Library instruction in an age of misinformation

Abstract

Library instruction has evolved and responded to changes in our media ecosystem for decades.  And the current rise of, and interest in, misinformation presents a number of challenges and opportunities for librarians engaging in instruction work. Our current age of misinformation is somewhat unprecedented in terms of scale, and library instruction has an opportunity to innovate and grow in order to meet these new challenges. Librarians can meet the challenges posed by misinformation and our media ecosystem head-on and turn them into opportunities to develop new instruction programming that takes both a broader and a more contextualized approach to information literacy instruction. By situating the evolution of library instruction into a broader narrative of a rapidly changing media landscape, we can consider how librarians can utilize innovative approaches to library instruction to empower and equip students with the multiple literacies and fluencies that they need to succeed not just in their current academic endeavors but also in their role as information consumers and producers in an increasingly complicated and challenging media ecosystem.