This study focuses on Mexican university students and their perceptions about their information literacy (IL) related practices as they face the persistent challenge of digital disinformation. The analysis highlights deficiencies in essential critical information competencies and the lack of pedagogical action within higher education with respect to the integration of IL into the curriculum. Following a qualitative approach, the research collected feedback from students who participated in a short instructional intervention. All the findings point to a strong tendency to draw on ‘digital intuition’ as opposed to a defined set of criteria and limited tools to corroborate information. The results argue that IL is essential for informed and responsible actions and should be integrated horizontally in all components of the curriculum. In the context of digital disinformation, the paper concludes with suggestions for using sustainable methods to teach IL in the form of IL integration into educational programmes.
This project report looks at the pedagogic identity of health librarians in the UK, predominantly National Health Service staff, and related challenges they face. Through an online workshop and a follow-up survey, the authors investigated how health librarians perceive themselves as teachers, the challenges they face when teaching healthcare staff, and what support they need. The findings reveal a multifaceted identity, with ‘trainer’ being the most common descriptor, followed by ‘facilitator’, with ‘teacher’ being the least common descriptor, though many librarians selected multiple identities. Key challenges faced were time, technology, practicalities, skills, and engagement. The study highlights the need for more professional development opportunities focused on pedagogic skills, particularly around confidence-building, teaching critical appraisal and statistics, and creating engaging learning environments.
Disinformation, amplified on digital platforms, disproportionately impacts young people and those oppressed by their gender identity, who end up being more vulnerable to the phenomenon. Given this context and based on the perceptions of young people living in Salvador (Bahia) and Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), two Brazilian capitals, this article aims to investigate the relationship between disinformation and gender. This is a basic study with a qualitative approach and exploratory intent. A bibliographical study was conducted covering the period 2016 to 2025 in the main database of Information Science in Brazil (BRAPCI), and empirical research data collected from young people from both cities was analysed. The results highlight hate speech as the most cited problem among young people, with a higher prevalence among girls and non-binary individuals. There is also variation in the intensity of self-reported impacts, with boys reporting milder impacts, followed by girls and, finally, non-binary people, who report more severe impacts. The findings reinforce the importance of promoting information literacy (IL) and media education in Brazil.
As academic libraries approach the limits of what can be achieved through single class sessions and individual student consultations, innovative strategies are needed to deepen and sustain library integration in course curriculum. This project report explores one academic library’s use of librarian-led faculty development programming to extend instructional impact and increase engagement with library resources. Drawing on participant feedback, the authors highlight how collaborative assignment design offers a strategic and scalable approach to achieving teaching and learning priorities. The findings underscore the value of library-led faculty development, the role of financial incentives in motivating faculty participation, and a strong interest among instructors for increasing engagement with librarians.
Purpose To examine how academic librarians in Indonesia design online information literacy (IL) instructional media, focusing on their design workflows, the competencies they draw on, and the contextual constraints they navigate when integrating instruction and technology in post-pandemic digital environments. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative descriptive study used an asynchronous qualitative instrument with purposive, criteria-based sampling (academic librarians with ≥1 year of experience who had created online IL media within the past two years). Eighteen librarians from multiple regions participated. Respondents provided narrative accounts and shared examples of their online IL media; follow-up clarifications were conducted via email and WhatsApp. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and organised through Guided Inquiry Design (GID) as the primary analytic lens. Findings Librarians describe a recurring workflow that enacts GID as a production-centric loop rather than a fully balanced, sequential cycle. All GID phases are present, but work clusters heavily in Gather-Create-Share (media production and dissemination), while Open/Immerse, Explore/Identify, and Evaluate are compressed, informal, and often under-documented. A phase-structured competency ecosystem underpins this loop, with competencies distributed across phases: instructional awareness and user-needs sensing; media and interaction design; information architecture and copywriting; platform operations; and basic analytics, supported by cross-cutting soft skills. These patterns are shaped by structural pressures, including limited time and staffing, multiple role responsibilities, uneven infrastructures, and visibility demands driven by social media metrics, which collectively push librarians toward rapid, output-focused workflows and lightweight, engagement-based evaluation. Practical implications The study suggests practical levers for strengthening online IL media design in academic libraries, including lightweight planning tools aligned with GID phases, targeted micro-trainings in instructional and evaluative design, simple enhancements to evaluation (e.g. brief checks, user polls, and feedback prompts), cross-functional collaboration, and the development of reusable digital assets. The proposed model can serve as a diagnostic tool for libraries to reflect on where competencies and resources are concentrated and where planning or evaluation phases may need reinforcement. Originality/value This study provides one of the first qualitative accounts of online IL media design from Indonesian academic librarians and extends the IL and GID literature by theorising a production-centric adaptation of GID, articulating a phase-structured competency ecosystem, and framing the contextual constraints of IL media work as structural pressures. It offers a context-sensitive explanation of how inquiry-based instructional frameworks are operationalised in resource-variable academic library environments in Southeast Asia. Limitations The study draws on a small purposive sample and self-reported accounts supplemented by artefacts, without direct observation or student outcome measures. Future research should incorporate ethnographic or longitudinal data, learner analytics or assessments, and broader or comparative samples to examine the transferability and boundary conditions of the production-centric GID loop in other institutional and regional contexts.
