This week has seen the publication and launch of a landmark new report from the Arts Council England on’The Role of the Public Library in Combating Misinformation and Disinformation: a Review and Action Plan’. This work is important as in part it is based on a national survey of public library staff working to address these issues, the first such survey of its kind to be conducted in the UK. Authored by Professor Steven Buchanan (University of Stirling) and Professor David McMenemy (University of Glasgow), the report specifically explores for the first time the role public libraries in England play in addressing mis and dis information within the heart of their own communities.
The Information Literacy Group welcomes this Report, and particularly its pronounced focus on understanding how these major societal issues are playing out across our national library network, as well as how this network in turn is responding to them. There is a recognition that the complex challenges posed by the impact of mis and disinformation measures are not easily digested or addressed, and that in order to really get to grips with these issues an in-depth understanding of people’s informational attitudes and motivations is equally as important as that of their information literacy skillsets themselves.
The report also finds that public library staff across England are educated, experienced and well-motivated to address these challenges, but despite their continuing status as trusted civic institutions our public libraries themselves are presently ill-equipped and ill-prepared to do so in any meaningful or structured way. Four main recommendations are therefore offered, namely:
1). A national programme of library staff education and training to address mis/disinformation;
2). A national open access repository of library resources for addressing mis/disinformation;
3). A national partnership agreement for addressing mis/disinformation;
4). National library policy and operational guidance for addressing mis/disinformation.
From an ILG perspective these recommendations are welcome, but they also mirror much work the Group has itself already been undertaking over the past couple of years. Committee members have been heavily involved in the CILIP and Google ‘Super Searchers’ project since 2025, working with partners on the project’s Advisory Board to offer training for public library staff across the UK centred on these very issues. The ILG has also recently developed a range of supplementary resources supporting the second phase of this project, widening the scope of the information literacy skills on offer within it.
In 2025 ILG members also worked closely with CILIPS colleagues in Scotland to produce dedicated resources supporting mis and disinformation work in schools, aligning this with wider work within public libraries and elsewhere in the education sector. The Journal of Information Literacy continues to examine and publish cutting edge-new research into all aspects of information literacy practice, including mis and dis information and censorship. Through our partners in the Media & Information Literacy Alliance the ILG also recently worked with a wide range of organisations to identify new collaborative ways of addressing wider information literacy concerns, and work is continuing to develop a revised CILIP definition of ‘information literacy’ which will incorporate the new informational challenges we face in the modern world today.
This new report therefore outlines a presently complex and structurally-challenged information environment where, although well positioned, our public libraries are in need of a much greater level of cohesive support if they are to reposition themselves on the frontline of a national response to the challenges of mis and disinformation. However, there are resilient foundations here too to be built upon, not least in our public library colleagues themselves and in the ongoing work of the ILG and its partners in supporting them. What happens next with this new Report will therefore be very interesting to see.