LOEX 2026

This session will offer strategies for library instructors navigating consistently controversial topics in higher education. Librarians' expertise have always been undermined by technology, misinformation, and public perception in some form or fashion. Right now, we face artificial intelligence and social media, as well as stakeholders who misunderstand our purpose and students who lack confidence in their own critical thinking skills. The speaker, an instruction librarian with experience teaching emerging and interconnected literacies, will explain how these problems feed into each other and highlight ways in which librarians' existing information literacy skills can be adapted to tackle them.

Participants will:
1. Understand the importance of addressing controversial topics in information literacy instruction
2. Identify ways in which their existing information literacy skills, knowledge, and pedagogical practices can be applied to artificial intelligence and news media
3. Learn how to make traditional critical thinking competencies applicable to emerging and evolving barriers to information literacy both within and outside higher education