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Librarians in educational settings try to provide not only physical access but also intellectual access to recorded information. Because digital resources constitute a significant portion of this information, librarians need to pay explicit attention to the effective retrieval and use of these assets. More specifically, users should have the ability to understand both the information itself and the medium through which it is conveyed. These competencies are known collectively as information and communication technology (ICT) literacy.

Many librarians have shied away from ICT literacy, concerned that they may be asked how to format a digital document or show students how to create a formula in a spreadsheet. These technical skills focus more on a specific tool than on the underlying nature of information. Nevertheless, librarians know that the medium impacts how information is communicated and experienced. It is that aspect of technology that librarians can address as they extend their work with instructors, especially for technology-enhanced instruction.

Academic librarians increasingly play an instructional role in students' scholarly lives. Traditionally this instruction has consisted of just-in-time reference desk help and one-shot presentations, often to demonstrate the use of databases. In this model of instruction, the link between the librarian and the course instructor consists of the students themselves, who are usually self-motivated to ask for help.

More recently, however, librarians have begun to use an embedded model as a way to deepen their connection with instructors and offer more systematic collection development and instruction. That is, librarians focus more on their partnerships with course instructors than on a separate library entity. Through such partnerships, the integration of ICT literacy can be tracked from the process of course development to the assessment of students' final projects.

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