The recent debate on fake news and critical thinking is invading the national and international scene. Strategies to counterfeit the phenomenon are issued everywhere: IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) built a campaign around its infographic tool; at the same time, the Internet giants are beginning to change their attitude and position with respect to fake news as a result of public pressure – e.g. Facebook and the scandal of Cambridge Analytica. Libraries and librarians think they could play an important role, being their job about knowledge and information management, but does anyone else think along the same lines? An article published on Science with the explicit goal of starting a "science of fake news", advocated an interdisciplinary approach, yet hardly any reference was made to Library and Information studies. The same happened in the recent EU Public consultation on fake news and online disinformation - neither libraries nor schools were counted among the stakeholders. Someone may argue that news is outside the scope of the library mission; yet preserving documentation and helping people to find and evaluate information effectively definitely is: the actions undertaken by EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation) advocate for a role for libraries. Based on this scenario, the present paper will reflect on the concept of fake news in the light of library and information science – thus defining the field and its limits. Subsequently, it will analyse policy documents addressing the issue, to verify whether libraries and library studies are considered stakeholders by external observers. Method: documents on Fake News will be scanned looking for mentions of libraries on the websites of European Union, USA, Canada, Great Britain and Italy. An overall scan will also be carried out on the role of libraries in relation to fake news in research articles.

1. Warriors, allies or spectators: stakeholders’ perception of the
role of libraries and librarians in the fake news phenomenon
Matilde Fontanin
University «La Sapienza»,
Rome, Italy

2. «The Science of
Fake News»
David M. Lazer et al.
Science, 09 Mar 2018

3. EU Public
consultation
13 November
2017 - 23
February 2018
Assessing the role of
• Platforms
• News media companies
• Civil society organisations

4. Freedom of the press
Charles Seife.
Virtual unreality.
2014

5. IFLA How To Spot Fake News
Is it all in our head?
• Defining fake news
• Defining librarians’
perception in this respect
• Tracking down Libraries in
«Official» documents
• Focus: IFLA/FAIFE’s Code of
Ethics
Questa foto di Autore sconosciuto è concesso in licenza da CC BY-NC-ND

6. Defining Fake
News
The phenomenon is not new, the context is
• Oxford English Dictionary (Post-truth) 2016
• Digital context
• Evolving definition (Tandoc et al.)
Social dimension
• Truth answers emotions (Cooke)
• fake news needs the nourishment of troubled times in
order to take root (Tandoc et al.)
Money: clickbait
Authority: citizen journalism and fact-checking

7. Librarians’
perception
providers of trusted, balanced,
reliable collections offering diverse
viewpoints
educators, often in association with
schools, universities and other
educational institutions
networkers - Peter Lor (2018)
Democracy, information, and libraries
in a time of post-truth discourse.

8. Perception of libraries in official sources:
criteria
International
European Union
Eblida
IFLA
Individual countries
USA
Canada
Great Britain
Italy

9. Looking for allies to
continue the
investigation: are you
interested?

10. Challenges
addressed by
EU policies
• cybersecurity and the protection of identity
• developing digital skills for the job market
• encouraging active citizenship
• enhancing network connectivity

11. EU documents (1)
EU public perception consultation
• Eurobarometer (2016): 72% respondents use the Internet to access news
more than once a week (28 member countries)
Digital Education Action Plan (2018)
• Regulating internet platforms and providers
• Creating fact-checking sources
• Educating to awareness to digital skills «through after-school classes»
• Academic libraries (repositories) - Schools – Public libraries (?)

12. EU documents (2)
“Information Disorder : Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and
policymaking” (Council of Europe report, 2017)
• work with libraries. […] [to] ensure communities can access both online and offline news and digital literacy
materials via their local libraries
High Level Group (HLG) on fake news and online disinformation (2018): survey on public
perception
• Critical media literacy for schoolchildren … «this can engage libraries as well» (p. 27)
• librar*: 1 occurrence
• 39 experts - no LIS
European Audiovisual Observatory for the European Commission. (2016). MAPPING OF
MEDIA LITERACY PRACTICES AND ACTIONS IN EU-28

13. • News section
• HLG Report “highlights that
libraries can play a role in
literacy competence, especially
in media and information
literacy”
• Aarhus Declaration (2017)
• «We call upon the […]
governments of Europe to […]
promote and support strong
reading and critical thinking
competencies through libraries
in a time of fake news and
information overload»

14. IFLA
• Fake News infographic
• translated into 39 languages
• Advocacy tool
• Giving libraries a global voice
• CNN news
• MS Office online images
• Report
• How it is used in libraries
QuestafotodiAutoresconosciutoèconcessoinlicenzadaCCBY-SA

15. Individual
countries (1)
United Kingdom
• The Culture, Media and Sports Committee of the House
of Commons recently published its Fifth Report
• Digital literacy – fourth pillar of education
• Program developed by charities and non-
governmental organisations
• Definition – Disinformation and Misinformation
• Social media companies “marking their own homework”
Canada
• Jolie: social media networks and media literacy
organisations
• Libraries for preservation
• Issues of access and connectivity
• Consultation (Minister of Innovation, Science and
Economic Development, 2018)

16. Individual
Countries (2)
USA
• www.usa.gov: no hits for “Fake news”
• https://digitalliteracy.gov (Obama)
Italy
• Digital agenda
• Transforming public administration
• Job market
• No educational strategic plans
• Previous government: National Plan
for the Digital School (2016)

17. Librarians’ perception vs. General perception
• Librarians
• Curators
• Educators
• Ethical committment
• Goal: active citizenship
• Speak to «their» stakeholders,
not to outsiders
• Official documents
• Libraries – taken for granted?
• Internet platforms «mark their
own homework»
• Different foci
• Cybersecurity
• Job market
• Networking
• Active citizenship

18. Confronting
the present
with the past
• Big Data: democracy is killed by too much
information (Marchionini)
• Libraries are slow (Lor)
• custodians of less ephemeral content
• provide continuing access to the records of
our time
• Rejection of negationist attitudes
• Advocacy
• Network with other stakeholders
• Promoting interdisciplinary research

19. IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and other
Information Workers (2012)
• Librarians […] organize and present content in a way that allows an autonomous
user to find the information s/he needs. Librarians and other information workers
help and support users in their information searching.
• Librarians and other information workers […] promote information literacy
including the ability to identify, locate, evaluate, organize and create, use and
communicate information. And they promote the ethical use of information
thereby helping to eliminate plagiarism and other forms of misuse of
information.
• Memory: Orwell, 1984; Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
• Social cohesion: Huxley, Brave New World

20. Thank you!
Matilde Fontanin
matilde.fontanin@uniroma1.it