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Tag Archives: National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Information Literacy Roundup 2020

03 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, Information Literacy Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month

December is here and that ends National Information Literacy Awareness Month, but information literacy and tech literacy are things to work on for everyone all year. Please revisit our posts.

What is Information Literacy?

  • Introduction to the Month
  • What is Information Literacy?
  • Iowa Official Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month
  • President of United States proclaims NILAM
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy 2018

Things to Think and Know About

  • Asking Good Questions
  • Check Your Photos
  • Copyright
  • Have a Plan for an Online Afterlife
  • Millennial Spokesman, NOT!
  • Online Activities and Job Hunting
  • Passwords
  • Privacy
  • Private Browsing Online
  • Satire and the News
  • Social Media
  • Spotting Trolls
  • Tracking Down a Study
  • Twitter Bad History Feeds
  • What Weight Is In a Name
  • What You Put Online Stays Online
  • Your Website Is Watching You

Keep calm, think it through and we’ll be back with more helpful tips next year!

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Month Spot the Troll

29 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Haters, Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Trolls

Not everyone online is your friend. Some people aren’t just there to have fun. They are there to trick you and attack you. These people are called Trolls.

Learn to Find the Trolls

This website is good for helping you learn what to look for in identifying trolls. Online trolls try to manipulate your opinions and actions. However, the site’s mock-ups don’t really convey everything you’d see in a real feed, so don’t feel bad if you miss a few. It’s really reading the WHYS the quiz gives that help you learn about trolls and how to avoid them.

https://spotthetroll.org/start

No Haters

Another thing to caution you against. People are more aware of trolls now, but just because there ARE trolls, doesn’t mean everyone who has a different opinion than you IS a troll. Some people can genuinely have a different opinion. Some people shake off every criticism with “haters going to hate.” But that really isn’t true. While some people really are haters, attacking people for stupid or wrong reasons, there are other people whose negative comments really ARE worth consideration. Sometimes they are right and you are the one who is wrong or misinformed. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes both parties are partly right and partly wrong.

It’s too easy to just throw anything you don’t 100% agree with in a big pile, labeled hate and ignore it. The most important piece of information literacy you can have is remembering to stop and think. Don’t just automatically assume people you agree with are right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Any one instance might be one of those times.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Is Satire News?

24 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, News

Can’t You Take a Joke?

The Pew Research Center has done a study about where people get their news from. Surprisingly approximately 15% of people surveyed consider The Colbert Report a trusted source for news.

For some, the satiric ‘Colbert Report’ is a trusted source of political news

Bob Hope and Fred Allen

Political Satire has long been a part of American popular culture. Bob Hope and Fred Allen are early adapters of the monologue as part of their radio shows where political quips and jokes are made. (Sadly this means there are often jokes that people at the time got, but we don’t get today.)

Although these comedy reports might make you aware of a topic you’d follow up on, they wouldn’t take the place of legitimate news sources. However, around 15% of people view the Colbert Report as a legitimate news source. They ignore both the fact that exaggeration is a frequent device in comedy and that the comedy comes from a certain political bent.

Take With a Grain of Salt

So no matter what your sources of news, don’t pick just one single source. Don’t trust a comedian to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Your Website Is Watching You

17 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, Information Literacy Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Online Privacy

Have you ever gotten the feeling as you were working online that someone was watching you? Turns out you probably weren’t wrong.

According to Ars Technica: “A new study finds hundreds of sites—including microsoft.com, adobe.com, and godaddy.com—employ scripts that record visitors’ keystrokes, mouse movements, and scrolling behavior in real time, even before the input is submitted or is later deleted.”

So private information is inputted into these sites. The recording information may start before you submit anything. These records are made and analyzed by third party organizations, with even less oversight often without giving you any notification. Information like medical conditions or credit card numbers are multiplied across sites around the web.

As it stands today there isn’t a lot a user can do in response. Be careful and selective in where you put your true information online. Using ad-blockers and the “Do Not Track” option built into browsers stopped some, but not all such tracking. So for the most part be restrictive about where you put your personal data online.

Take Helen Parr’s advice from The Incredibles: “Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it. ”

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Check Your Photos

11 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Photos, Photos Everywhere

One of the consequences of the social media revolution has been an skyrocket in the number of photos that are available. Most times when there is a newsworthy or at least SORT OF newsworthy event you can trust on an army worth of people to take and post photos across social media platforms whether through general formats like Facebook and Twitter or photo specific platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.

What’s Wrong With This Photo?

Posted photos are often passed on without a thought. If it’s on the Internet it has to be true right? WRONG! While many of these photos are exactly what they claim, others are nowhere near what they say they are.

Sometimes like a quote magnet (a famous person who a quote is attributed to making the quote sound smarter) photos just pick up a false attribution to make the quote better. A photo of an alligator in a Miami yard may not be that big of a deal, but if you claim it’s from Chicago then THAT’s worth sharing.

Sometimes people may find a photo that illustrates a story better than what you can find with real photos. No one wants to tell a story about a riot and only have pictures of peaceful protesters and respectful cops – even if those are all the photos that were actually taken at that time or in that place (exciting photos are often used over and over again with the reason for the event and what groups were involved changed in the accompanying text). Sometimes there aren’t provable, clear enough to publish photos of something that really DID happen. But people always want a photo with a story.

Sometimes photos are deliberately altered. Photos can be combined, people or objects can be added or altered. Alternately sometimes photos that are genuine are thought false. (And NO sadly Teddy Roosevelt never rode a moose.)

Reverse the Search!

If you’re wondering about an image a way to check it out before you share is to use a reverse image search like Google Images or TinEye, copy the image in and search. It will give you results about where the photo has been used before and if anyone has flagged it. If it’s big enough to be a news story you call also check sites like Snopes to see if there is more to the story. Sometimes the story really isn’t what you see.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Awareness 2020

09 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, National Information Literacy Month

This is National Information Literacy Awareness Month. Although not publicized nearly as much as it was when it was first declared in 2009, libraries shine a spotlight on Information Literacy.

Information Literacy

According to the American Library Association information literacy is: “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information. Information literacy also is increasingly important in the contemporary environment of rapid technological change and proliferating information resources.”

In other words information literacy is the ability to realize when you need information and then find it, evaluate it, and use it to answer your question or complete your project.

Kirkwood Stands Out

Although library services try to teach information literacy all year, we take a special focus this month. Here are highlights of our previous Information Literacy Posts.

What is Information Literacy?

  • Introduction to the Month
  • What is Information Literacy?
  • Iowa Official Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month
  • President of United States proclaims NILAM
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy

Things to Think and Know About

  • Asking Good Questions
  • Copyright
  • Have a Plan for an Online Afterlife
  • Online Activities and Job Hunting
  • Passwords
  • Privacy
  • Social Media

Keep calm, think it through and we’ll be back with more helpful tips this year!

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Dice Pass Phrase

05 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Passwords, Strong Passwords

Passwords are the bane of modern existence. Trying to remember them and keep other people from being able to easily guess them causes many headaches. Don’t get discouraged and resort to the worst passwords or other easily guessable things. Don’t use the same password for everything since hackers at one site will try it on the others.

One good trick is to use a phrase or sentence you will remember and then just using the first letter or number of each word in the phrase. So if your phrase was the last sentence the password would be 1Gti2uaposywr. However, if you are really security conscious you can go even further. You can go beyond a password with a passphrase.

A Passphrase Past a Password

A passphrase is a series of words instead of one. This series should be made of random words that you can create a mnemonic to help you remember.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends rolling dice and using them to help determine words from their word list using a random number. If you’d like to try it find the full explanation and word lists.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

November is Information Literacy Month 2019

01 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Information literacy means making sure people can find, evaluate for quality and use the information that they need. This can be for school related subjects, like picking good resources for a research paper or speech, or it can be for everyday life, like picking out the best loan or credit card for you.

Library Services is the heart of information literacy here at Kirkwood Community College. We not only help students, faculty, and staff with individual questions, but we offer instruction to classes through face to face classes, videos, and databases, Brain Fuse that is directed more to the individual and Credo Instruct that can be accessed both by individual students and dropped in Talon as objects that can then connect with class gradebooks.

Kirkwood Library Services has done several things over the years to celebrate and promote this event. This year we’re adding to our series of blog posts. Watch for them all month to learn more about information literacy. Check out previous information literacy posts on this roundup.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Roundup

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Tech Tips

November is here and that ends National Information Literacy Awareness Month, but information literacy and tech literacy are things to work on for everyone all year. Please revisit our posts.

What is Information Literacy?

  • Introduction to the Month
  • What is Information Literacy?
  • Iowa Official Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month
  • President of United States proclaims NILAM
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy 2018

Things to Think and Know About

  • Asking Good Questions
  • Copyright
  • Have a Plan for an Online Afterlife
  • Online Activities and Job Hunting
  • Passwords
  • Privacy
  • Private Browsing Online
  • Social Media
  • Tracking Down a Study
  • Twitter Bad History Feeds

Keep calm, think it through and we’ll be back with more helpful tips next year!

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Bad Historic Twitter Feeds

02 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Twitter

Twitter is a fun and interesting place to find a conversation. You can find the Kirkwood library there at @KirkwoodSmart. (There are also trolls although I’ve had people say worse things to me on Facebook.) But Twitter does have its problems. One of these are the historic photo tweet feeds.

Some of these chronic offenders just take images that don’t belong to them and post them without verification, without credit, and without context. They can be used to spread mis-information and at the very least take attention and money away from the owners of the images and interesting information away from YOU!

When exactly is an image from? What was really going on there? Why was it taken and most importantly, did Theodore Roosevelt ever really ride a moose? (You may be cool, but you’ll NEVER be Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose across a river cool. — OK that line which I love is actually from an uncredited meme, but it’s true!)

A doctored image of then Presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose

Doctored Image from Sept. 9, 1912 New York Tribune, See linked article

The Problem with Feeds

Historian Alexis Cole explains in her article what’s bad about these feeds and how they could be made much better. So what can we do about them?

Feeds to Unfollow

Even if you love finding interesting feeds of photos stop helping these feeds. If enough people unfollow they’ll go away leaving more room for legitimate sites. So go to your Twitter account right now and unfollow:

@HistoryinPics, @HistoricalPics, @HistoryInPix, @historylvrsclub

There are others but those are some of the biggest offenders.

Feeds to Take Their Place

But if you like old, cool stuff online never fear we have your back. Cole recommends following these accounts instead (and yes the University of Iowa suggestion was hers, I just moved it to the top).

@UISpecColl

News from the University of Iowa Special Collections libraries. Also on Tumblr http://uispeccoll.tumblr.com  & YouTube http://youtube.com/uispeccoll 

@PublicDomainRev

Online journal and cabinet of curiosities dedicated to showcasing the most beautiful and unusual out-of-copyright works available on the web.

@BeineckeLibrary 

“An inspiration to all who enter.” Visit in person or online to engage the past in the present for the future.

@SchomburgCenter

Where Every Month is Black History Month.

@UKParlArchives

We hold & provide access to the records of UK Parliament and other political and parliamentary collections. Use our #Tower tweets to discover more.

@HarvardArchives

People. Discoveries. Change. History. The Harvard University Archives.

@ShapellManu

Explore history in its original form through letters and manuscripts of Lincoln, Einstein, Mark Twain, American Presidents and more.

@medievalpoc

People of Color in European Art History: Because you wouldn’t want to be historically inaccurate.

@librarycongress

World’s largest library. Explore collections, services & plan a visit. Follow @LibnOfCongress to meet Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress.

@schubertiadellc

Dealers in autographs, manuscripts, books, artworks and collectibles in the performing and visual arts. Follow for beautiful books & photos every day.

Other Cool Old Stuff Feeds

I personally would also suggest:

@IUPUI_SpecColl

@ref_archivist (this is only one of several great the Henry Ford Benson Library accounts – find and follow them all!)

P.S.

And sadly no, as far as we know Teddy never did ride a moose and that definitely isn’t a real image. But kudos to the newspaper team behind the September 8, 1912 New York Tribune for putting that out into the world. Heather Cole, curator of Harvard’s Theodore Roosevelt collection, tells you the real story.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

 

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