As digital literacy is leading to significant increases in the quantity and range of
information that can be readily accessed, new technologies are adding to the convenience,
speed, and accuracy with which readers can work with this wide variety of information
sources. Not only is there an ability to locate a single word or phrase in a mountain of
digital documents, but electronic indexes and databases enable readers to readily sort
through centuries worth of publications, finding relevant materials on a given theme. That
is, digital literacy can be cast, to a considerable extent, as a form of information literacy
that demands skilled navigating through, searching for, and making sense of relevant and
reliable information. Or, as Richard A. Lanham noted in Scientific American, "the word
`literacy,' meaning the ability to read and write, has gradually extended its grasp in the
digital age until it has come to mean the ability to understand information, however
presented" (1995, p. 198).