How many articles have you read this week about fake news? From Joyce Valenza’s Truth, Truthiness, Triangulation article in School Library Journal to the release of Stanford University’s report, it becomes clear that all libraries have a big job to do. We know that people of all ages need web literacy skills. Librarians have been on the forefront of teaching digital literacy since the days of dial-up connections, and fortunately there are lots of resources out there for teaching classes. Case in point, the Mozilla Web Literacy activities that are engaging, thorough, and free to use and remix. But my experience is that classes solely about digital literacy reach a limited number of patrons.

Can we talk with patrons about evaluating web resources in every encounter? Let’s say you’re answering a reference question about a health concern, “Will you help me find information about lactose intolerance?” Yes, we want to steer patrons to resources like X-Plain tutorials and the Health Reference Center Academic, but are there questions we can ask, as though thinking out loud, that can help our patrons integrate critical skills? “Gee, I wonder why this site has the words ‘Ads related to’ near it?” “Wait a second, who’s behind this site that says I can eat confidently with lactose intolerance?” “What’s the domain name in this URL?” When we answer questions, develop adult, teen, or kids programs or create help sheets that include web resources, we can note why the sites are reliable. Even informative posters near computers can get patrons thinking. We can become as well-versed in communicating about digital literacy as we are in our own use of it, even in a post-truth world.