Information Literacy

Cat McIlroy (she/her)

Librarian, Sexsmith Secondary School

Information literacy has always been a part of librarians' vernacular, but because students are facing an increasingly endless abyss of digital information and misinformation, it is now librarians' responsibility to show them how to navigate.

Cat will discuss how librarians can help high school students become information and digitally literate. The session will include ways to partner with teachers, engage with students in-person and virtually, and the methods to make things relevant and fun.

Craig Silverman is an award-winning author and journalist and one of the world's leading experts on online misinformation, fake news, and content verification. He is the media editor of BuzzFeed News where he leads a global beat covering platforms, online misinformation, and media manipulation.

Craig was named to the Politico 50 for his work exposing fake news and its effect on American politics and is the 2018 recipient of the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association, which honors “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” His journalism and books have been honored by the Mirror Awards, U.S. National Press Club, National Magazine Awards (Canada), Digital Publishing Awards, and Crime Writers of Canada.

Craig previously was the founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada, and was also the founder of Emergent.info, a rumor tracking project that was developed as part of a research fellowship with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. His research resulted in the publication of Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content: How News Websites Spread (and Debunk) Online Rumors, Unverified Claims and Misinformation. From 2004 to 2015 he wrote Regret the Error, a blog about media accuracy and corrections, which became part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and was the basis for an award-winning book of the same name. 

In 2010, Craig was part of the team that launched OpenFile, an online news startup the delivered community-driven reporting in six Canadian cities. He is the former managing editor of PBS MediaShift and has been a columnist for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Columbia Journalism Review. Craig also edited The Verification Handbook and The Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting for the European Journalism Centre, and is the author of the award-winning book Mafiaboy.

While the ACRL Framework promotes the use of threshold concepts in information literacy, how these concepts are implemented in the classroom is left open to individual instructors. This session will highlight one useful method for engaging students in a discussion about authority. This very simple activity challenges students to look beyond “good” and “bad” sources to see how authority is constructed and how it can be deployed in different contexts.

Presentation delivered at the Alberta Library Conference 2018 in Jasper, AB.
Communities all over Alberta are seeing an increase in self-represented litigants due to the recession and the high cost of legal representation. This means that more people are coming to libraries to access information about the law and their legal rights. Like libraries, public legal education organizations like CPLEA work to provide the public with reliable sources of information. Searching for legal information tends to be very reaction-driven (i.e. my landlord is evicting me; my partner and I are separating, etc.). By standing together, we can empower Albertans to know and assert their rights before a legal dispute arises. For more information about the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) or to access free legal information resources, visit www.cplea.ca.

Be Anyone You Want while Becoming Information Literate in Virtual Reality

It's 2017, why doesn't everyone have email? Or aren't we post-email? Rural librarian and technologist Jessamyn West will talk about some of the intended and unintended consequences of the digital divide and discuss libraries' roles in helping mitigate them. Breakout session for more constructive discussions afterwards.
Jessamyn West is a librarian and community technologist. She writes a column for Computers in Libraries magazine and is the author of the book Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide. A born outreach librarian, she teaches a course entitled "Tools for Community Advocacy" for the University of Hawaii's Library School. She was a research fellow at Harvard University Library Innovation Lab for 2016-2017, and serves on the Advisory Board to the Wikimedia Foundation. She works with small libraries and businesses in Central Vermont to help them use technology to solve problems.

Anxiety, frustration, and fear were barriers for many frontline staff in helping customers troubleshoot technology issues. To address this barrier, we developed a multi-stage online and in- person gamification approach to tech troubleshooting, buttressed by a self-paced e-collection learning plan. As staff progress through the training, even the most anxious and apprehensive became more participatory, testing what they’ve learned, and collaborating with colleagues to solve problems. This session will show our approach to digital literacy training and how it works to overcome these psychological barriers to improve staff technical competencies, build staff confidence, and provide customers with more consistently positive experiences when coming to the library for help with digital literacy questions.