Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

4-30-2021

Department

Libraries

Abstract

In her recent essay,“Lizard People in the Library,” Barbara Fister argues that “systems designed to share information virally pose a serious threat to democracy.” As librarians and educators, we have an obligation to help students understand and navigate online platforms that spread misinformation at alarming rates and, in the process, contribute to the erosion of democratic norms and values. Unfortunately, research suggests we might be failing in this regard (Head, Fister, and MacMillan, 2020;Wineburg, Breakstone, Ziv, and Smith, 2020). In this talk, we will describe the development and implementation of the University of Louisville’s Citizen Literacy online toolkit, which provides teaching faculty with videos and other materials they can use to incorporate news literacy, algorithmic literacy, and related skills into courses across disciplines. We will discuss design considerations as well as strategies for engaging faculty with information literacy instruction in the context of democratic citizenship.

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