Implementing the curriculum was the natural next phase after the creation and publication of ANCIL. The subsequent Arcadia Programme project, Strategies for Implementing ANCIL,1 had two separate but complementary strands, one a 12-week project examining methods of implementing ANCIL within the University of Cambridge, and the other a 10-week project investigating strategies within non-Cambridge higher education institutions (HEIs). The focus of this latter investigation of potential strategies within non-Cambridge HEIs was to identify existing provision of information literacy teaching and find out which members of staff are involved in the delivery.

Information literacy has long been believed to be primarily the domain of academic librarians. In 1999 the SCONUL Information Skills Taskforce echoed Biddiscombe's (1999) assertion that ‘There are few academic library services that do not now regard the teaching of information skills as an important part of their mission’, arguing that:

The SCONUL research revealed some variations, and showed that in new universities library staff spent more time teaching – increasing over the previous six years 1993–1999 from 22 to 28 hours – whereas the research-led universities tended to spend less time on teaching (the figures were 6 to 17 hours). The report concluded that, despite the variation in time spent, the trend was clearly increasing overall: the ‘number of users receiving orientation or post-orientation sessions is increasing overall from 36% to 46%, while appearing to be constant in the “new” universities at 60%’ (SCONUL, 1999, 7).

Information literacy teaching has developed considerably since SCONUL first launched its Seven Pillars of Information Literacy. There is also a growing understanding that: