>> JENNIFER: I'm going to go ahead and get our meeting started.

>> JENNIFER: We have the cofounders, Jevin West and Chris Coward.

Jevin is also an associate professor at the University of Washington nsks school.

Chris serves as senior principal research scientist at the I school.

And we're thrilled to have Kate Lapinski, the Director of Adult services at the Chicago public library.

We're so grateful you're here, too, Kate.

Thank you so much to all of our presenters for being here.

We're super excited about today's session.

I'm going to go ahead and pass it on over to Jevin.

And have him get us started.

Welcome, Jevin.

>> JEVIN WEST: Awesome.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, to all of you, to take the time in the summer to join us on this -- around this question, I think, that we're all struggling with.

Although I will say it's challenging to talk to library professionals about this.

Because the profession has been talking about this for a very long time.

I think the newness of our technology environments does require some additional community conversation about that.

And I think that's what this is about.

I do want to emphasize that this isn't me just talking to you.

I've learned so much, living and teaching within the library environment.

You know this very well, too.

This is just a chance for us to figure out how to address it.

So, one of the things -- actually, I just -- sorry.

My slide thing that I was -- how do I push this over again, Jennifer?

>> JENNIFER: It's the top -- arrows at the top center of the slide.

>> JEVIN WEST: There it is.

Perfect.

Let me start with an example.

Early on in the pandemic, there was a study that went viral.

Or I'll say a so-called study.

This was a study coming out of a group in Belgium.

And they had done some simulative work.

They were looking at air droplets that were breathed out of, let's say, a runner on a runner's trail, how that might land in the face of another runner.

This was during the early times of the pandemic.

Where we still had a lot to learn.

Both in the science community and in the public.

And people were concerned that if you went to the park during the early parts of the pandemic, runners might be passing on droplets of COVID that had COVID on to another person on the trail.

What was interesting about this particular article is that there was no study.

There wasn't a peer-reviewed article.

There wasn't a non-peer-reviewed article.

There wasn't even a preprint article for this.

Yet this went viral.

And being at the center that we are, we can track these kinds of things that go viral.

Because this is some of the work that we do.

And what was interesting about this one is that this did land in NPR News.

I heard it in my own local news in Seattle.

It was translated into lots of different languages.

And this particular study -- it wasn't a study.

And the reason why I bring this up is that even the professionals in the field studying this very thing fell for it.

Not -- fell for is almost the wrong word.

But they also, like, fell to this information that had not been verified.

So, if that's the case, even the professionals, epidemiologists, researchers in the kind of would, that do this simulation didn't recognize it.

Journalists didn't recognize it.

It just means we can all fall for it.

I want to start with an example.

Saying it's not just that there are some groups in society that are more -- they might be more prone to it.

But we are all very much susceptible to misinformation.

That's what we do in our center.

We study the dynamics of rumor spreading.

We try to understand sense making collectively on the web in its current form and in its new forms we're seeing with AI.

As we study these things, we also think about interventions.

That's what we do in our center.

Our mission centers around a lot of the research we do.

I want to emphasize for this group the importance of education and community engagement.

In fact, it's on equal par with our research.

It's that interface between community engagement and research that I think really allows us to do the best work.

And, in particular -- I just wanted to emphasize this.

In particular, we engage very much with public libraries.

In fact, we see one of them as our key -- all of you and our public libraries around the world as some of our most important partners in trying to address this problem of misinformation, disinformation, and everything that surrounds it.

What I want to do in my section before I turn it over to Chris and Kate, is talk about a few different things I've noticed over the years studying this.

Things I've seen in the research.

Things we've seen in our own world.

But I want to emphasize one other thing.

And that is this is a -- there's so many different things that make us fall for misinformation.

We all are, again, susceptible.

From K-1 to K-99 or however long we live as humans.

We're all susceptible to this.

I'm going to emphasize a few of the technology explanations.

There are individual explanations.

There are social explanations.

Those are things that Chris and Kate are going to hit on more.

Let me start with the most important reason why we fall for misinformation.

That is we're human.

I know that sounds so basic.

But that particular theme comes back to us each and every time.

No matter where you are as a professional.

No matter how old, how young, what country you come from, what environment.

We're all susceptible to misinformation.

I love Neil Thompson's rendition here.

If bees were in charge, maybe they wouldn't fall as prey.

Maybe they would.

We doesn't know.

But we, as humans, are very prone to this.

Chris and Kate will hit some of this surrounding why we're susceptible.

Part of the National Academy of Science consensus where we're working -- we talk a will the about these kinds of issues.

It's macive set of reasons why.

But let me now talk a little bit more about the information environments more generally.

Then provide some more specification.

In my world -- I'm a researcher.

So in my world, we're inundated with papers.

Even in my field, I cannot keep up with things.

It's only going to get worse with the advent or this sort of new world of AI in which we live.

We're overwhelmed with information.

The environments more generally.

Not just in my professional world where thousands of papers are being published every single day.

There's millions and trillions, of course, of posts and messages.

We're constantly being inundated and overwhelmed.

Our information environments are torrential.

When they're torrential, we can become more sort of susceptible because of the exhaustion that these information environments, I think, put us in.

The states it puts us in.

What's ironic about this situation is with all this information and ways to connect, a rising element of research showing how serious our mental state -- how important our mental states are in that susceptible to misinformation.

One of the things that we're seeing more and more in our research -- and I've been to multiple conferences over the last year on this.

And it's being pushed from the U.S. surgeon general that loneliness is becoming it's own kind of epidemic or pandemic in many ways.

Which is kind of interesting.

Given how much information we have.

And all these ways in which we can connect with people around the world.

But this is leading to, of course, all sorts of societal issues.

But when it comes to misinformation and susceptibility to conspiracy theories, researchers have been doing a lot of important work looking at the connection between those two.

So, as librarians and as communitarians.

Anything that focuses on well-being is helping us to address this issue of misinformation.

There's sometimes direct connections to that.

It doesn't have to be a direct connection.

As we increase well-being in an individual, the better we are to counter conspiracy theories and -- false conspiracy theories.

Not all conspiracy theories are false.

At least the false conspiracy theories.

And more nefarious disinformation and malinformation.

Now, of course, the medical profession has been dealing with this sort of issue for a long time.

It's becoming more and more of a problem.

The last couple of years, I've been working with different national organizations, and talking to physicians and doctors.

And trying to hear what some of their challenges are.

They're not just treating patients anymore.

They're treating sort of information that the patients are engaging with on Facebook or other social media platforms.

Many of them are spending half their time in the office dealing with misinformation.

And one of the things that leads a lot to that is something that we study.

And our colleagues around the country that study this, are data voids.

Data voids are situations where there isn't a lot of good authoritative or high-quality information to address a particular conspiracy theory, falsehood or rumor.

Those things can take off on search engines.

If I had more time, I could show you example after example after example that emerge in timely events.

In issues that, like, the medical community, for example, hasn't been able to address.

Because it's so new in its rumorness.

One example, at least in the state of Washington, was the rise of the rumor around ethylene oxide, the sterilization of the nose swabs we use to see if someone has COVID or not.

How that went viral.

Many people were concerned.

Even though there were other things that we would have been concerned about.

But these data voids make it very hard for us to keep up.

We fall victim to this.

Because we say, well, we Googled it.

And we found evidence of it.

So it must be true.

Where we have to really emphasize to our patrons when using search engines -- we don't do enough.

I've been teaching formal environments and informal environments on how to use search engines effectively and how they can be misled.

We could do a whole lecture just on that.

Maybe we will.

Because it's an important thing I'm seeing in my own work on this.

We want to move these conversations from evidence to rules for argument.

As I tell my students and people I work with -- and when I talk to the public about these kinds of issues, there's infinite evidence.

A lot of people say I did my own research.

I love that.

We should all do our own research.

And we should do the best in the education world to give people tools to did their own research.

I love when people do their own research.

What we're doing a good enough job is teaching people about the rules for argument.

Essentially epistemology.

We don't use that word.

How do we know what we know?

We need to bring back civics and digital civics.

And libraries may be a place where we can bring back digital civics.

The curriculums in high school, middle schools and elementary schools are already packed.

At some point maybe we can fit that back in.

We need to bring this back.

The library environment is great place to start to bring back digital civics.

By the way, I know many of you in libraries out there are working exactly on this.

But it's something we can do to address this.

All right.

Last two things, and then I'm going to turn it over to Chris and Kate.

It's something we all know.

If you have ever used social media.

Which seems everyone has.

They're designed to be addictive.

There's strong evidence from many, many, many different places that show that.

Even evidence within the social media platforms themselves.

Like this whistleblower account that the Wall Street journal reported on a while back about Facebook and Instagram's  toxicity for girls.

That's another reason we fall prey to it.

They don't have any allegiance to the truth.

The more we put -- the more we become addicted to whatever is there, whether it's true or not, the higher chances that we fall for misinformation.

The last thing I'll say here is that synthetic media is making it harder to detect the rise of deepfakes.

Sort of audio, someone saying something they didn't, is making it harder and harder for us to not fall prey to misinformation.

If a company can lose $25 million after a deepfake that was impersonating a chief financial officer, they can fool people like that, with that much money at stake, we can all be fooled.

It's something we're doing research on.

And happy to go into discussion about those in open question session.

Some of the areas we're seeing the biggest problem when it comes to AI and where we could help our patrons in our libraries is around the scams.

We get a lot of talk about the political elements of deepfakes.

But it's in the scam area.

I'll end there by saying why do we fall?

Millions of reasons, really.

I want to emphasize some of the ones that keep hitting me in the face as a researcher.

And keep seeing over and over in the would, that we do.

And I focus a lot, mostly on the technology side.

But we are human is most important.

I think Kate and Chris will talk more about that.

And what we can do about that.

I'm going to end here by listing a few other things, of many, that might also make us more vulnerable to misinformation.

Why we fall for misinformation.

We want to run a quick poll.

Just to wake everyone up a little bit before we move on to the next two speakers.

Of those we list -- of course, we're not listing them all.

You can use that as your other.

What makes us fall prey?

We wanted to get your thoughts on this.

And to get you start to think about this, as we move to our next speaker.

Over to you, Chris.

>> CHRIS COWARD: Thank you, Jevin.

Now I need to see if I have control.

No.

Of the slides.

>> JENNIFER: Chris, you do have the ball.

>> CHRIS COWARD: I found it.

There we go.

Okay.

So, excuse me.

Just dealing with a bit of a cold here.

Jevin covered a nusm reasons.

In the poll we're giving you the option of maybe identifying others here.

How are we doing?

We'll let this run for another minute.

But I think as Jevin has really illustrated, this is a really complicated environment.

It's daunting.

And we would say that it stretches probably to the bursting point.

Some of our conventional ways, conventional approaches we've used to help people find and evaluate information.

So for my part, I'm going to share -- first, I'm going to share kind of what we've learned from librarians.

These are based on interviews and other research we've done.

I think the tips are readily applicable today.

So when you're thinking about your programs, you can use these ideas to inform your own work.

Because it's informed our work as well.

And, secondly, I'm going to illustrate with a particular project how we've incorporated some of the learnings from the libraries.

As well as these reasons for why we fall for information into a library program that we actually just codesigned with librarians.

So, I will then proceed.

I don't know, can we see the responses to the poll?

There we go.

I want to -- before we move on.

Most people say --

>> JEVIN WEST: I just love information feels true.

It's such -- that's really, really interesting.

There's a lot of truth to some of the surveying and interviewing we've done.

Anyway, I just want to jump in.

That's very interesting.

>> CHRIS COWARD: Yes.

In fact, whatever you answered, you were correct.

That's what makes this all so complicated.

I think in the old days it might be because, oh, we failed to evaluate the information correctly.

Well, that's no longer the case.

So, what can we learn from librarians?

First of all they said we need new approaches.

The checklists, for the most part, they thought were not very effective.

And even the ones that, like, tried to retool themselves for misinformation, such as this one, have information in here like check your biases.

Which is true.

But it's very difficult for anyone to really internalize that concept.

Just having it posted out there.

Be careful of your biases.

Watch for your emotions.

Was in and of itself not very effective.

Secondly, they said they need something that complements skills.

And this is kind of provocative, right, in our world?

Because we think of information literacy as being kind of the cornerstone of librarianship.

And information literacy is very much a skills acquisition methodology.

But they recognize that, you know, skills are only one piece of the picture.

And that we need things that will scaffold and complement it in different ways.

Next, they talked about the psychological dimensions.

And they spoke of all the different cases where they've seen people's biases.

Such as confirmation bias.

Their emotions.

Who they trust and why.

Which groups are they part of really shapes how people form trust.

And also their identity.

Jevin spoke about loneliness.

It's very much the case that people will be attracted to communities because they're lonely.

Maybe they can feel part of something that's bigger than themselves.

It's not so much that the information -- whether the information is true or not is almost secondary to them feeling a special bond with other people.

All of these psychological effective pieces play powerful roles.

And it goes to Jevin's first point that we're all human.

We are all biased.

We all have these cognitive tendencies, for example, to find information that fits our own world view.

Next, they said we need approaches that respect people with different beliefs and world views.

And I think probably all of you have been uncomfortable or awkward situations.

Where you've spoken to someone who clearly was along an unusual line of belief.

And you find it very difficult to counter it.

What they said is if you start to counter the information, it comes across as if you're countering or you're challenging the person, his or herself.

That's something we need to avoid.

Because as information professionals, you're not trying to do that.

You're trying to keep it about the information.

It's not only about the information.

It's really about the people's identities, their world views, and so on.

Next they said that we need to address misinformation indirectly.

And by that, they meant many of these people had ran programs, such as learn how to spot fake news.

But the problem was the -- first of all, not a whole lot of people came.

But the people who came were either already concerned about the problem -- otherwise, it was kind of preaching to the choir effect.

They were in the reaching the people who were more vulnerable.

And they were not reaching the people who were contributing to the problem.

So they went at different ways -- as they said, you have to hide the vegetables.

And lastly, they said they wanted approaches that were not top-down, as we might have in a more conventional teaching role or teaching environment.

But something that would be more bottom-up.

That would foster conversation.

Jevin mentioned this is as much a problem, digital civics, as it is about misinformation.

And being able to get people in the community to talk about mi information.

Their own personal experiences with misinformation.

Maybe share why they've been vulnerable or fallen for misinformation.

It can be a lot more powerful than them playing the role of the authority vis-a-vis the patrons.

So we took all of that and turned into a design challenge.

We need to design something, an intervention for public libraries that is first experiential.

Where people would viscerally experience what it's like to be fooled and make mistakes.

So they would have that personal experience.

We wanted people to also confront their biases and their emotions.

Such as confirmation bias.

We want it to be a social experience that would allow for peer learning, discussion, and appeal across the ideological spectrum.

And, lastly, we wanted to, obviously, leverage the public library, space that has these information professionals.

And have that important profession as trusted institutions in their communities.

So what we ended up with was a misinformation escape room.

And here are just a couple of pictures of it being used.

One is with a group of students.

The other -- actually, I don't know where the other picture is taken.

Could be at the library.

Could be with our students.

But the escape room is immersive, right?

It's about a 45-minute game.

So it allows people to get engaged in a narrative.

And fall for misinformation.

In fact, we designed it so everyone gets fooled.

So they have no -- and make a mistake.

So there's no way out of that design decision.

It's social, as can you see.

It's teams of four to six players per game.

And it also puts the library in the role of the game host and facilitator of a conversation, a debrief after the game.

And all the game literature shows that's where most learning occurs.

When they've had that opportunity to kind of reflect on what happened in the game.

So, for example, this is just a recording from one game that we observed.

Librarian said okay, when you learned that the video was a deepfake, that you guys have been tricked, how did you feel?

Player one, I was shocked.

Honestly, yeah.

I wasn't expecting that.

So I was just like, oh, dang.

Yeah.

We had just spent time looking at bots and stuff like that.

So it's like, how did I not notice?

Maybe it was just a really good deepfake.

I don't know.

I wasn't looking that close.

Another person, I don't think I was paying attention.

So these are examples of all the conversations.

It was interesting to see people share their personal experiences, how they believed something that they later found to be not true.

Having that immersive experience together in a fictional setting allowed them to have that conversation.

And allowed the librarian to be a facilitator.

Not a teacher.

So, I think from that illustration and from all the reasons, I think what we're saying is there is no one-size-fits-all.

For example, the checklist and some of our other information literacy tools that said come up with your question.

Set up a search strategy.

Find a lot of sources.

Evaluate them, triangulate them.

We need a variety of approaches that meet people wherever they are, and whoever they are.

Because as Jevin noted, we're all vulnerable.

People believe things for a huge number of reasons.

And so we need approaches that cater to different populations.

For example, that escape room project, we've done in another game with the cancer research center for breast cancer patients.

They're in a different environment.

And we did another game with a fandom community.

Because how misinformation spreads in media is a different context.

That's what we're trying to do.

We have this project called empowering informed communities from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

We've been working with librarians and work amongst our team.

To take all of our research, take a lot of our resources, and both package and retool them for the public library context.

One thing we know is that what works in a classroom, where people are kind of obligated to be in that learning is very different from a public library setting.

Where you have to attract people into your library.

To avail themselves of these resources.

We have a misinformation day event.

We have videos.

We have a SIFT methodology that is not a checklist.

It's more of a methodology.

It's really effective.

We have a Minecraft game we're just finishing for children.

And many other resources we're now in the process of pulling together.

So, with that, I think I will now get to turn it over to Kate Lapinski at the Chicago Public Library.

>> KATE LAPINSKI: Hi, everybody.

Thanks for being here with us today.

I'm Kate.

I am the Director of Adult services for Chicago Public Library.

And I'm basically going to go there some of the steps that we took here at CPL to kind of put into place some of the things that Chris and Jevin have talked about.

So, in my role as director of adult Services, basically the Adult Services department is responsible for partnerships, programs and initiatives for our adult patrons.

And in addition, we set direction and provide learning and development for our adult-serving public services staff.

It's straifn department that is made up of two different units.

One is the civic, cultural and literary engagement team.

And the other is the adult learning and economic advancement team.

This past year, just ended last month, I did a fellowship with the Center for an Informed Public.

And the reason I did it was to actually kind of start a sustained, cohesive effort to deal with misinformation here at CPL.

And, you know, my approach and how I try to talk about this topic is very simple.

And it's probably very similar to yours.

Since you are in this webinar.

We just don't deal with disinformation in a widespread or consistent work cohesive way throughout our system.

We have had efforts.

They've been individual efforts or small efforts.

So I'm trying to kind of build something that is really kind of rooted in a base of staff learning and engagement.

As many of you know, you know, everybody has to be kind of prepped and feel secure in their own understanding of the subject before they can start engaging patrons.

I just want to bring some cohesion to it.

Basically, we did just a little bit of background.

I do want to say CPL is a very big system, right?

We have 81 locations and 1200 staff.

The things I'm going to talk to you about today can be used for anyone.

For a group of any size.

It can even be used for your own individual learning, really, too.

So, I'm going to be talking about something that we did at what we call ASID, which is all-staff institute day.

And it is a big deal in the CPL -- in our CPL life.

It only happens once a year.

And it is the only day that all of our staff is together.

Right?

Because we're spread out, throughout the city.

So, everyone comes to our main location downtown.

And it is awe full day of learning.

So, I basically chose to kind of have my team run some sessions at ASID.

Because it's the best way to get as many eyes and ears, like, on the subject of misinformation as we could.

Right?

It's a really big stage.

And it's also the only way to reach staff of all levels.

So I usually just deal with our adult-serving public services staff.

But this was everybody.

This was our clerks.

This was our back of the house staff.

This is like our drivers.

This is everybody who works for CPL.

So we ran -- myself and my staff from the Adult Services Department ran two learning sessions for staff at ASID.

I'm going to go through and tell you about them.

So the main thing to know is that I used CIP resources that are available for you to use, too.

And you can use them.

Just keep in mind that you can use them for staff learning and development sessions, as I did.

Or you can use them for patron programming, as we plan on doing soon.

So we did an escape room.

Chris just talked about the escape rooms.

We did The Euphorigen Investigation.

And this was extremely popular with everybody.

The slots were filled, actually, before any other ASID session were filled.

We actually had to add more slots.

So more people could come.

Now, totally piggybacking on what Chris was just talking about.

About addressing it indirectly and hiding the vegetables.

In the listing -- in the schedule for ASID, we said nothing about misinformation.

The description was something very like escape rooms are popular.

Come to this session.

And play this really fun game.

And your patrons might love an escape room, too, right?

We didn't give, like, any lessons away.

That was something to note.

And then the second session that we did was our own version, like a mini MisinfoDay.

You heard about this, too.

MisinfoDay is an annual media literacy event that CIP does and that happens in Washington state.

But the important thing for us all to know is that the resources, tools, activities are all available online.

So there is a MisinfoDay resource library that things that the CIP staff have put together to run MisinfoDay.

There is really a wealth of resources for you to use and go through.

It's basically like different activity stations that are set up in a room.

And the participants, like, rotate through and learn more about the subject.

And our goal, really, for our own MisinfoDay, was to provide different engagement types.

We tried to make each table like a different activity.

Because this session was in the afternoon.

So we didn't want to make it something that people were just listening.

So let's go into a little bit more detail about the escape room game.

So, this was just -- I cannot say this enough.

This was the perfect activity for the day.

It brought people together.

And was so fun and active.

We did it in our children's library here at the main library.

And just bright, lots of space.

Room for everyone to spread out and get into it.

There are some pictures there for you.

It was really high energy.

We had originally planned on having, like, 13 teams.

Honestly, I think we ended up with, like, 15 or 16.

And it was just really fun.

We -- so our staff -- my staff are the people who, like, ran the game.

So we just kind of made sure that everything was flowing properly.

And we provided a lot of hints.

Sometimes even for like the game flow.

We might have given people an answer or two.

Right?

It's a very engaging, difficult game.

Chris talked about this, too.

But for us and for my team, the crucial part of the experience is really that conversation that you have debriefing with the players after the game.

There's a really good guide available that leads you through talking with the players and the game.

And, really, about their experience with disinformation.

That's available to everyone.

We did it, honestly, just printed it out.

Put it on clipboards and took notes as we talked to everybody, as the game was finished.

We learned so much through that conversation.

I'm going to go through them a little bit more at the end.

So then our second session that we did in the afternoon is MisinfoDay.

Right?

And I just wanted to, again, say -- to talk about these resources that are valuable.

I went through, honestly, about ten different iterations of what the tables would be and what all the activity stations would be.

Because you're provided with just a wealth of resources from CIP.

And they have, like, great depths.

And they cover the spectrum of the different subjects included in misinformation.

It's really fun for you to kind of plug and play.

And decide what works for your audience.

Right?

You can go through iterations approximate and make it as narrow or as broad as you want to.

We started the day with a key note that everyone watched together.

And it was from MisinfoDay day 2022 or 2023.

It was about why we fall for misinformation.

It kind of set the tone, like we talked about, for the complexity and human angle of this issue, right?

I think it's very important, as librarians, to understand that this is not just a digital literacy skill.

This is not like a political divide issue only.

There are so many factors at play.

Watching it together.

And kind of making sure that we were grounded in that information really, I think, put us all in the right head space.

To then go in and get more specific about some of the things.

We did five activity tables and 11-minute long rotations.

Of course, however many tables you do and however long your rotations are up to you.

You're designing your own day.

We played a really fun game.

Which face is real?

We did a short article discussion about AI in misinformation.

And talked about that.

We had a table that was really just for beginners.

And was like a Power Point.

Truly, one of my staff just went through and gave people the definitions of different types of misinformation.

We did a really good YouTube video.

That was just watching.

That was fact checking with SIFT that Chris was just talking about, the SIFT methodology.

We did something else that was more intensive.

Like a quiz on deepfakes.

That had a lot of really good, real-life examples.

That was our misinfo session.

This is what we heard.

This was the feedback from our staff and participants in both things.

Right?

From the debrief conversations, we had some groups -- and this is one group in particular, that first bullet pownt.

One group was like, that was so fun.

And when we went in to talking about misinformation, it was kind of like, oh, it's okay.

We just really wanted to win.

Like oh, yeah, sharing a video that might have been misinformation was fine.

Because we were just so competitive.

So there were people who were just having fun, right?

And then we had another discussion with another group, with another team.

That, you know, found it hard.

And were really kind of engaged in trying to figure it out.

And interestingly, they were a group of staff that work a lot with patrons on computers, right?

And they talked a lot about how they don't personally really share anything on social media.

Because they doesn't know how to tell what's true or not.

And then we talked a little bit about that patron relationship, right?

And you're helping patrons on computer.

And we did hear a lot that, well, a lot of our patrons are full conspiracy theorists.

We could never discuss or imagine how we would try to engage with anything like we learned today.

Right?

So we had a really nice conversation about that.

And then the last group of the example that I'm using were, again, another team that were from a branch.

And this kind of plays into what Jevin was talking about at the end.

About how online scams and stuff are really kind of part of this.

And they talked a lot about like they had just had something happen that they had truly helped a patron avoid a very bad, like, banking scam.

It had just happened the week before.

And they just talked about how they see patrons having issues with misinformation all the time.

And how in that branch, the librarian feels like she personally acts as an expert in what is true and what is not for her patrons, right?

So it was really interesting.

MisinfoDay, we heard, was really challenging but in a good way.

It was like dealing with difficult subjects.

We did get feedback, though, that our participants wished that the session was more applicable to programming and/or librarianship.

So, again, I did it very broadly.

It was just like misinformation learning for the day.

So we did not get into, like, how would you design a program about this for your patrons?

I was glad to hear that was something that people wanted.

Just in general, we observed people being, to be honest, a lot more into it than we thought they would be.

People taking a ton of notes.

Really watching disbaijing with the material.

Even if it was just like them watching a YouTube video of something.

They were really listening.
 and going through.

I had some very good conversations about it with my staff.

Which was very good to be able to, like, find our way forward about how we would go on.

And, you know, the escape room, people just -- it brought so much, like, joyful activity.

Everyone was like, God, people love this.

It was such a fun game.

Again, it was difficult.

This isn't something that's just like a game you're playing.

It requires some dedication and fun to it.

So it was really great.

We definitely are thinking about the ways in which the escape room could be a patron program, right?

And we could spread it out into all of our branches.

MisinfoDay, I think if I could do it again -- which, you know, you can't go back in time.

But I think for us -- because we are the adult services department.

And we do the staff and learning for our adult-serving staff.

We should have done it maybe more in an adult services staff meeting.

So that we could go, like, much deeper into things.

Like how would you program for this?

How could you be more specific?

And really kind of lead into the librarianshipping a little bit.

I do think that people -- not all the participants, but many of the people maybe felt like it was too general.

That could have been the things I picked.

You can pick all your own resources.

Our discussions had us believing is that the important thing is that you have to find a way into the subject that is not academic.

And that is not defeatist either.

An example of this is the staff member who did the article discussion.

You know, he was saying that, like, most of the participants were like, well, I'm just not going to do it.

I'm not going to engage with that.

I'm not going to have anything to do with that.

It's really important to be able to, like, figure things out.

And approach it in a way that is, like, easier and not just scary for people.

Because it is a very, very scary subject.

And then for us here, we just kind of are embracing the fact that boght of the units in the department have a hand in kind of dealing with this.

So there are things like in the adult learning unit, we can be talking about it as a digital skill a little more.

Or how to identify things, right?

But in the other unit, in civic and cultural engagement, we can be talking a lot more about civics and the political process.

We have it on the agenda again in some upcoming meetings.

We're trying to -- hoping in the next few months to be able to grow into an interest group that's for all staff.

And that is kind of throughout the whole system.

And is able to bring in different angles.

And, of course, we want to use some of the resources for patron programming.

So our branches and staff can bring it to patrons approximate and start engaging in discussions.

That is it for me.

Kind of a rundown about how things have been in the last couple of months here in Chicago.

And I believe I am passing it back to you, Jevin.

>> JEVIN WEST: Awesome.

Thanks so much, Kate.

And thanks for all -- and thanks to Chris as well.

And thank you, all.

The questions and comments.

I want this to keep going.

We have another couple of hours, right, Jennifer, on this one?

I think we're going to have to keep going.

Because there's so much good stuff.

First of all, we can make any of these resources available.

Feel free to reach out to us.

Any of us individually.

Or certainly the CIP.

That's where your question will most likely get a quick answer.

So, with that, I just want to say that we are now open for verbal questions, I think.

Or maybe you have to type them in.

We're going to hang out for the next ten minutes.

And answer any questions you have or comments you have.

And use that time that you have to continue this conversation.

But know that this will continue afterwards.

One last point is that several of you had questions about community colleges.

About this project where we're going to be putting all these resources together.

The codesigning for trust project.

We're updating those websites.

And they may be coming out, hope flirks as early as this summer.

Anyway, with that, let's just open it up to your thoughts and questions.

>> JENNIFER: Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Yes, please post your questions.

I'll begin with a few thoughts that came through.

I saw that you all have been really great about answering some of them in chat.

Just a note that somebody was interested in the details and blueprint of the escape room game.

So, if you wanted to emphasize that those resources are available.

Correct?

>> JEVIN WEST: I'll let Chris answer that.

Chris is the central point for that.

>> CHRIS COWARD: They're all there.

It's lokisloop.org.

We'll put that link in the chat again.

You can play the game without logging in or anything.

If you create an account -- it's an automatic process -- then you get access to all the background information, the debrief guides, the other resources we've created to support libraries in offering this as a program.

>> JENNIFER: Wonderful.

And then you did mention any updates on the Minecraft game development as well.

Can you talk a bit about the status of that?

>>

>> CHRIS COWARD: Yeah.

We've been working with someone here.

For a kids team.

Designed ages 7 to 13.

Minecraft is one of them.

We're just -- everything is, like, 98% done in our next step.

And I think we'll be doing it with WebJunction.

As we'll be looking for libraries who would be willing to test all three of those.

The Minecraft game and the other two activities.

One is around generative AI and the other is around TikTok videos and misinformation.

Reach out to us if you're interested.

We'll be send out something through email or social media through WebJunction.

Also asking libraries if they're interested in being testers for that.

If all goes well, the games will be ready toward the end of the year.

>> JENNIFER: Excellent.

Then I just wanted to -- again, feel free to post some of your questions.

We have some time.

I wanted to make -- I appreciated this one comment from someone.

I see a disconnect between being respectful of different viewpoints.

And giving different viewpoints equal time.

Versus denying equal time.

Acknowledging some facts change depending on the power structure of society.

I want to note.

I think, Kate, your working with staff is a really great example of how the -- depending on the context.

Here we are colleagues.

But there's differences in how we approach information.

I think that's beginning with staff.

And having those conversations.

You guys did a great -- that was a great approach.

Any thoughts on that, Jevin?

>> JEVIN WEST: I have thoughts.

I would love to have Kate -- because you're on the front lines, Kate, on this.

It's such a hard question.

I'm kind of actually just delaying, to be honest.

It's such a hard one to address.

I don't have great answers.

I've read papers on it.

I've tried my own sort of techniques when talking to the public.

I don't know.

Kate, do you want to take a shot at that?

>> KATE LAPINSKI: I can take a shot at it.

I think that I don't work in a branch.

I am in my office here.

It's such a topic that our staff struggles with.

And that you cannot approach it without making sure your staff is in multiple ways to the subject.

Because the initial reaction is, oh, no.

I'm not talking to my patrons about that.

Right?

I left a branch nine years ago.

Nine years ago, I wouldn't have, like, known or been able to talk about bring up subjects like this with my patrons most of the time.

It's something that I feel like, it's the responsibility of administration really.

Or people who do the learning and development for front line staff.

To really make sure that the staff is actually equipped to do it, right?

And I think it's such a slippery subject that I don't know that you ever feel fully equipped to deal with it until you have these types of interactions.

There are certain things that you can define and carve out that you can't approach the subject, right?

And as information professionals, as we've been talking about today, we have to.

So I think it's just -- that's why it was very -- when I first started with CIP, I thought that the goal of my fellowship would be both training and starting patron programming.

That was way too much.

So I just concentrated on the staff learning part of it.

>> JEVIN WEST: That's great.

Thanks, Kate.

And in that time, your response reminded me of a few situations where the topics dealt with science.

The way I address that is to say I if not in a position to evaluate your values or make judgments on your perspective.

That's not my job as a researcher.

My job as a researcher could be to at least show you what the evidence is in the literature for this given topic.

And you can say, for example, there are, let's say, 90 research articles that show one result.

And there are 10 or 15 that show another.

Much of science is a lot like that.

In nonscience subjects it's more difficult.

In the science realm you can say here is what the literature says.

You can disagree.

It's not always right.

These are experts.

And many times they are right.

To think of this as an exercise when this happens.

Showing them how they can get the information to make their own decisions.

In doing that, they'll see the majority of this is happening.

And this is a project that I'm on the advisory board called consensus.app.

It goes into the literature.

It's available.

Basically it's a tool to bring the scientific literature to the public.

And show them sort of the meta results of a question.

You may say is creatinine good for me?

It's not often that it's binary.

That's one thing.

And I'll drop the link in, in a second.

It's consensus.app.

And there's a question about what happens when someone gets defensive?

Again, we're trying to do research to verify whether any of these strategies actually work.

But just be inquisitive.

Ask questions about where they got that information.

Librarians, this is one of their -- not trade secrets.

But trade, you know, superpowers.

And I think where did you learn that?

Why is that a good source?

Talk about the source of that.

That gets back to SIFT and these other methods that do that.

Use that as an opportunity to talk about -- and be inquisitive.

As some people said, don't be a lawyer in that situation.

Be Wikipedian or something.

That seems to help in situations I've run into like that, when people get defensive about it.

>> JENNIFER: Excellent.

We've got a little more time.

There are definitely questions coming in.

I want to note that some of them are questions that we'll probably continue to explore as teams move through this project.

Somebody asked about the difference between misinformation and disinformation.

Did you want to say something about that?

>> JEVIN WEST: Quickly.

From an academic perspective, in the sumpest sense, disinformation has an intentional element.

But it's a bit more than that.

Disinformation is much harder to study.

Because it's multifaceted.

It has strategic elements.

Some of it is true.

Some of it's not.

It's difficult to identify disinformation campaigns.

We have done that.

It's different than misinformation.

Well, it's different in that misinformation kind of encompasses disinformation.

It's an element of it.

When I think about misinformation, I'm thinking about individual articles that could be falsifiable or not.

There are things that you can do some of the fact checking work and find an answer.

But when I think about disinformation, it has that intentional element.

Whether it's a propagandaist or opportunist spreading disinformation intentionally.

And that's harder.

That's why we tend to look at these disinformation campaigns.

We quibble often about what it is and what it's not.

It tends to be, certainly, a much more complex phenomena.

>> JENNIFER: We'll be doing webinars.

So please connect.

Can you put that CIP email?

Someone asked about contacts.

>> JEVIN WEST: I'll drop it right now.

>> JENNIFER: There's an email that you can contact all of them.

>> JEVIN WEST: Any question about the education, research or anything we do.

UWCIP@UW.

>> JENNIFER: Chris, could you quickly touch on -- somebody asked about the age range that works best for escape rooms.

You worked with a number of different age groups.

They were going to do a fake news presentation.

This has convinced them maybe they should run an escape room.

Can families participate?

>> CHRIS COWARD: Absolutely.

>> JENNIFER: Which age do you think is too young?

>> CHRIS COWARD: We've seen people as young as 13, 14 do the game successfully.

We designed it for 16-plus.

We've had people all the way up into their 70s and 80s play.

The average age when we did a nationwide study was 40.

Games appeal across all age groups.

We are coming up with new games.

The next game we lease will be a little bit younger audience.

So we can look forward to that.

In terms of -- yeah.

Sorry.

>> JENNIFER: That's great.

Excellent.

We are at the top of the hour.

Super exciting.

You can see all the interest and lots of folks interested in what comes next.

We will dentally keep you up-to-date.

As Jevin said, we'll update you through our newsletter, Crossroads and social media channels.

Dentally keep an ow out there.

I will send you all an email later today once the recording is posted.

I'll send that certificate out to you on Monday probably.

Keep an eye out for that.

Finally, I'm going to send you to a short survey as you leave.

That survey link will be in the email you received.

If you have to head back to the desk now, know you can complete that survey later.

We really, really ask that you do take that time to provide that feedback.

It helps us guide our ongoing programming.

The team has unique questions specific to this project.

So, please, we would love your feedback.

It's super helpful for our work moving forward.

And a special thank you, again, to Chris, Jevin, and Kate.

Super exciting to see all this work.

And, Kate, to see how you've done all of this with your team as well.

So we look forward to what's to come.

Thank you, all, so much.

Have a great rest of your week.

And we'll see you next time.