Evaluating information
To locate and vet credible resources I use a variety of strategies including reflecting on prior knowledge, analyzing the source (author, sponsor or publication, mission or purpose, date), see what others have to say about it, reverse image search or use wikipedia to dig into the source, lateral read to find other coverage and cross reference, and then refer to sources I trust and know to see how they report on it.
I share credible sources on my library website, through direct instruction with students, or through the teacher. At times I share via social media. I also use scholarly databases or google scholar and teach students how to do a good keyword search and how to narrow results to more scholarly sources.
I think a librarians role is to share resources that are unbiased, vetted, and non-discriminatory. We have to model ways of communicating with people whose ideas we may not agree with and we have to find or create activities and events that can help people see commonalities instead of differences. Events and activities that give people an opportunity to see another view than their own and to celebrate our differences but also celebrate our commonalities.
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Comments (2)
Hi Sara:
What has worked at your library to reach patrons with this information?
Exactly! Using prior information helps me lead me to searches around news items. Sometimes, I use the search engines of social media platforms to search to know where a story originated from or to see if it has been disputed. The conspiracy theories about how vaccines are meant to harm African thrive mainly on social media and debunking those stories there helps to share correct information.