One of the most widely accepted of these in the UK is the Seven Pillars model developed by
the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) originally in 1999 and
revised in 2011. The model has been adopted by librarians and teachers around the world as a
means of helping them to deliver information skills to their learners. SCONUL identifies
seven headline skills: (i) the ability to recognize a need for information; (ii) the ability to
distinguish ways in which the information 'gap' may be addressed; (iii) the ability to construct
strategies for locating information; (iv) the ability to locate and access information; (v) the
ability to compare and evaluate information obtained from different sources; (vi) the ability
to organize, apply and communicate information to others in ways appropriate to the
situation; (vii) the ability to synthesize and build upon existing information, contributing to
the creation of new knowledge.1