A Study of Information Literacy Capabilities of Police Officers of Punjab,

Pakistan.

By
Muhammad Kamran
PLIF18M008
University Of Sargodha
Introduction:
Information literacy is a skill that makes a person able to find, analyze and use
information to solve his personal or professional problems. information literacy
has been widely discussed in academia. American Library Association (ALA)
defines Information literacy as “A set of abilities requiring individuals to
recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate,
and use effectively the needed information”. “Information literacy” was first
introduced by Zurkowski (1974), who used the term in the workplace to identify
informational related challenges at workplace. Very few researchers have
worked on information literacy skills at workplace as focused on scientists and
office management. There is still lack of literature which focus especially IL
skills at workplace. With the advent of digital resources and devices, volume of
information has been increased in every field of life. Different formats of
information is available as “Information technology (IT) has fundamentally
changed information and record management from paper-based to digital-
based.”(Chen et al., 2002).Information literacy at workplace seems to be very
important in order to fulfill departmental needs and perform responsibilities and
duties by excellence. Employees must be confident and competent while
interacting with information for carrying out workplace responsibilities and
delivering maximum business value (Bruce 1999; Cheuk 2002, 2008)
Police department has been recognised as the top most integral security agency
across the country as it have to maintain law in order situation in every good
and evil . they are supposed to find the required information on their own by
using number of traditional or digital resources. There are few studies that based
on the IL skills on the police officers of Kuwait region, but in Pakistan, any
study regarding information literacy skills of Police especially Punjab police has
never been done. This study aims to measure the information literacy skills of
police officers through survey method. The study will further guide competent
authorities about skill level of officers ,their problems in finding information
and training level that has been done after their appointment.