Post-truth society: Librarians now is your time! The citizen librarian

When the text ends TV.McKin cc-nc-sa

My first post of 2017. We all probably know that 2016 was the year of post-truth. Indeed my brother William Watkin has an article in this year's first issue of the Big Issue on that very subject - "The Truth About Post-truth"  The Oxford Dictionary's word of the year post-truth “is an adjective relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” William being a philosopher goes on to discuss what truth is and not wanting to reproduce my brother's article in my own blog, (the words familial, ethics and limelight come to mind), I recommend you read the article yourself.

Despite some common assumptions of what a librarian is, from book shelver to book stamper, librarians in all settings have a role and responsibility for helping individuals to find, evaluate and validate information - what we commonly call information literacy. Even the Wikipedia entry includes this in its opening paragraph:

"A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library, providing access to information and sometimes social or technical programming. In addition, librarians provide instruction on information literacy"

(I will not go into discussions about Wikipedia and truth or professionalism and librarianship I'll save these issues for another time)

When the Oxford dictionary announced its word of the year in November last year, it was like a call to arms for librarians and many of my colleagues got out their digital pens and blogged about the importance of the role of the librarian in a post-truth society. The blogs ranged from the importance of integrating information literacy in education from an early age, as in Joyce Valenza's Truth, Truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world, through to the responsibility of librarians teaching and leading by example as outlined in Georgina's "Being a librarian in a post-truth society"

And here are some more:
Post-truth and Information Literacy Lane Wilson
Post-truth and a New Disruptive Phenomenon Geoff Walton
Information Literacy Lesson Crucial in a Post-truth World Sara Stevenson
The Library's Role in a Post-truth Fake News Era - Proquest
Bursting the Filter Bubble: Pro-truth Librarians in a Pro-truth World Claire McGuiness 
When Information Professions Collide: Applying the ACRL’s Framework to News Media Consumption Kristina Williams

I would go a step further from encouraging individuals to be information and digital literate to encouraging individuals to be citizen librarians, information advocates, sharing their information literacy skills and encouraging others to develop theirs. So maybe an extension of information literacy teaching should be techniques for sharing your skills with colleagues, friends and family, together with engaging in respectful but challenging discussions about information evaluation. This would involve the integration of ethical communication skills in information literacy teaching, or even the development of programmes dedicated to becoming a citizen librarian, focusing on information skills advocacy and as well as responsibility. This could be something aligned or integrated into the global citizen cause championed by Hugh Evans.  Along with the fight against global poverty, climate change and gender equality we should fight for the right for all citizens to have the information literacy skills to be global citizen librarians.