Rosalind Tedford
Wake Forest University
Director for Research and Instruction

Dan Chibnall
Drake University
STEM Librarian

Sarah Morris
Emory University
Head of Instruction and Engagement

Zina O'Leary, PhD
The Australia and New Zealand School of Government
ANZSOG Senior Fellow

Bobby Hollandsworth
Clemson University
Research Librarian

1:30 PM - 2:15 PM EDT on Friday, November 5

Moderated by Bobby Hollandsworth, Conference Director, and Business Librarian, Clemson University Libraries

Today's librarians are facing a whole new set of questions and requests from students, faculty, and even institutional leadership, as they try to become more info literate, sometimes without even knowing it. In this session, three librarians and one researcher will discuss how to support patrons on their journeys to become more critical thinkers – even with limited time and resources. They will discuss how librarians can support students grappling with issues such as:

Media literacy: what are the differences between misinformation, disinformation, and just plain lies – and how can students spot them?

Science literacy: from preprints to replication to retractions – how do librarians help students (and even researching faculty) understand the difference between these concepts and learn how quickly science information processes are changing to produce their best work?

Data literacy: where do you start when a patron doesn’t know how to read and work with data (let alone analyze and communicate it)?Their discussion will address how with the right perspective and go-to tools, librarians do not need to be masters of these literacies themselves to provide key, in-the-moment support.

The panelists will also share the academic expectations around supporting critical thinking from a data and evidence perspective and how supporting information literacy is key to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion across campus. And they will show how all of this support can help demonstrate a growing, critical role for the librarian across the institution.