Lake Superior Library Symposium Registration Open

 

Registration for the eleventh Lake Superior Libraries Symposium is now open! "LSLS23: Matter of Fact: Information Literacy in an Age of Fake News" will be held on Friday, June 9, 2023, at Kathryn A. Martin Library on University of Minnesota Duluth campus in Duluth, Minnesota. Library staff, administrators, trustees, and students from the Upper Midwest and beyond are invited to attend and participate. Register today.   For just $70, you’ll experience:   a keynote by Barbara Fister titled "Standing Up for the Truth: The Place of Libraries in the Public Sphere." 9 inspiring presentations that will help you battle misinformation at your libraries. A Thursday evening pre-conference trivia and social event. Stay tuned for details! Register by May 26 to ensure that any dietary requests can be accommodated.  The Symposium will take place  from 9:30 am to 3:15 pm Central Daylight Time (UTC-5).    LOCATION & ACCOMMODATIONS Our conference is located in beautiful Duluth, the gateway to the North Shore of Lake Superior. The region features world-class breweries, restaurants, and outdoor activities. SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES! We are offering two different scholarships for the 2023 Lake Superior Libraries Symposium! The scholarships will cover the cost of conference registration ($70). Student Scholarship: Students currently enrolled in a library science program are encouraged to apply for a scholarship to attend the 2023 Lake Superior Libraries Symposium.  Apply here. Working Professional Scholarship: Individuals who are currently working at a library, museum, or local history institution that would have difficulty paying the registration cost for their employee are encouraged to apply for a scholarship to attend the 2023 Lake Superior Libraries Symposium. Apply here. ABOUT US The Lake Superior Libraries Symposium is a conference developed by library staff members from Northwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota. The Symposium was created to promote resource sharing and communication between organizations and to help librarians develop enhanced professional networks. Our continued operations are thanks to the in-kind and monetary contributions of our supporters. Have questions? Contact us: http://lakesuperiorlibrariessymposium.com/contact/ Click here to register!

Call for Proposals: Lake Superior Libraries Symposium 2023

"Matter of Fact: 

Information Literacy in an Age of Fake News"
 

The organizers of the Lake Superior Libraries Symposium (LSLS) invite breakout session proposals for our eleventh annual conference to be held on June 9, 2023, at Kathryn A. Martin Library on the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth in Duluth, Minnesota.

This year’s theme, Matter of Fact: Promoting Information Literacy in an Age of Fake News, invites attendees to explore how libraries and library workers experience the unique challenges presented by the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation. We want to know how you’re promoting intellectual freedom and information literacy at your library. At LSLS23, we will be inspired to better serve our communities by promoting intellectual freedom and the pursuit of truth while actively countering disinformation and censorship.

Possibilities for presentation topics include:

Consider the Source
How do you evaluate sources for accuracy? How do you ensure that your collection represents the differing perspectives of the people served by your library? How do you respect copyright, know when and how to cite sources, and understand the social and political issues affecting information? How do you ensure that marginalized voices are included in the conversation? 

Promoting the Truth
How do you counter the spread of misinformation by actively promoting access to reliable, objective resources? How do you address issues of access or lack of access to information sources? How do you teach information literacy skills that enable your patrons to locate information and evaluate its accuracy for themselves? How do you raise public consciousness regarding the many ways in which disinformation and media manipulation are used to mislead the public?

Defending Freedom
How do you deal with challenges to library materials and/or resources? How do you promote intellectual freedom for the people served by your library? How do you defend the privacy of your patrons? 

Successful breakout session presentations will be applicable to many types of libraries and showcase effective and innovative practices. 60-minute breakout sessions should include 10-15 minutes of question and answer. Panel presentations, particularly those representing a diversity of library types, sizes, and/or locations, are strongly encouraged. All presenters will receive a discounted registration rate of $25.

Breakout session presenters should submit proposals at https://forms.gle/PmKMBJ64oPjFiR6m8. All proposals should be submitted by March 17th. Presenters will be notified of acceptance in early April.  

LSLS allows library staff to share their expertise, learn from their colleagues, and network to develop a stronger community of information professionals. Staff from all types of libraries are encouraged to attend. The event is organized and supported by library staff and educators from Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin; for a full list of our supporters, see http://lakesuperiorlibrariessymposium.com/about/supporters/.

For questions about proposals and submissions, please contact Leslie Mehle at mehlel@superiorlibrary.org. A complete listing of speakers, agenda, and costs will be released in April.

Submit Your Proposal Here

 

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?