By: Jolo Van Clyde S. Abatayo, RL
According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), critical thinking is a key skill in media and information literacy, and the mission of libraries is to educate and advocate its importance. It is really true that libraries and librarians play a very important role in battling fake news!
In this contemporary world, it is very alarming because there is a lot of individuals who can’t efficiently identify if the information they accumulate from the Internet is reliable or not. With that, as librarians who are tagged as information professionals and scientists, we should be the frontrunners of truth and transparency. We must familiarize the techniques on how to spot fake info.
As a Readers' Services Librarian, I am so curious about how students evaluate every information source they access online. It's really upsetting that there are some students who will just easily copy and paste information without considering its authority, accuracy, validity, and currency. As I always say, there is a lot of dogs out there and you know it's hard to identify who is fake and not.
Dr. Genaro Virador Japos, the President of the International Association of Multidisciplinary Research and the Founder of the Philippine Association of Multidisciplinary Research, mentioned that the only credible sources we can have in the web are the scholarly online databases which store peer-reviewed journals and other electronic resources. He also encouraged us to utilize the Google scholar if we want to identify the correctness of the information we access online. Furthermore, you can also visit www.harzing.com and download its software they named “Publish or Perish”, that can provide information about online papers and resources. It also presents resources to assist with academic publishing and the assessment of research and journal quality, as well as software to conduct citation analysis. This website has been online since 1999.
However, it is also important to avoid Predatory open-access publishing. Gina Kolata, an American science journalist and a writer of The New York Times, defined it as an exploitative open-access academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not). The idea that they are "predatory" is based on the view that academics are tricked into publishing with them, though some authors may be aware that the journal is poor quality or even fraudulent.
Moreover, we should be very vigilant about the author/s of a certain article. We should determine their previous publications, the historical backgrounds of their works, educational backgrounds, and their affiliations. You can also use the Publish or Perish because it provides a quick evaluation to assess a specific set of academics for a large variety of functions. The creator advises everyone to not use it as the only evaluation mechanism. Nevertheless, it can be your last resort for it allows you to immediately lessen your options to a smaller group to assess in more detail. You can also utilize it to evaluate reviewers, examiners, keynote speakers, referees.
In addition, one factor to consider is the date of publication. Once the info is outdated or obsolete, it could be inaccurate. Currency is absolutely important when your research involves current events, focuses on topics that need current data and theory, and focuses on a specific contemporary era or event.
It is stated in the Website of Western Sydney University that in the information technology, medicine, and business, current information is mandatory. However, for some topics, the use of recent information may not be quietly required. Sometimes, it is necessary to consider the uniqueness of a topic or the in-depth analysis.
Moreover, human beings are considered to be critical and rational thinkers and that separates us from other animals. We are expected to think first before doing something. For example, the activities we do on the Internet (particularly on the social networking sites) such as sharing and posting without thinking if these posts, blogs, or articles are reliable or not. There are also misleading headlines or titles that others can’t digest effectively that’s why it is a must to analyze the content first and read beyond. It is also important to check the supporting sources or the list of references. The links often help you distinguish if the info is concretely supported by these sources. Also, be very careful about articles that are satirical, opinionated, and biased. Examples of these are lampoons and editorials that are not that factual and proven right.
Lastly, we should always remember that librarians are your human search engines and they are better than Google! The famous author, Neil Gaiman even said that Google can bring you 100,000 results and answers but a librarian can give you the right one. They are information scientists and they are trained to be meritorious when it comes to retrieving every resource. They know how to efficiently assess the accuracy, currency, authoritativeness, and validity of information! This is not an exaggeration. Librarians are always there as your academic and research supports! Don’t be afraid to ask them because they won’t bite!
