Webber, S. and Johnston, B. (2002) "Information literacy: the social action agenda." In : Booker, D. (Ed) Information Literacy: The th Social Action Agenda: Proceedings of the 5 National Information Literacy Conference. Adelaide: University of South Australia Library. 68-80. ISBN 0 86803-929-2. Information Literacy and Community: a UK perspective Sheila Webber, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, England. s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk The information literacy weblog. http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/ Bill Johnston, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. b.johnston@strath.ac.uk “My vision is of a nation where no-one is seriously disadvantaged by where they live, where power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few.” Tony Blair, foreword: Social Exclusion Unit. (2001) A new commitment to neighbourhood renewal. London: Cabinet Office. 1. Introduction We have headed our article with a quotation from the British Prime Minister which seems to signal a deep commitment to the idea of equality and community. This paper presents our own, alternative, perspective on the UK. Not that we see Blair's vision as undesirable: however, we would question whether the UK Government's policy and practice tallies with the blissful vision that Blair describes. There are two main parts to this paper. We provide a personal view (in section 2) of the social, political, economic and technical forces that constitute a context for community, and therefore a means of interpreting information literacy in relation to community. This is supplemented by a more factual overview (in section 3) of Government initiatives concerned with community, learning and IT, and of developments in information literacy. In the second part, we report the results of a pilot study (section 4) which examines information literacy within a localised community, and draw on a Government sponsored report (section 5) to provide another perspective on issues raised in the pilot survey. Finally, we identify areas for further research and draw conclusions. 2. Background: Influences on community and information literacy This section provides a brief PEST analysis of the UK situation, to provide a context for the discussion in later parts of the paper: i.e. it considers in turn Political and legal, Economic, Social and Technical factors. We are not economists, and this analysis is our personal one. For the first three factors we will illustrate the factors through a diagram and follow with a narrative explanation. First, we consider political and legal influences. 1