Is information literacy enough to navigate an age of disinformation?

In her essay “Lizard People in the Library” Barbara Fister considers the following questions: How has “research it yourself” become a rallying cry for promoters of outlandish conspiracy theories? What are the consequences of this development? What’s missing from educators’ classical information literacy efforts?

Join the Williams College’s instruction librarians on March 24, 4:00-5:00 PM (EDT) for a discussion Fister’s essay and of the ways in which information and media literacy initiatives might have fallen short as a mode of critical engagement with information. This discussion is open to educators, librarians and all interested in teaching (and learning about) information and media literacy.  RSVP required to receive the Zoom link. This event is a discussion not a presentation – it will not be recorded.

Barbara Fister is a leading thinker about libraries, students, information literacy, and higher education. Her essay was published in the Project Information Literacy Provocation Series and subsequently in The Atlantic in February 2021. Find out more about what inspired her to write this essay.

Project Information Literacy (PIL) is a nonprofit research institute that conducts studies on how early adults find and use information as they progress through, and beyond, their higher education years. The Provocation Series launched in January 2021 features essays examining societal aspects of information literacy. Williams Libraries is an official Champion of PIL’s Provocation Series. Forthcoming essays in the series  include: Reading in the Age of Distrust, by Alison Head. The iSchool Equation, by Kirsten Hostetler.

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