“The Role of Libraries in Misinformation Programming: A Research Agenda,” by Jason C. Young, Brandyn Boyd, Katya Yefimova, Stacey Wedlake, Chris Coward and Rolf Hapel, outlines three areas in which academic partners can assist public libraries in the goal of achieving more effective methods for addressing misinformation: design of effective programming, development of tools to keep librarians informed, and empowering librarians to engage in controversial topics.

Researchers met with library staff from throughout the state of Washington to brainstorm on the topic. Participants discussed which approaches to misinformation were more likely to be successful, taking into consideration issues such as psychological barriers, the self-selecting nature of programs, and hardships faced by community members, including limited digital access.

Some ideas included integrating media literacy concepts within popular programming, as opposed to stand-alone programing on the topic (humorously described by one participant as “hiding the broccoli in the brownies”); capitalizing on trends such as virtual reality to garner interest; and strengthening community ties through dialog to combat the divisiveness exploited by misinformation campaigns. Participants emphasized the need for programming that was highly responsive, timely, and relevant to the daily lives of their community members. 

Staff also discussed challenges including perceived political connotations around terms such as “fake news” and “misinformation” causing some to resist those topics or even take offense. Challenges also include lack of staff time and other resources (funding, expertise, technology) – even a lack of confidence in tackling the issue. 

Another difficulty discussed was the lack of rigorous evaluation of public library programs and resulting data that would help in designing effective initiatives. The authors suggest that LIS and education scholars could help by developing and testing curriculum tools in public libraries. Another idea was for researchers to assist librarians by providing a portal to “fact cards” on current misinformation across a range of subjects. This could help librarians keep up with the constantly shifting barrage.

Libraries enjoy a trusted role in their communities and are also dependent upon local funding and support. These factors can make it more difficult for library staff to tackle potentially controversial issues, even problems that should be neutral and within their wheelhouse such as media literacy. Unfortunately, perpetrators of misinformation often malign those best positioned to counteract the misinformation (I think of this as “meta-misinformation”- turning people away not only from a particular set of facts but also from more reliable sources in general).

The authors acknowledge that many library core missions contribute to counteracting misinformation, including the psychological roots of it. They write: “Misinformation is most dangerous when it is able to exploit the fears and needs of communities. If librarians are able to bring communities together to solve problems before they become the target of a disinformation campaign, then this is a valuable contribution even if the library never directly addresses the topic…” Technology and literacy training are among services libraries provide that impact the “complex information ecosystem that supports misinformation.” 

Overall, the findings align with my own research on several points, including staff concern over the self-selecting nature of programs, lack of staff time as a primary barrier to more proactive responses, and the importance of staff training and community partnerships. However, this article does much more to address how academic partners can take a more active role in supporting public libraries in combatting misinformation.

Ironically, the article itself, while illuminating, also represents some of the difficulties faced by public library staff in accessing resources that could aid our mission. Empirical research on how best to implement media literacy initiatives in public libraries is uncommon to begin with, but what exists is often behind a paywall. Academics, including academic librarians, have professional incentives to produce research that public librarians do not. Academic professionals are naturally more likely to focus on the topic from the perspective of academic libraries rather than public ones. Academic research published behind a paywall further isolates it from use by public librarians. All this circles back to the suggestion by the authors that it would be helpful for academic researchers to partner with public libraries in training, programming, assessment, and access to research and expertise.

As the information- and misinformation- landscape continues to become more complex, librarians will need the support of colleagues, community members, and partners in combatting the misinformation that threatens our communities. It is heartening to know that we have allies.

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All too often, these days people seem to accept Tweets and Facebook posts as real news. Just to be clear, even though you like your friends, that does not mean everything they share on social media is credible. It has become increasingly more difficult to rely on the internet as a source for news and counsel about what is going on in the world.

Thankfully, statistics have found that people are turning to libraries to gather information and educate themselves. An admittedly limited but important example can be found at The New York Public Library. In 2017, they saw a 7% increase in circulation and a 150% increase in early literacy program attendance. Their 92 branches are packed full of people and their top checkout of the year was “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.” (Marx 2018)  This book, written by the author to his teenage son about being black in the United States, is a prime example of people searching for real answers as opposed to relying on a hashtag to inform them. This is not a cry for people to only read nonfiction, political news.  Getting engulfed in a great work of fiction can do just as much to help shape and inform people.

Many libraries are following suit, as an example,  Brooklyn Public Library’s 2017 initiative to waive all fines that may be blocking patrons from using the library. This fresh start may be just what is needed in order to help people stay informed. As a community, we need to use our libraries to promote awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice and help our patrons find facts related to current events.

References

Marx, Tony. 2018. “In 2018, libraries to the rescue: Why Americans are right to crave facts, and books.” New York Daily News, January 01.

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People with little understanding of the process and seemingly no knowledge of the reasons behind research methods toss around terms and numbers with great pretense. Worse, others with potentially less knowledge are making policy decisions based on these numbers. With this lack of understanding, it is no wonder we have arrived at a world confused by “alternative facts,” “fake news,” and the disregard of scientific institutions and data.[1]

I am reminded of the popular belief “people lie with statistics.” As I told many a class, people can only lie with statistics to those that don’t know statistics. The same is essentially true of all information. People can lie about history, but only to those who don’t know history. People can lie about anything to those that do not know about the topic. The way to prevent this is to learn about the topic in question. In the case of trusting research and data, one needs to understand research methods and evaluate.

As librarians we are dedicated to seeking out information. While we generally do not engage in original scientific research ourselves, we refer people to such research and help people to evaluate the materials they find. Academic librarians may do this with greater depth and frequency, but I would argue the responsibility is even greater for the public librarian who serves a population that comes to them for information without any expectation of foundation and background knowledge. For the average public library patron there is no expectation that they possess a background in even website evaluation, let alone scientific research methodology.

For the public librarian we (rightfully) take pride in our role of evaluating material and educating others to do the same. As the evaluation process, not subject matter, is generally our expertise, we depend on other factors such as knowing the credentials of authors and publishers. A simplistic example is that we refer people to information produced by a journalistic news source rather than a tabloid. In the past, the expectation was that the most trusted information could be obtained from the juried professional journals of an academic discipline. If a cure was touted by the American Journal Of Medicine, we knew we could trust this cure more than if presented in The National Enquirer. The actual reason behind this had little to do with the publisher, and everything to do with the process. The material presented in the journal we knew was going to be based on data gathered by scientific methods and reviewed by experts in the field.

This week, I learned the American Psychological Association (APA) asked a journal editor to resign when he asked to see the data of the research he was evaluating for publication.[2] This is akin to the restaurant firing a chef when he asks for proof his ingredients are not spoiled or the hospital firing a surgeon when he asks to see a patient’s record before operating.

What began within me as minor annoyance has now developed into what can only be described as fearfulness. As librarians we are not only on the front line of information sharing, we are also its guardians. I believe we need to hold creators accountable. If you don’t know or understand research methods – learn them! If a source or organization will not provide or support the process, don’t support it. We need to start treating data with respect or all information will soon become meaningless.

References

[1] http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text

[2] http://boingboing.net/2017/03/02/psychology-journal-editor-aske.html

Resources
http://www.nature.com/news/peer-review-activists-push-psychology-journals-towards-open-data-1.21549

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In Librarian Takes It Off in the Stacks, Goes Viral, I left off with some unanswered questions: How do public libraries teach information literacy? How do they incorporate it into their programming? In “Fighting Fake News,” Marcus Banks spotlights an eight-week training course in community journalism for high school students hosted by the Dallas Public Library called “Storytellers without Borders.” Programs like this exist for college and high school students, but what about everyone else? How do public librarians reach the rest of the population?

As librarians, we approach each and every question with the utmost professionalism. We cover all perspectives of a subject and gather multiple sources so our researchers can come to the most truthful conclusion. But in our hyperconnected, networked world, where information flows freely to devices with the tap of a finger, librarians are no longer the gatekeepers of information. Promoting our detective-like information-finding skills is important so people know they can still turn to us when Google can’t cough up a good answer.

I have put together some innovative ways librarians can shine the light on reference services and continue to be the super info-professionals in their communities:

The Roaming Reference Librarian

Visit with some of your regular patrons while they are roaming the stacks or in front of a computer, like the Chattanooga Public Library did. Let them know you are promoting the library’s reference and research services and would be happy to help them research any topic above and beyond what they have found on Google. Equip yourself with a tablet in one hand (and perhaps a pencil behind your ear to look official). You may not get any takers on your first round, but continue to do that for a few weeks, and they will soon seek you out with their advanced research questions.

Straight from the Source: Government Documents

Librarians can continue to grow civic-minded communities by highlighting both local and national government documents. Rather then read editorialized and possibly skewed (maybe fake) news, show your patrons how to get theirs directly from the source by following presidential executive orders, memorandums, and proclamations. Logs like the Congressional Record and the Federal Register help us keep up with congressional activities and proposed rules, final rules and public notices, respectively. Since combing through these sites is often time-consuming, teach your patrons how to utilize the site’s search alerts and social media feeds; ”like” or ”follow” to import the sites into Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds.

Set the Record Straight with Database Content

By using social media streams, librarians can help set the record straight by offering multiple sources from the library’s premium databases. Yes, you can actually share full-text news and articles from some of the subscription-based databases in your digital collection—look for the “share” symbol! Sharing articles with the library’s social media fans promotes the vetted, trustworthy, but often underused resources and helps to validate the librarian’s role in the information space. Be mindful of your sources’ political leanings by providing balanced perspectives and viewpoints or sticking to middle-of-the road publications.

Gamification: Escape from the Library

By getting creative with gaming in the library, librarians can teach critical thinking skills that lead to scrutinizing sources and finding accurate information. One way to accomplish that is to create an escape locked in a room at the library. Escape rooms are physical adventure games in which a team is given a series of puzzles to solve and questions to answer in a limited time. A team may unlock one room only to enter a second room and answer additional questions. Escape rooms incorporate engaging elements such as collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, which make them very popular with all ages.

I hope these ideas are just a start for you to engage further with your community and position librarians at the center of the information revolution. This is a great opportunity for librarians to flex their info-muscles and help our communities develop information and media literacy skills so they are better prepared to digest and think critically about the world around them.

I welcome your comments, questions and thoughts about innovative ways librarians can fight fake news in their libraries.

Further Reading

“Before The Internet, Librarians Would ‘Answer Everything’ — And Still Do,” npr.org, December 28, 2014.

See how they did it in Chattanooga Public Library: Meredith Levine, “A Roving Reference Assessment in Teen Services,” Public Libraries Online, January 21, 2016.

Katie O’Reilly, “Libraries on Lockdown: Escape rooms, a breakout trend in youth programming,” American Libraries, September 1, 2016.

The post Creative Ways To Fight Fake News first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

In a recently completed study,[1] most tech-savvy students have a difficult time distinguishing between real and fake news, or identifying the author of an article, according to researchers at the Stanford History Education Group. Researchers began the study in January 2015, because there were few ways to assess how students evaluate online information.

When we understand what motivates people to disseminate false news or conjure up sensationalized headlines it helps us, as librarians, to identify such stories and address them using information literacy tactics. Oddly enough, many times, consumers do not distinguish articles as false if the topic resonates with their beliefs, so they lend much more credibility to it rather than news they do not agree with.

Greed, influence, persuasion, and power seem to fuel much of the fake news we are hearing about lately. We as consumers must think critically to identify fake or parody sites, opinion pieces, sites or articles with ideological slants, satirical sites, and typosquatting, not to mention sponsored ads that appear in the body of an otherwise credible source.

One of the main reasons people create fake news: money. A recent BBC article identified a small city in Macedonia where teenagers earned advertising dollars by creating fake news websites centered on the U.S. presidential campaign.[2] People make money by creating content and placing ad space on that content via services like Google AdSense. They use click bait articles to entice readers to click on links, share content, and boost the popularity of their pages, resulting in more ad revenue. Authors of these pages purchase Facebook ads to generate more clicks to the page. This is not a new trend and there are other iterations of it, but that is basically how it works.

Why does it pose such a challenge for us librarians?

Librarians have professional standards we abide by for reference services which include identifying the accuracy, currency, and authority of a source as well as uncovering any bias it may display. We know how to search and retrieve valuable information on the Internet as well as find vetted, trusted materials.

What public libraries can do right now is to promote themselves as experts in information literacy through programming (computer classes, webinars, in-library displays) in their libraries as well as promotion (via blog posts, e-mail newsletters, and especially social media). Create a meme that drives the point home!

As I mentioned earlier, there are many related issues and I will leave with some questions that I hope to answer in future posts, or perhaps you may comment below and collectively, we can find answers.

How can we get the trusted, vetted content public libraries pay so much for in front of our patrons?

If the dearth of school and teacher librarians continues, where do public libraries fit into teaching information literacy?

How do public libraries teach information literacy? How do they incorporate it into their programming?

For more information:

• Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians
• Stanford researchers find students have trouble judging the credibility of information online
• Teaching Information Literacy Now

References

[1] Stanford History Education Group, “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning” (executive summary, Los Angeles, 2016), 4–5.

[2] Emma Jane Kirby, “The city getting rich from fake news,” BBC News, December 5, 2016.

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