Media Literacy for Librarians: Internet Architecture

On January 26, a webinar with a very interesting topic "Media Literacy for Librarians: Internet Architecture" was held. This is the second webinar organized to support the professional development of librarians in Kazakhstan, which highlights the hot topic of our time - media literacy.

The project is supported by the American Corners program of the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Programs of the US Department of State. The project partner is the American Library Association, whose members act as webinar speakers. So, the speaker of this webinar was Natasha Casey, Ph. -Island, Providence, USA).

The speaker talked about the fact that modern technologies, along with benefits, also carry risks for Internet users, for example, browser programs automatically collect information about the user, what websites he visited, what questions he was interested in, what goods he viewed on the online market. How our biases affect how we search for information on the Internet, for example, search engines filter search results and isolate the user from information that may not correspond to their existing point of view. The speaker shared recommendations to reduce these risks and noted that media literacy is a skill that each of us needs to develop throughout our lives.

Media literacy is one of the most important human competencies of the 21st century. Today, any of us can become the author of any publication, image, or even a whole blog, website. The posted information always depends on the competence of the author, the goals that he pursues when publishing, or when sharing with Internet users the sources of other authors. Therefore, each user of the Web must acquire knowledge about how information technologies work, what information hygiene is, how to develop critical thinking in oneself. Our skills and abilities to analyze information, distinguish lies from truth, detect manipulation, misinformation, covert propaganda will allow us to adequately see reality, develop, communicate competently, keeping peace inside and outside of us.

The initiative of the East Kazakhstan Regional Library named after A. S. Pushkin (https://www.pushkinlibrary.kz/) is being implemented under the auspices of the association of legal entities “Kazakhstan Library Union”. All webinars are held on the Zoom platform and, in addition to representatives of public libraries, specialists from the National Libraries in Astana and Almaty, as well as members of the Association of University Libraries, school and college librarians from all over our republic participate. Simultaneous translation of the webinar into the state and Russian languages is provided. Video recordings of the webinars are available on the organizer's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/VKOBP.