Slides for Shira Atkinson and Kindra Becker-Redd's presentation at the Around the World Conference (4 May 2017).
Abstract:
Fake news presents real problems. While misinformation has always existed, the internet and social media have allowed it to proliferate and wield unprecedented influence on public opinion and discourse. In the United States, fake news helped to determine the 2016 presidential election and it continues to inform national and state policies in harmful, counterproductive ways. Information professionals, and particularly librarians, are seizing this moment to demonstrate the power of their expertise by formulating new tools that can help the public navigate the so-called ‘post-truth world’. These tools capitalize on librarians’ command of information literacy and promote a skills-based approach that is not only essential to the foundations of research but vital for the very well-being of democracy. The presenters will discuss the different tools that librarians and other information professionals are creating such as research guides, videos, infographics, apps, and other types of media; evaluate the challenges and limitations of existing tools and approaches; and consider future implications and actions for librarians.
1. Gate Keepers to
Tour Guides
How Librarians Can Help You Navigate the Post-Truth World
2. Who are we?
Shira Atkinson
Scholarly Communications and
Distance Learning Librarian
Shira facilitates open access initiatives, especially through
Fordham's digital repository. She is also involved in the Libraries'
initiatives to improve digital and information literacy among
students through teaching classes, assembling a Fake News
Research Guide, and planning a video.
Kindra Becker-Redd
Reference and Instructional
Services Librarian
Kindra works extensively in student outreach promoting library
services and programs. Additionally, Kindra is involved in Fordham
University Libraries' information literacy initiatives, some of which
include developing a Fake News research guide, the production of
outreach materials, and the promotion of best practices via social
media.
3. Evolution of
Library Roles
Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Card
catalog and seated readers. From http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
4. Evolution of Library Roles
Traditional understanding of library roles - gatekeeping or gateways
Terminology is important!
Technology changes everything
If people aren’t seeking traditional reference services, how are we serving them?
Gatekeeper → gateway → tour guide
Not simply about creating access to knowledge but guiding people through the pitfalls of that access
7. Information Literacy in the Digital Age
New information platforms require new IL techniques
Focus on:
More empathy for users’ abilities
Knowledge of information seeking behaviors and needs
Understanding of emerging technologies
8. State of Information Literacy
Students are unable to tell the difference between ads and real information 1
People rely on friends and family to determine trusted sources 2
Students may value coverage, currency, convenience, comprehensibility over
credibility 3
“Digital Natives” - a heterogeneous population
1. Stanford History Education Group. (2016). Evaluation Information: The cornerstone of civic online reasoning: Executive Summary.
https://sheg.stanford.edu/
2. Wellman, B., & Haythornthwaite, C. (2002). “The Internet in Everyday Life.” Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
3. Colón-Aguirre, M., & Fleming-May, R. A. (2012). “You Just Type in What You Are Looking For”: Undergraduates' Use of Library Resources vs. Wikipedia.
Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 38(6), 391-399. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2012.09.013
9. State of Information Literacy Ctd.
Real information is confused with purposefully fake information
Quantity of information presents challenges
Unfiltered access to “news” through social media platforms
Married couple who are fraternal twins
Man murdered someone and posted the video, took 2 hours to come down
10. Information Literacy & Democracy
Democratic participation requires access to information and communication
technologies
Civic literacy is now online and should be “insinuated into the warp and woof of
education” 1
Access to information and channels of communication are imperative to the free and
open discourse needed in a democracy
1. Banks, M. (2016). Fighting Fake News: How Libraries can lead the way on media Literacy. American Libraries Magazine.
12. What Can we do?
What gates?
Focus on specific standards within “broad conceptual frames”
Ensure that users can not only access but IDENTIFY real information
How can we play an active role
Classes and workshops
Libguides
Apps
13. Online Classes
Advantages:
Offer direct interaction between a librarian and a group of students
Use the session to teach broadly about different kinds of information
Learn directly from students what their needs and expectations of the librarian areDifficulties:
Easy to overestimate students’ knowledge and abilities
Relatively time-intensive
14. Research Guides
Advantages:
Self-paced learning and exploration of a topic
Provide thoughtful foundation for what students need to know
Gives them tools to assess information they might find
Can return to Guide whenever guidance is required
Difficulties:
Reliant on students accessing and reading guides
May be difficult to find
Research Guides may promote materials behind paywalls
Require upkeep
16. Extensions
Advantages:
Built into system
Quick and easy once downloaded
FreeDifficulties:
Requires computer that information users can modify (not public computers)
May not work on all browsers
18. Where do we go?
Multifaceted approach
Pushing authentication and stressing authorship and accountability
Emphasize critical thinking and literacy skills
Continue to strive to understand and meet the range of information users’ abilities
and needs
19. Investigate & Explore
Know your audience
Know your tools
Be proactive and creative
in your approach
Promote autonomy and critical
thinking
KINDRA
I am Kindra! Kindra works extensively in student outreach promoting library services and programs. Additionally, Kindra is involved in Fordham University Libraries' information literacy initiatives, some of which include developing a Fake News research guide, the production of outreach materials, and the promotion of best practices via social media.
SHIRA Shira facilitates open access initiatives, especially through Fordham's digital repository. She is also involved in the Libraries' initiatives to improve digital and information literacy among students through teaching classes, assembling a Fake News Research Guide, and planning a video. She has worked previously as the Database Architect and Metadata Manager for a New York City non-profit organization. We both work at Fordham University, which is a Jesuit university in New York City in the United States.
SHIRA We both work to improve IL and create tools that will help students.
We are thrilled to be speaking today and we are also looking forward to hearing what our colleagues around the world have to say on this important and timely topic.
KINDRA
Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Card catalog and seated readers Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-e4ec-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
KINDRA
Where to start? We decided to start by thinking about roles and responsibilities of librarians and how they have shifted and evolved over time.
A traditional understanding of library roles focuses on our ability to either provide access to information or to prohibit it. Research over the years has been dedicated to exploring librarians as gatekeepers or gateways.
These terms are important both because they shape how our patrons see and understand how we might benefit our users as well as how we create tools and programs.
However, with the advent of technology, the gatekeeper/gateway dichotomy is no longer the best model - information consumers access information without any input from librarians. The danger, real or imagined, is that librarians will become an outdated as their roles become superfluous to what users actually need.
The question we have been asking ourselves is: if patrons are no longer seeking us out, how can we then serve them? We need to think creatively and expansively about how can we meet their needs.
This dilemma points to a clear need for an overhaul to our self image. We simply can't be passive, either as gateways or gatekeeper - we need to be active leaders in helping users navigate a very complicated information landscape
SHIRA
SHIRA
Information literacy definitions tend to include three major components:
RBL resource based learning
CT Critical Thinking
LLL Life Long Learning
Information literacy is a critical skill that will empower information users to be able to determine if the information they find is trustworthy and believable. It is necessarily a bedrock of democracy, which depends on an informed citizenry to inform policy making.
However, it is not as simple as providing a set of static guidelines or policies. Just as with any other type of learning, information consumers come with a vast array of abilities. For librarians, what this means is that a ‘silver bullet’ or one-shot approach is insufficient to address the variety of information literacies, and that we must be accessible and create a multiplicity of tools that addresses the multiplicity of abilities. It also means that we must grapple with current technological innovations and determine how to apply IL standards and consider how the concept itself evolves with the increased prevalence of digital tech
SHIRA
With the prevalence / increased influence of the internet and new technology, addressing information literacy has become more difficult simply because it is easier now than ever to create and share information and misinformation, that is, the barrier of entry is almost nothing. Moreover, it is also easier to create forums that have the appearance of legitimacy even if they have no factual grounding.
And, while this technology makes it possible to share real information easier than ever before, it also has a more insidious impact.
KINDRA
Some of the results of this new landscape is that students are unable to differentiate between advertisements and real information.
Internet users rely on external sources to guide what they believe is credible and authoritative such as search engine results, or what friends and family believe is true.
College students are influenced by the information retrieval systems and their ease of use
“Digital Natives” may be inaccurate - people’s experiences with digital technology continue to be varied
So much is available - lots of noise that is very hard to refine or discover authority
Social media platforms provide unfiltered access to “news” with little to no fact checking. Facebook algorithm.
Confirmation bias - people find the information they want to find
More than ever because of the vast challenges and because the spectrum of abilities, it is important to remember that we need to tailor how we teaching information literacy.
KINDRA
Some of the results of this new landscape is that students are unable to differentiate between advertisements and real information.
Internet users rely on external sources to guide what they believe is credible and authoritative such as search engine results, or what friends and family believe is true.
College students are influenced by the information retrieval systems and their ease of use
“Digital Natives” may be inaccurate - people’s experiences with digital technology continue to be varied
So much is available - lots of noise that is very hard to refine or discover authority
Social media platforms provide unfiltered access to “news” with little to no fact checking. Facebook algorithm.
More than ever because of the vast challenges and because the spectrum of abilities, it is important to remember that we need to tailor how we teaching information literacy.
SHIRA
Information literacy is not just important in the abstract. Having recently experienced a presidential election in the United States that was significantly impacted by fake news, the idea of information literacy and democracy has become timely and important. Of course, the issues we’re experiencing are not new - democratic participation has always relied on a well-informed citizenry, it’s simply that now we see the consequences of information illiteracy much more clearly.
Being well informed means that all citizens should have both the right and the responsibility to access and use real and relevant information. They should both have access to the tools that provide information as well as tools that help them to navigate this information - increasingly hard because of the sheer volume of information that exists on the internet.
Civic literacy is necessarily a subset of information literacy and it is essential to ensure that free and open discourse is available and protected
Important to emphasize because what happened in November highlights the real and significant negative results of information illiteracy and shows the clear need to be proactive and productive when fighting it.
KINDRA
KINDRA
First, we need to recognize that the information gates that have traditionally existed no longer do. Part of the reason that the old classification of gateways or gatekeepers seems outdated is that, with the internet, there appears to be an open and free exchange of information.
Question motives and assumptions!
Within this environment, it is exceedingly important to arm students and patrons with the critical thinking tools that will enable them to independently assess whether or not a piece of information is legitimate or misleading. ALA’s framework for information literacy for higher education, which provides a broad conceptual frame for critical assessment is one step in the right direction, but we need to move beyond that into the specific and implementable steps that we can take to ensure a knowledgeable information user base, and librarians across the country have been and continue to move in this direction.
If our goal is to ensure that students and all researchers are able to access the information from which they would benefit then, of course, first they need to be able to identify it.
Some of the very practical steps that librarians are taking now include classes (both ongoing and one-off), Research Guides, and apps / extensions.
SHIRA
KINDRA
Prepares them for what’s out there and arms them with the tools to deal with it
KINDRA
Prepares them for what’s out there and arms them with the tools to deal with it
Created by a group of Fordham Librarians (name them all?)
SHIRA
Extensions include BS Detector, Fake News Alert, This is Fake.
KINDRA
KINDRA
...and that is why it’s important that we use as many tools as possible to engage with our users. In order to reach people at their level we need to remain open minded and flexible in our delivery methods.
continue trend away from one stop shop and creating different modes of literacy instruction so that we can have all the tools that anyone can use for anything they might need
Recognizing that the class in front of us doesn’t have the same level of tech savvy and being open to teaching to all different levels, not where we think they should be
SHIRA
So, overall, it’s important to know that librarians are already actively fighting against the spread of fake news through arming information users with skills..
Going forward, it is important to think not just about how we can encourage students and other researchers can be taught how to navigate information online, it is also important to think about the skills that we must constantly keep sharp for ourselves so that we can serve this purpose effectively.
Question motives and assumptions
Being a tour guide will require librarians to have an advanced understanding of the evolving information environment so that we can effectively guide researchers through it.
KINDRA
This is why the metaphor of a librarian as a tour guide struck as as apt. Much as a tour guide in a city gives tourists an overview of a place’s history and inner workings, we as librarians really are striving to educate people about an issue that might be foreign to them and give them the right tools so that they can come back again more confident than before.
SHIRA
Thank you for listening today! We are looking forward to learning from our international colleagues and continuing this important discussion.
