2025 Preprints

Two Decades of Critical Information Literacy: A Review and Analysis of the Literature

Tewell McCord, Eamon C.

Critical information literacy (CIL) uses teaching and learning in libraries to understand and act upon oppression in information systems. Over the past twenty years critical information literacy has been explored, refined, debated, and critiqued. What can the recent literature tell us about the direction of CIL and critical librarianship more broadly? This research explores CIL’s recent past through an analysis of 128 publications from 2016-2024 and four thematic areas. Lastly, this article identifies issues and failings of CIL and considers what should come next as a theory and practice that seeks to move information literacy towards more liberatory aims.