fake news Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Barbara Lison, IFLA President-elect, in her session "20 Trends for Discussion"

IFLA: Closing Virtually with a Call to Action

By Raymond Pun | August 25, 2021

On August 18, the IFLA News Media Section presented “Libraries Enable News Literacy: Finding Solutions to Fake News.” Moderator Ana Krahmer, director of the Digital Newspaper Unit at University of North Texas Libraries, talked with panelists about how to support information literacy for the public. Presenters included data scientists Katharina Beckh and Vishwani Gupta from … Continue reading IFLA: Closing Virtually with a Call to Action →

Novel coronovirus 19 (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Fighting Fake News in the Pandemic

By Sarah Ostman | March 20, 2020

Originally published at Programming Librarian, March 19, 2020. The coronavirus pandemic is rife with misinformation. Use your library’s digital reach to help people sniff out fake news. Misinformation runs rampant during times of unrest, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Your library may be closed to the public, but you can still help thwart … Continue reading Fighting Fake News in the Pandemic →

Librarian's Library by Anna Gooding-Call

Digital Strategies for Librarians

By Anna Gooding-Call | January 2, 2020

Your Technology Outreach Adventure: Tools for Human-Centered Problem Solving By Erin Berman This title will guide professionals in exploring computer-focused library programming. While it provides good examples of tech programs that benefit from outreach, the bulk of the book deals with group planning and design. These are often applicable to any program series or project … Continue reading Digital Strategies for Librarians →

Letters of the Law with Tomas A. Lipinski

Is My Library Liable for Fake News?

By Tomas A. Lipinski | December 13, 2019

Our online column Letters of the Law explores a wide range of legal issues that arise in libraries, with the help of a pair of leading authorities: Mary Minow, a librarian who became a lawyer, and Tomas A. Lipinski, a lawyer who became a librarian. Together they have authored four books on the subject, including … Continue reading Is My Library Liable for Fake News? →

A librarian uses a Bee Bot at Do the Bot—Librarians Using Robots to Impact Learning at AASL 2019. Photo: Phil Morehart

The Standards at Work

By Phil Morehart | November 19, 2019

Tech time At “Do the Bot: Librarians Using Robots to Impact Learning,” Archon Auzenne, Lee Glover, and Gloria Miller, librarians from Clear Creek Independent School District in League City, Texas, demonstrated how different types of robots can be used to teach students programming and coding. After learning how Bee Bot, Edison, and Sphero robots work, … Continue reading The Standards at Work →

Screenshot from the October 24 Citrus County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners meeting

ALA Responds to Citrus County New York Times Block

November 5, 2019

On November 5, the American Library Association (ALA) issued a statement in response to the decision by the Citrus County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners to not allow Citrus County Library System to buy a digital subscription to the New York Times after one commissioner labeled the newspaper “fake news.” The ALA statement reads: “The core mission … Continue reading ALA Responds to Citrus County New York Times Block →

Special Report: Democracy in Action

November 1, 2019

And libraries are especially well suited to be “democracy coaches,” in the words of Amanda Smithfield, a librarian at Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School in Nashville, Tennessee. Open to everyone regardless of political leanings, they serve as voter registration hubs and polling places and provide meeting space for community groups and forums. Our special report … Continue reading Special Report: Democracy in Action →

Graphic: Libraries use tech tools to fight fake news (Illustration: Drew Bardana)

Check Your Facts

By Jessica Cilella | November 1, 2019

The Albuquerque Journal’s coverage of the event was headlined “Drag Queens Dazzle at Library Storytime,” while enthusiastic parents voiced support on the library’s Facebook page. Other Facebook commenters voiced opposition, sharing links to conservative websites and articles with headlines like “Parents Beware—Registered Sex Offenders Are Performing for Small Children at Drag Queen Story Hours in Public Libraries” … Continue reading Check Your Facts →

Media Literacy in an Age of Fake News

By George M. Eberhart | November 1, 2019

Librarians can ensure patrons make informed decisions in local, state, and national elections by helping them think critically. Libraries of all types can promote media literacy by providing handouts, LibGuides, training, and programs about separating fact from online fiction. The following resources can assist. The National Association for Media Literacy Education, a nonprofit organization based … Continue reading Media Literacy in an Age of Fake News →

Battling Information Illiteracy

By Natalie Greene Taylor and Paul T. Jaeger | July 17, 2019

“California wildfires are being magnified and made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!” This tweet was a statement by a US president about … Continue reading Battling Information Illiteracy →

From left: April Hines, Katherine Boss, Chimene E. Tucker, and Jeffrey A. Knapp discuss information literacy and journalism at the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference in Cleveland on April 12.

Reporting in the “Post-Truth” Era

By George M. Eberhart | April 12, 2019

“First we wanted to find out how journalists find and use information,” said Chimene E. Tucker, communications, journalism, and LGBT studies librarian at University of Southern California. “A simple survey would not work in this case,” she said, “because we needed to ask probing questions about methodology.” So the team conducted 50 semistructured, in-depth interviews … Continue reading Reporting in the “Post-Truth” Era →

Future Strategies

By Karen Muller | September 4, 2018

In Six Issues Facing Libraries Today: Critical Perspectives, John M. Budd calls these issues persistent and thorny—and they are. The first topic addressed is information: what it is and what it is not. Budd explores the criteria used to evaluate statements and suggests further avenues for considering the theory of information. Next is information literacy, an … Continue reading Future Strategies →

Latest Library Links

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
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Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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