Fake or Real?

Pixabay

We've all heard the comment, "Why do we need libraries? We have Google."  Librarians know that not everything on the Internet is true.  And librarians are trained to help people sort fact from fiction. (Plus, libraries provided Internet access!) School Library Journal highlights the problem of people not equipped with the skills to evaluate sources in the article "Teaching Information Literacy Now." 

For public librarians, the opportunities for information literacy are brief moments at the reference desk or at the computers.  Public library patrons do not have to attend  a class on assessing sources.  They don't even have to use the sources we found for them.

How can we support information literacy?  Right after I read the School Library Journal article on Facebook, I saw a clever way to get teens thinking about their information sources.  Librarian Alanna Graves posted on Teen Services Underground's Facebook page her display "Fake or Real".  She printed out news stories and teens decided which were real and which were fake.  You could also create a bookmark listing debunking websites, like snopes.com, and highlighting evaluation methods, like CARS or IMVAIN.

What are you doing at you library?