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Symposium on the Future of Libraries
While libraries recognize information literacy as a critical component of finding and assessing accurate information, they are not alone in valuing an informed citizenry. As one of the last trusted civic institutions in America, libraries should adopt elements of journalism to diversify efforts to cultivate this critical skill. This session and conversation focuses on librarianship and journalism’s shared mission of information provision, making them logical partners in exploring how best to capitalize on cooperation and collaboration around digital content.
Various types of libraries can engage in and benefit from news creation, aggregation, and dissemination. The presentation explores how some are publishing digital newspapers to engage existing users with high-quality, value-added products and to reach new users in creative ways. Other libraries are taking over local news coverage to ensure that critical hyper-local information doesn’t disappear altogether as legacy models fade away. Still others are partnering with news agencies in innovative, mutually beneficial partnerships such as training citizen journalists to surface compelling community stories.
Given the trustworthiness of the source, news products from libraries inform, inspire, and instill confidence in the accuracy and validity of content. Web annotation tools hold potential for linking news content to library resources, thereby driving information consumers from a journalism product to library assets which provide additional information and contextualization. This may result in a burgeoning synergistic relationship: As librarians enrich and share news stories containing hard to find information, data, archival resources which increase their value, journalists may in turn increase the use of library resources into their subsequent work.
ALA Unit/Subunit: ALA, Center for the Future of Libraries
Meeting Type: Symposium on the Future of Libraries
Cost: Included with full conference registration.
Open/Closed: Open
Kenn Bicknell
Digital Resources Librarian
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Research Library & Archive