Although conversations about information literacy have grown
substantially since the ACRL Competency Standards (2000) and the
Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2016) were
introduced, a significant amount of fuzzy concept use remains concerning
certain information literacy ideas. Sometimes this fuzziness is the result of
intentional omission, because the Framework and other official documents seek
to give as much latitude as possible for developing information literacy
instruction relevant to particular communities. This demonstrates a healthy level
of flexibility. Elsewhere, however, definitions of concepts circulate among
librarians that are problematically inexplicit. In this essay I will discuss one such
inexplicit concept—the “information ecosystem”—and offer considerations for
how to understand information ecosystems that are local to theological and
religious studies disciplines.