I like discovering new ideas and concepts but I also like looking at ideas that can be adapted to our place in time. One of those concepts that we need to take a look at is literacy. There are a lot of different ideas about the concept of literacy.

Literacy is so much more than the ability to read and write and perform simple arithmetic. Those skills could make you wealthy in the early 20th century but we are in the 21st century. The literacy skills we need in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic are the ability to understand, discern and employ skills across multiple disciplines using a variety of tools and technologies.

The cost of not knowing or having a wide breath of literacy skills is staggering. Here are a few examples and resources you can use to beef up your knowledge base:

Financial literacy is the ability to manage, save and invest their money. It is a group of skills that allow you to direct your finances and your personal economic safety. Anna Lusardi’s new blog Financial Literacy and Ignorance gives an academic and real world perspective on financial literacy:

“These findings raise concerns about the ability of women to make sound saving and investment decisions over a long retirement period. In an environment where individuals rather than employers and governments are charged with handing retirement finances, it is essential that consumers become more financially literate in order to be more successful at retirement.”

Health Literacy is the ability to "The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate decisions. (National Library of Medicine and used by Healthy People 2010 (the prevention and health promotion objectives set for the Nation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Parker & Ratzan, 2001)"

At the American College Physicians web site there is a very interesting video that demonstrates the high cost and potential damage having low literacy skills can cost a person or a family. One of the examples that struck me hard was when the doctor asked the patient how much was a milliliter dose of medicine and the patient said she didn’t know.

You might also want to take a listen to a podcast interview with author Helen Osborne about health literacy issues

Information Literacy is the ability to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. This might mean with traditional books and material or using the Internet. Blogs, wikis and twitterings in the night are certainly a part of the information literacy process.

This brings us to Production and Research in Transliteracy (PART). This is a project designed to look at all the old and new ways we are becoming transliterate. The definition of Transliteracy is "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.”

In order to survive in the information age we will become transliterate. It is not as scary as it sound. We do this intuitively on a daily basis. The trick is to constantly update our skill sets and to be aware when information is being used as a tool to assist us or to harm our well being and livelihood. All we have to go is gather the right tools for the right job.

The first tool is the willingness to learn.

CE Gena Haskett also blogs and vlogs at
Out On The Stoop and PCC LibTech