COVID LESSONS ON INFORMATION LITERACY INSTRUCTION

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34630/polissema.v1i22.4896

Keywords:

disinformation, information capitalism, information literacy, COVID-19, academic library

Abstract

This paper explores how the COVID pandemic, as well as other geopolitical events, highlighted the need for information literacy instruction in universities. I argue that teaching students to understand how corporatized information resources exist for profit is a cornerstone of helping transform them into responsible digital citizens and information-literate learners in the world. In this article, I explain what misinformation and disinformation are, then explore how our current information system spreads and nurtures this “disruptive communication” (Bennett & Livingston, 2021). Next, I provide examples of how academic library responded to the pandemic and sought to combat disruptive communication. This is contrasted with the catastrophic consequences witnessed worldwide due to mis-/disinformation. To underscore the paramount importance of this, I provide examples of the outcomes of mis-/disinformation campaigns—including an attempted coup d’état. Because we have witnessed the devastation that a lack of IL can engender, it is evident that it should therefore be included in all university courses. I provide a handful of recommendations for instructors, along with teaching resources and suggestions for further research.

References

–22 ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee. Top trends in academic libraries. ACRL. https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/25483/33379

ACRL. (2016). Framework for information literacy for higher education. ACRL. https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

ACRL. (1989). Presidential committee on information literacy: Final report. ACRL. https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential

Affelt, A. (2019) All that’s not fit to print: Fake news and the call to action for librarians and information professionals. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Bajak, A., & Howe, J. (2020, May 14). A study said Covid wasn’t that deadly. The right seized it. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/coronavirus-research-misinformation.html?referringSource=articleShare

Bennett, W. L., & Livingston, S. (2021). The disinformation age: Politics, technology, and disruptive communication in the United States. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914628.001

Breakstone, J., et al. (2021). Lateral reading: College students learn to critically evaluate internet sources in an online course. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-56

Bull, A., et al. (2021, July 21). Dismantling the evaluation framework. In the Library with a Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2021/dismantling-evaluation/

DePaor, S, & Heravi, B. (2020). Information literacy and fake news: How the field of librarianship can help combat the epidemic of fake news. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 46(5).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102218

Ellenwood, D. (2020, August 19). Information has value: The political economy of information capitalism. In the Library with a Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2020/information-has-value-the-political-economy-of-information-capitalism/

Escobar, N. (2020, Mar. 4). When Xenophobia Spreads Like A Virus. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/02/811363404/when-xenophobia-spreads-like-a-virus

Foster, C. L. E. (2022). Truth as a social practice in a digital era: Iteration as persuasion. AI & SOCIETY: Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication, 1–15. https://rdcu.be/cLXrT

Gostanian, A., et al. (2020, Feb. 11). Asians worldwide share examples of coronavirus-related xenophobia on social media. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asians-worldwide-share-examples-coronavirus-related-xenophobia-social-media-n1132036

Grafstein, A. (2008). A discipline-based approach to information literacy. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28, pp. 197-204. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0099133302002835?via%3Dihub

Haidt, J. (2022, April 11). Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

Head, A. (2021). Reading in the age of distrust. Project Information Literacy Research Institute. https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/provocation-series/essays/reading-in-the-age-of-distrust.html

--. (2016). Staying smart: How today’s graduates continue to learn once they complete college. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2712329

--, et al. (2020, January 15). Information literacy in the age of algorithms. Project Information Literacy Research Institute, https://projectinfolit.org/publications/algorithm-study

--, et al. (2013). What information competencies matter in today’s workplace? Library & Information Research, 37(114), pp. 74-104. https://lirgjournal.org.uk/index.php/lir/article/view/557

Hicks, A. (2017). Making the case for a sociocultural perspective on information literacy. In K. P. Nicholson & M. Seale (Eds.), The politics of theory and the practice of critical librarianship. (pp. 69-85). Library Juice Press.

IFLA. (2020, 6 June). Overview of library re-opening plans. IFLA. https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/93140

IFLA. (2022). IFLA trend report 2021 update. IFLA Repository. https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1830

Jaeger, P. T., et al. (2018). Reverse the retreat: Countering disinformation and authoritarianism as the work of libraries. In N. G. Taylor et al. (Eds.), Libraries and the retreat of global democracy. (pp. 247-255). Advances in Librarianship.

Kakutani, M. (2018). The death of truth: Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump. Tim Duggan Books.

Lacey, P. (2021). Google is goodish: An information literacy course designed to teach users why Google may not always be the best place to search for evidence. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12401

Lamdan, S. (2019). Librarianship at the crossroads of ICE surveillance. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-surveillance/

Long, C. D. (2020). Essentially there: Higher education returns to serve. Planning for Higher Education, 49(1), 1–10.

Milhailidis, P. (2018). Civic media literacies: Re-imagining human connection in an age of digital abundance. Routledge.

MIT Libraries (2022, January 7). Elsevier Fact Sheet. https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/elsevier-fact-sheet/

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press.

Sahoo, J., et al. (2021). Research on fake news: An empirical analysis of selected library and information science journals. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 41(4), 268-274. https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.41.4.17168

Singh, R. & Brinster, K. (2018). Fighting fake news: The cognitive factors impeding political information literacy. In N. G. Taylor et al. (Eds.), Libraries and the retreat of global democracy. (pp. 109-131). Advances in Librarianship.

Tewell, E. C. (2018). The practice and promise of critical information literacy: Academic librarians’ involvement in critical library instruction. College & Research Libraries, 79(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.10

United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Vazquez, M. (2020, March 12). Calling COVID-19 the “Wuhan Virus” or “China Virus” is inaccurate and xenophobic. Yale School of Medicine. https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-covid-19-the-wuhan-virus-or-china-virus-is-inaccurate-and-xenophobic/

Walker, P. (2021). The library’s role in countering infodemics. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 109(1), 133-136. https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.5195/jmla.2021.1044

Washington Post, The. (2021, January 20). In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false of misleading claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/

Weise, K. (2021, April 29). Amazon’s profit soars 220 percent as pandemic drives shopping online. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/technology/amazons-profits-triple.html

World Health Organization. (2022). Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/

---. Immunizing the public against misinformation. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/immunizing-the-public-against-misinformation

Xie, B., et al. (2020). Global health crises are also information crises: A call to action. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24357

Yu, F., & Mani, N. (2020). How American academic medical/health sciences libraries responded to the COVID-19 health crisis: An observational study. Data and Information Management, 4(3), 200-208. https://doi.org/10.2478/dim-2020-0013

Downloads

Published

2022-12-31

How to Cite

Bevill, W. (2022). COVID LESSONS ON INFORMATION LITERACY INSTRUCTION. POLISSEMA – ISCAP Journal of Letters, 1(22), 161–180. https://doi.org/10.34630/polissema.v1i22.4896

Issue

Section

Studies