowledged need for information literacy, to date there has been little in the way of a comprehensive vision of information literacy development. Ideally, such a vision would accommodate both the vertical and lateral transitions students make as they proceed on their educational journey. One starting point is to perceive learning as a lifelong endeavour, the information literacy needed for that endeavour being the responsibility of all the participants in the learning process. A model which presents information literacy as a continuum offers a framework which allows the whole information literacy journey to be conceptualised by the participants. The model presented here fulfils the challenge put by those developing information literacy standards to convert those standards into a useable continuum. It attempts to chart information literacy development form novice reader-writer to independent researcher. As well as having practical, pedagogical application, the information literacy continuum may provide a framework for future research.

Keywords: information literacy, graduate attributes, information skills