Designing a Media Literacy Training Programme for Public Library Staff in Ireland: Preliminary Results and Observations of a University-Public Library Collaboration

ABSTRACT

While research on media literacy education has focused on varying professional sectors, the role of public libraries in supporting media literacy has yet to be fully explored. This article reports on a university-public library collaboration between University College Dublin, the Libraries Development unit of the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), Meath County Council Libraries and Meta (formerly Facebook). This collaborative partnership sought to develop and pilot a cutting-edge curriculum, incorporating a creative and flexible approach to media literacy training for public library staff. This article details the partnership between the university and the stakeholders toward the common goals of assessing the media literacy training needs of public library staff, and piloting an online professional development course to address these needs. The paper makes several observations on the university-public library collaboration, and proposes that such strategic partnerships might be a key intervention in delivering media literacy education training to the public library sector more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• Media literacy
• public libraries
• media education
• media literacy training
• collaborative teaching

Introduction

While information, digital and media literacies are viewed as critical graduate outcomes in secondary and higher education, and as key strategic priorities for school and academic libraries (Pearce and Vanderlelie 2016), less attention has been paid to the role of public libraries in supporting these forms of literacy within local communities, wider societies, and nations at large. This gap exists against a growing consensus that improving information, digital and media literacies in populations can contribute to reducing digital inequalities and actively empower people to participate fully in society, as new and evolving digital and media technologies continue to permeate public and private life. Supporting information, digital, and media literacy and thus contributing to a more empowered and equitable society is clearly within the remit of public libraries, in their roles as trusted content providers, community information hubs, centers of lifelong learning, and “essential enablers for helping citizens to make informed decisions towards development paths that leave no one behind” (Grizzle et al. 2021, 6). To that end, this article focuses on the ways in which a university-public library collaboration might be a key potential partnership in delivering media literacy training to public library staff.

The selection of appropriate terminology to capture people’s abilities to effectively navigate, interpret, create, and use information in multiple media formats is important, in order to establish common understandings between groups and sectors for whom certain descriptors may be more familiar. Over time, there has been significant overlap between the terms used to describe literacy in different contexts – for example, information literacy, digital literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, etc. For this project, we have chosen to refer to “Media Literacy,” although we recognize that understanding of what this encompasses may vary according to context, since aspects of other forms of literacy may also be enveloped by this descriptor. We agree with the basis of UNESCO’s decision to combine Media and Information Literacy into a single descriptor for their work in this area:

Conceptual approaches and strategies traditionally distinguished between information, digital and media literacies. UNESCO’s composite concept is bringing these fields together as a combined set of competencies (knowledge, skills and attitudes) necessary for life and work in today’s world and includes all forms of media and other information providers such as libraries, archives, museums and the Internet (UNESCO 2020, 1)

Higher education (HE) research in this area has mainly focused on media literacy development and teaching (Butler, Fuentes-Bautista & Scharrer, 2018; Cubbage, 2018), while library and information science (LIS) research is “still too often confined to the investigating of information skills in the context of school and higher education” (Lloyd 2021, xix). Additional literature has described how researchers need to “develop meaningful tests for new teachers to measure their ability to implement digital and media literacy instructional practices into the curriculum” (Hobbs 2010, 43). A comparatively smaller body of literature reports on information, digital, and media literacy programming in public libraries (e.g., Considine, Horton, and Moorman 2009; Ireland 2017; LaPierre and Kitzie 2019; Rhinesmith and Stanton 2018); furthermore, the impact and effectiveness of public library media literacy programs remains under-researched (European Parliament 2016). The skills and competencies which constitute media literacy are diverse and context-dependent, and speak to the need for a wide range of stakeholder involvement in training. Dar emphasized the importance of collaborations between public libraries and external organizations to encourage community dialog and engagement: “Developing partnerships with other organizations can help increase reach, get accurate subject-specific information for visitors, and build awareness and civic trust in other, less visible, public institutions” (Dar 2021, 121). Given the role of academic and public libraries in providing training, knowledge, and resources for students and visitors, respectively, collaboration between academics and librarians can be a powerful means of leveraging academic expertise to deliver media literacy training to public librarians. While research pertaining to university-public library collaborations has been minimal. Snyder, Huber, and Wegmannm (2002) have harnessed public library-university partnerships to promote the quality of consumer health information, specifically designing a “train the trainer” program for public reference librarians, who received customized education and support from academics, with the aim to effectively train library users of consumer health information. Similarly, Hollander (1996) has also focused on university-public library partnerships in the context of consumer health in the context of the health science library.

In the project reported here, the launch of a pilot media literacy training course for public library staff in Meath County Council Libraries, in Co. Meath, Republic of Ireland by the School of Information and Communication Studies at UCD provided the impetus to consider how media literacy training for public library staff could be extended and embedded on a national scale, through strategic partnerships between HE institutions with educational expertise, and public libraries wishing to support staff training. Centrally, the aim of this article is to explore the merits of a university-public library collaboration and to provide observations and recommendations for future stakeholder collaborations such as this one.

Background to the project

The Media Literacy Training Program for public library staff in Ireland is linked to a major initiative by the national Libraries Development unit of the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), Meath County Council Libraries and Meta, who sought a partnership with an academic institution in early 2021 to develop and pilot a cutting-edge curriculum, which would offer a creative and flexible approach to media literacy training for public library staff. In Spring 2021, the School of Information and Communication Studies at UCD successfully tendered for the contract to produce the curriculum and deliver the pilot Media Literacy Training module. A project team was established to carry out this task, with membership comprising five academics from the school and two research assistants from the UCD MLIS degree program.

The team was tasked with four core objectives:

• Review the current curriculum and training opportunities for public library staff around media literacy.

• Identify the needs of library staff, communities, and adult library users in relation to media literacy.

• Empower library staff to provide media literacy training to adult library users, by developing and facilitating a learning module that supports them in developing the skills relevant to this role.

• Develop a framework and method for the delivery of media literacy training for librarians and evaluate the same through a pilot project.

A Working Group was established to monitor progress weekly, consisting of the project team, and representatives from Meta, NALA, the LGMA, and Meath Libraries. Meta’s role was to finance the project and assist in the coordination through organizing meetings, keeping minutes and action items, while generally providing organizational support. A Steering Committee was also appointed to provide consultation and advice on a monthly basis, and to ensure delivery of the project outputs.

Literature review

Media literacy education

Much research has emerged around media literacy in recent years, exploring the potentiality and necessity for media literacy education amongst young people and to a lesser extent older adults. For older populations, media literacy education has been considered central in terms of supporting social relationships (Castro Rojas, Bygholm, and Hansen 2018; Chen and Schulz 2016) and using health-related information and services (Strong, Guillot, & Badeau, 2012). Interestingly, studies from media literacy education demonstrate that a “one size fits all” approach does not work (Hobbs 2010), given that an individual’s media literacy needs will change over time as a result of the changing dynamics of the media environment. The approaches to media literacy education in the literature are also pedagogically differentiated across younger and older populations. Research literature on the pedagogies of media literacy for children and adolescents highlight the importance of collaborative, creative, playful, and multimodal media production practices, as well as analytic, reflective, inquiry- and project-based learning practices (e.g., Cannon, Potter, and Burn 2018; Kupiainen 2013; Martens and Hobbs 2015; Song 2017; Tuominen and Kotilainen 2012). Rasi, Kangas, and Ruokamo (2019) argue that the development of media literacy education for all ages may require developing agencies or central bodies to provide responsibility for this education that can cater to the particular needs of specific communities.

Much of the literature agrees that media literacy education itself is context-dependent, encompassing a wide set of competencies, which means that developing a universal approach to it is very difficult (Livingstone et al. 2012; Schilder, Lockee, and Saxon 2016). A diverse array of research has also engaged in disciplinary specificities within media literacy education itself, focusing on particular forms of media, such as news literacy (Fleming and Kajimoto 2016), information literacy (Livingstone, Van Couvering, and Thumim 2008) or transmedia literacy (O’Brien, Arnold, and Kerrigan 2021; O’Brien and Kerrigan 2020; Scolari et al. 2018). Many of these studies in media literacy education more broadly contain minimal research relating to public libraries. In saying that, some research has begun to emerge in this area.

Media literacy in public libraries

To-date, the literature exploring the educational role of libraries and librarians has been dominated by accounts of research and practice in school and academic libraries, focusing on the information needs and behaviors of students and the role of librarians in supporting information literacy in the context of academic achievement, scholarship, and future employability. According to LaPierre & Kitzie, “Library academic literature regarding media literacy initiatives has originated mainly from academic and school libraries … with a relative dearth of research on public library initiatives” (LaPierre and Kitzie 2019, 430). The range of learning approaches, curricula, resources, definitions, and conceptual frameworks designed to support literacy-oriented learning in libraries, including media literacy, have been largely built on needs and requirements that exist within formal educational settings (Matteson and Gersch 2019), and borrow heavily from cognitive psychology, pedagogical theory, and SoTL, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Mallon, Hays, and Bradley 2019). For instance, models such as the high-profile Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2015) and the UK-based New Curriculum for Information Literacy (Secker and Coonan 2011), include threshold concepts, knowledge practices, dispositions, activities, and outcomes that aim to support the development of students. Powerfully influential concepts, such as metaliteracy, the integrative literacy framework proposed by Mackey and Jacobson (2011); Mackey and Jacobson (2014), although applicable to the broader public, tend to be discussed primarily in relation to the information and learning behaviors displayed in formal educational settings. By comparison, “the public library professional literature lacks such formal treatment of [information literacy]” (Matteson and Gersch 2019, 74), a gap which extends to practical frameworks and curriculum models which might guide public librarians in developing programs to meet the needs of their communities. As Ireland pointed out, “We easily make the connection between education and libraries in academic institutions, but we sometimes forget to include public libraries in that equation” (Ireland 2017, 12). Kine and Davidsone similarly highlighted the “serious gaps in understanding how public libraries have addressed the issues related to disinformation, as most of the published literature stems from academic libraries” (Kine and Davidsone 2021, 3).

However, although a conceptual framework for public libraries’ instructional activities is clearly lacking, the literature contains multiple accounts of practices and programs which validate media literacy training as an important service offering in this sector. Politically, the potential for public libraries to support media literacy in their communities is increasingly recognized. For example, a 2016 report commissioned by the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) outlined how public libraries “assist visitors and educational institutions in enhancing knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to critically engage with media and information,” in addition to making recommendations for how this role can be developed and enhanced (European Parliament 2016). More recently, UNESCO’s tenth Global Media and Information Literacy week (October 2021) focused on the theme of Media and Information Literacy for the Public Good, involving multiple international stakeholder events, including several hosted by libraries, with the aim of supporting citizen empowerment in “the current ecosystem of complex and sometimes contradictory messages and meanings.” The remit of public libraries to support media and information literacy training for their visitors has received substantial support in the literature; for example, Matteson and Gersch (2019) cited several authors who insisted that information literacy is very much the business of public libraries, especially in the so-called “post-truth” landscape of mis- and dis-information. They suggested that the absence of formal literacy curricula and assignments in public libraries could be viewed as a strength, as it positions them perfectly to engage in creative instructional programming and to take advantage of the “teachable moments” that can arise spontaneously in the daily transactions that take place between the library staff and library visitors.

Practical media literacy programming in public libraries covers a broad spectrum of topics, approaches, and collaborators. One high-profile example involved a prototype project run by the American Library Association (ALA) in 2017–2018, entitled Media Literacy at your Library. For this program, five public libraries were selected for targeted media literacy training by the Center for News Literacy, with the aim of equipping library staff to educate adult members of their communities to become discerning news consumers. Post training, the participating libraries developed and delivered a combined total of 28 public media literacy programs, reaching approximately 900 library visitors (ALA, 2018). A small-scale study by Matteson and Gersch (2019) also sought to investigate how information literacy is addressed in public libraries in the United States. Their study, which encompassed a content analysis of eight public library websites in Ohio, uncovered passive and active approaches to information literacy training, including web-based instructional guides and instructional programs dealing with topics such as technology use, everyday life, and hobby interests. The authors concluded that the libraries’ instructional focus on technology use and helping visitors to communicate in a range of media would suggest that the term “media literacy” might be a better way of capturing public libraries’ efforts in this space (Matteson and Gersch 2019, 80).

Other recent accounts of information, digital, and media literacy training in public libraries include Kine and Davidsone (2021), Rhinesmith and Stanton (2018), and Ireland 2017; Ireland 2017). Rhinesmith & Urbano-Stanton zeroed in on the growing trend for the installation of Makerspaces or Digital media Labs in public libraries and the creation of spaces for informal learning, through exploring the ways in which libraries might draw inspiration from media literacy initiatives carried out in Community Media Centers (CMCs) in the US, in addition to the potential for collaboration that exists in this context. The study of Latvian public libraries by Kine and Davidsone (2021) highlighted issues of particular relevance to the Irish project reported in this paper. In interviews with 15 public librarians about their perceptions and involvement in media literacy training, the interviewees expressed concerns about their own media literacy competence and the need to continually update their skills and knowledge in this area, in order to be able to support the public effectively. Pedagogical skills and methodological materials to educate different audiences were noted as particular areas of need, while some of the librarians observed that “[a]n established curricula on media literacy would greatly help in their daily work” (Kine and Davidsone 2021, 9).

Media literacy in Irish public libraries

The focus on media literacy training in Irish public libraries has been recently boosted by the involvement of the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) as well as individual librarians in Media Literacy Ireland (MLI), a “unique collaboration between a variety of organisations, including media (broadcast, news publishers, digital organisations), online providers, libraries, academia, and the community and voluntary sector” that was formed in 2018 (Russell 2019a). Facilitated by the Broadcast Authority of Ireland (BAI), MLI consists of a network of individuals and organizations working on a voluntary basis to provide information, training, and events designed to raise awareness of the importance of media literacy across all sectors of society. One example of an MLI initiative was a successful public information campaign in 2019 and 2020, Be Media Smart, which ran across several Irish media platforms, including TV, radio, social media, and the Internet, and urged the public to Stop/Think/Check, before sharing information that they encounter across any media platform, particularly social media (Russell 2019b). Libraries are viewed as essential partners in this network – several librarians occupy key roles in the MLI Working Group and Steering Committee, and are heavily involved in planning and hosting events and training.

In 2020, several public library authorities in Ireland, including Meath County Council Libraries, Waterford City & County Library Service, and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (DLR) Libraries, also increased their involvement in public media literacy training by volunteering to host The Glass Room: Misinformation Edition, a pop-up interactive exhibition created by international NGO Tactical Tech, and promoted by IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations). Originally designed as a physical exhibition, the worldwide pandemic necessitated moving to an online platform for Irish libraries, although some of the physical elements, such as posters, were preserved for public display where it could be safely accomplished. Key topics in the exhibition included an exploration of deep fakes, and an explanation of how smartphones are designed to keep people “hooked.” To compensate for the lack of a physical exhibition in DLR Libraries, Csibi (2021) described how an accompanying media literacy program entitled “Media Literacy Series: Disinformation, Fake News and Privacy” was developed to create additional awareness and provide information. The program consisted of six weekly videos, two webinars with guest speakers, and four workshops which were hosted online via YouTube and Zoom. Library staff also received targeted online training from Tactical Tech to support their hosting of the exhibition. Viewed as a success, Csibi emphasized that “the media literacy work has also affirmed the key role of the library service in providing access to curated and trusted information sources” (Csibi 2021, 28). While there is some work being done within the public library sector in Ireland pertaining to media literacy education, there is a dearth of research more broadly, particularly relating to how stakeholder partnerships and collaborations could be leveraged to promote media literacy education in the public library setting.

Method

The project team adopted a participatory action research (PAR) approach, which involved the planning, implementation, and evaluation of targeted interventions to explore the efficacy of media literacy training for public library staff. PAR is a form of action research that includes participants as members of the research team throughout a research project and positions them as experts in the research process (Breda 2014). While researchers would normally attempt to distance themselves from participants, the inclusion of researchers in PAR allows participants and researchers to co-create knowledge; for example, in the field of nursing, PAR has proven useful for designing preventative cervical cancer programming in communities with significant barriers to accessing essential health care (Olsson and Lau 2015). While public libraries, which formed the community in the current study, are not a disenfranchised community, a criterion often noted as optimal for PAR (e.g., Bongiorno 2014), the goal of the project was to create conditions in which librarians could empower themselves as media literate individuals who could then empower their communities with media literacy.

PAR is an iterative research approach, which, like all action research, follows a cyclical process, including the basic steps of establishing rapport with a given community involved in a project, planning, taking action, reflecting, and evaluating (Bongiorno 2014). Some researchers add further steps to the PAR process, such as setting goals, identifying team members, finding funding, and analyzing data (Bongiorno 2014). Critical reflection is an important feature of action research generally, occurring throughout the process to enable the researcher to pause and modify the research to address arising questions and to expand learning from the research process (Scaratti et al. 2018, 290).

The Media Literacy Training project had three phases: 1. Needs Analysis; 2. Module Planning and Development; and 3. Module Delivery and Feedback.

Phase 1: needs analysis

Identifying the media literacy training needs of public library staff, along with defining the scope of media literacy to inform module development, were the core aims of the needs analysis process. Needs analysis took a two-pronged approach: first, a comprehensive review of existing media literacy curricula, syllabi, information resources, and professional training opportunities, in order to establish the current landscape of media literacy training and support for public librarians; and second, an online survey of public library staff in Meath County Council libraries to understand how they perceived their training needs in relation to delivering media literacy programming to staff and the public. The survey questionnaire took into account the review of curricula and syllabi, in addition to pre-testing carried out with collaborators from Meath County Council libraries and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA). The survey was created in SurveyMonkey and distributed to public library staff working at all levels of service in Meath County Council public libraries, from managers to frontline librarians.

The questionnaire distributed to participants was composed of three sections: Background; Personal Competencies in the Field of Media Literacy, and; Personal Competencies for Training Others to be Media Literate.The first set of questions sought to understand the participant demographics, including their roles and any training they had undertaken in relation to media literacy within their roles. The second set of questions comprised a self-assessment of staff’s level of knowledge and expertise, which sought to give the research team an understanding of how confident staff felt regarding their own media literacy skills. The third set of questions sought to give an understanding of staff’s confidence when it came to teaching media literacy skills to others, including what they felt they may need in order to successfully do so. The survey questions for the two personal competencies sections were directly adapted from Simons, Meeus, and T’Sas (2017).

Phase 2: module planning and development

The second phase involved the development of a pilot module and the creation of tailored training materials to address the gaps identified during needs analysis. This phase was also informed by an interactive focus group carried out with selected staff members from Meath County Council Libraries. Drawing upon the training needs identified in the survey results, the UCD academic team created four fictional problem “scenarios” for the focus group, that would require media literacy skills to solve – for example, a library visitor who has received an SMS text scam and is seeking advice. Each problem scenario reflected a potential real-life encounter that the library staff might have in the course of a working day. These scenarios were designed to help staff to brainstorm and to discuss their existing knowledge relating to media literacy, while also allowing the research team to understand where knowledge gaps may exist. The UCD team and librarians from Meath County Council libraries then came together in a Zoom focus group to work through the scenarios and also to reflect on their potential use as training resources for the pilot media literacy course. In total, 20 members of staff from Meath County Libraries participated in the focus group, which was facilitated by the UCD project team.

Five key topic areas for the proposed media literacy training course emerged from the needs analysis work and focus group:

• Identifying and sharing good media literacy information

• Our data footprints

• Google is not the Internet

• Cyberbullying and hate speech

• Conspiracy theories

For the Media Literacy pilot, each of the five UCD staff members then undertook to develop a targeted interactive workshop session for each of these areas, with topics aligned to each staff member’s subject expertise. Because learning how to teach others was also identified as a need, teaching approaches, ideas for activities and assessment, and practical tools, such as Padlet and Google’s Jamboard, were interspersed throughout the sessions.

Phase 3: module delivery and feedback

UCD staff and Meath County Council Libraries agreed to run the pilot module with selected library staff over five days at the end of June 2021. The academic responsible for developing each individual unit also facilitated delivery of the associated workshops to groups of between 6 and 10 library staff, with support from a project assistant. In line with pandemic restrictions at the time, delivery took place online via Zoom.

Throughout the project, there were multiple opportunities for reflection, content development, and delivery, which assisted continuous development and improvement of the learning resources. The project Working Group met weekly to review project achievements and milestones, and to chart next steps, while the Steering Committee provided monthly oversight. Organizers from the Meath County Council Libraries and the LGMA, who took part in the focus groups, also provided valuable feedback on their experience with the practice scenarios. At the end of each workshop, the participating library staff provided qualitative feedback via a Google Form.

Participants

This project brought together public librarians in Meath County Council Library Service, academics in UCD, and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), which governs Ireland’s public libraries. Meta (Facebook) provided funding for the project development and implementation. Participation occurred at three levels: first, via the project committees, who maintained oversight of the project and its development; second, via the UCD academic team who prepared learning activities and materials for training purposes and delivered this content during workshops; and third, via library staff who participated in the needs assessment and workshops.

The questionnaire included several demographic questions, i.e., gender, age range, stage in career, self-rating of media literacy, and previous experience of training around media literacy. In total, the questionnaire was completed by 33 members of staff from Meath County Libraries. Most participants worked in either Frontline roles (45.45%), equivalent to the positions of a Branch Librarian, a Library Assistant or a Clerical Officer, or in Middle Management roles (33.33%), equivalent to the positions of a Librarian, a Staff Officer or an Executive Librarian. The remaining participants were either in Supervisor roles (12.12%), equivalent to the position of a Senior Library Assistant or an Assistant Staff Officer, or in Senior Management roles (9.09%), equivalent to the position of a Senior Executive Librarian or a County Librarian. 17 participants had been in their roles for over 10+ years, 8 had been in the roles between 3 and 6 years, 4 had been in the roles 0–3 years and another 4 had been in the role for 6–10 years. Further, 78.79% of participants had been working in the library sector more broadly for 10+ years.

Specifically relating to education and training pertaining to media literacy, just over half of the participants had formal education in library and information studies, either having completed a Masters or a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies. Participants reported that Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses and individual seminars were the main ways in which staff supplemented their knowledge when it came to media literacy. Twenty staff members of Meath County Council Libraries participated in the workshops and these participants ranged across staff levels in the library, from frontline roles to more senior supervisor roles.

Data collection and analysis

Data were collected at varying stages of the project. The needs assessment report gathered a wide range of media literacy curricula to identify core commonalities and differences. Our interpretation of “curriculum” in this context does not refer to a specific existing media literacy training program or course, but rather encompasses training opportunities or resources, both nationally and internationally, that are available to support public librarians in developing, delivering, and assessing media literacy training in their libraries. The needs assessment formed the basis of the survey questionnaire design. The UCD team developed the questionnaire and both the Steering Group and the Working Group provided feedback and insights before the content was presented to library staff.

The researchers created a twenty-three-item questionnaire, containing both closed and open-ended questions, using SurveyMonkey. The Meath County Libraries representatives distributed a link to the questionnaire to library staff participants in this county. Survey questions aimed to evaluate librarians’ experiences in relation to specific media literacy competences and teaching, as well as their general attitude toward acquiring expertise and supporting visitors around media literacy in public libraries. Descriptive statistics highlighted the key preferences of the respondents. This study was not concerned with the effect of gender or age – rather, with an overview of the respondents’ experience. To that end, open-ended answers helped identify key issues and themes that enhanced or influenced competency around media literacy and training. The UCD team manually coded responses to open-ended questions, followed by line-by-line, constant comparative analyses to extrapolate key themes. The researchers then compared and discussed these themes and then created a final list of themes.

The survey results informed the development of the focus group protocol to identify further key training needs of librarians. Twenty members out of 33 staff of Meath County Council Libraries participated in the focus group. They were divided into four groups, reflecting an even distribution of library roles within each group. A moderator facilitated focus group discussion around four different media literacy scenarios that a library staff member could encounter in the course of their work. Focus groups were recorded; the UCD team transcribed and coded focus group discussion. The Focus Group generated data in the form of Jamboard contributions, facilitator notes and a partial Zoom transcript – breakout discussions were not recorded. Data analyses involved the identification and discussion of themes, which resulted in a final list of themes.

Ethics

The UCD team submitted this project for exemption from full ethical review to UCD’s Office of Research Ethics, because the project involved low risk for participants. The UCD team’s application for a low-risk exception from a full ethical review was approved and participants signed informed consent forms.

Findings

The PAR approach provided the flexibility to reflect and inform at each phase of the research. As such, the research team could gather a robust set of broad findings at each phase of the project. These findings are broken down below into three specific areas: survey results; focus groups; and, post-session questionnaires. A discussion of each set of findings is detailed below.

Survey results

The survey was designed to gauge the needs of the Meath library staff in relation to their expertise and previous training around media literacy. Respondents reported that they tended to rely on social media, webinars and professional literature to supplement their knowledge of media literacy, with most noting that they did not participate in formal training in this area.

Pertaining to staff’s self-assessment of their level of knowledge and expertise, survey respondents rated their level of knowledge of media literacy issues from basic to advanced. The responses showed a strong intermediate understanding of media literacy, of issues relating to media literacy, and of the need for libraries to provide media literacy training to the public. It was clear from survey results that library staff were able to describe what media literacy is and articulate its importance, as well as the reasons why media literacy skills are needed for both staff and the public at large. Despite this, there was an overall hesitancy or a lack of confidence in their ability to educate others, including members of the public, on media literacy issues. Staff commented that they were unsure where to start when it came to educating others, noting that they were uncertain of which resources were available for use, or how they can stay up-to-date with the latest developments relating to media literacy.

In relation to staff confidence in supporting media literacy training for the public, respondents were once again asked to rate themselves, this time on a scale of basic to advanced that also offered them the chance to report themselves as “not-confident.” Many staff reported themselves as either not-confident or basic when it came to their skills in supporting and demonstrating media literacy to members of the public. Staff reported that in order to support and demonstrate media literacy to members of the public, they felt that they required in-depth and comprehensive media literacy training themselves before doing so.

Focus groups

The focus group with the staff of Meath County Libraries further probed training needs and identified core media literacy topics to cover in the pilot module. Twenty staff members out of thirty-three participated in total Overall, it was evident from the focus groups that the library staff generally categorized themselves as having basic to intermediate understanding of many issues pertaining to media literacy, from identifying e-mail phishing attempts to understanding how social media works. Following the scenario prompts, staff were able to offer information regarding media literacy, and, given the conversational nature of the focus group, it was clear that staff were more than capable of passing their knowledge on to others.

The focus groups also offered valuable insights into the different competency levels of the library staff, when it came to media literacy. It became clear that those in senior or managerial positions were more confident in discussing media literacy matters, being able to accurately describe a media literacy issue and the ways in which they would go about resolving this issue. Further, these participants were able to refer to library policy regarding certain issues pertaining to information provision for members of the public, offering insights into how the library expected staff to deal with media literacy issues. On the other hand, 8/20 staff members who work primarily with the public, not necessarily in senior or managerial positions, expressed difficulty in addressing issues relating to media literacy. Practicalities of working on the front line in a public library setting arose, particularly regarding time and resource constraints. Staff queried the viability of how they may go about addressing a visitor’s media literacy need within a busy library setting, particularly through the lens of restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organizational structures within the library meant that 12/20 staff felt less empowered than others when it came to their level of knowledge of media literacy issues. For example, those working in teams that dealt with outreach and programming felt more at ease with the idea of offering information sessions to visitors, whereas those who worked primarily in reference services felt less prepared given the varied nature of their work and the vast number of queries that they must typically answer.

15/20 staff indicated they felt a lack of empowerment in addressing media literacy issues. They also noted that developing media literacy topics can be very fast and involve a wide array of information. Staff often reported neglecting their own learning of media literacy issues. 12/20 perceived the rapidly developing media literacy landscape as a disincentive; they observed that they tended not to keep up-to-date with developments when they felt overwhelmed by the amount they needed to learn.

Finally, the focus groups offered insight into how the staff of the library viewed their roles, with staff emphasizing the apolitical nature of working in a library and their discomfort regarding issues that intertwined media literacy and politics. For example, dealing with conspiracy theories challenged staff. Although staff were generally happy to offer a visitor information regarding how to identify a conspiracy theory, they felt uncomfortable in directly addressing the potentially dangerous beliefs of a visitor, seeing this as outside the scope of their role. Staff emphasized neutrality over advocacy in this instance, suggesting that their role was to inform without getting involved.

Post- session questionnaires

Following each of the five sessions taught by the research team, participants provided feedback via a Google form to support amendments to the training workshops, which would serve as feedback on workshops. Each of the five session had between 7 and 10 staff members in attendance, to ensure that each staff member could attend at least 3 of the taught sessions. The feedback form included questions around particular elements the participants liked, the most important takeaways from the sessions, improvements that participants felt could be made, and ways in which staff might implement what they had learned in their libraries. On the final day, a longer feedback questionnaire was issued to participants, which included the set of questions from the first four surveys, as well as questions surrounding their attendance at the workshops and areas for which they felt they needed or wanted more information.

The feedback from the sessions was overwhelmingly positive. Many participants commented after a workshop that they were eagerly anticipating the subsequent sessions. Staff were engaged and eager to learn about different elements of media literacy, while they were also interested in the instructional methods taught by the research team, including how they might go about facilitating a workshop, how they might organize a roundtable event, how they might develop and run a successful social media outreach campaign, and how they might learn to use and incorporate new tools, such as Padlet, into their library work. Participants appreciated the informal delivery of sessions and valued the opportunity to contribute their own knowledge, experience, and, in some cases, misgivings about a particular area of media literacy to the conversation. Participants particularly enjoyed the interactive nature of the sessions and suggested that the small number of participants allowed for a more impactful learning experience.

Participants advised that although they had covered a considerable amount of media literacy theory in the sessions, they could see that they needed to do some work to translate this theory into practice within their respective public libraries. Participants commented that they felt bolstered by the knowledge they had gained, including the practical tips they had been given to instruct members of the public on issues pertaining to media literacy. Throughout the feedback, participants identified a growing confidence about media literacy; many acknowledged that although they had learned much in the sessions with the research team, they would themselves need to do their own research to keep up-to-date with developments relating to media literacy. Participants particularly liked the resources provided to them by the research team throughout the course of the sessions, advising that they were unfamiliar with the vast number of resources available to them prior to the sessions.

Discussion

The aim of this article was to examine and illustrate the potential of working partnerships between the public library sector and higher education institutions in Ireland, in pursuit of shared goals for the public good. Based on our methodological approach and the findings gathered during varying phases of the project, this discussion presents some overarching points pertaining to how such partnerships might be developed and harnessed to deliver media literacy training opportunities for library staff, but also in teaching the partners in this collaboration how to teach media literacy to their library users.

The PAR method proved to be of paramount importance for this project, enabling the development of a flexible working relationship that identified the needs and requirements of both partners involved in the study. For example, university approaches to media literacy education versus those in public libraries appeared quite different, with spontaneous “micro-transactions” between library staff and library visitors assuming a prominence that is not as evident in academic contexts. PAR facilitated bringing together data and materials to promote a more unified understanding of media literacy and how training around it could be effectively delivered in public libraries. The module materials produced and delivered, as well as the feedback received following the module pilot, allowed a consideration of effective instruction and learning, as well as of best practice for future delivery of media literacy content. Fostering a collaborative research approach enabled a sustained dialogue and partnership.

Many of the staff within this public library system expressed challenges in grappling with the ever-evolving and shifting dynamics of contemporary media. Without any formal continuing professional development (CPD) courses or training, staff sought information from a variety of resources, primarily outside of the workplace. As a result, extra-curricular learning became the primary means by which many staff in public libraries learned about media literacy. The response to this project collaboration has highlighted a need for more regular and structured learning pathways for staff in public libraries around media literacy. Formal partnerships with institutions such as universities can empower public librarians to feel more confident about the knowledge they are acquiring and with providing media literacy information and assistance to library visitors. The partnership between the university and library has not only the potential to formalize media literacy CPD training in a professional setting but also to see this knowledge filter down to the general public library community. This level of training was particularly pertinent for newer entrants and more junior members of library staff, who seemed the least confident about how media literacy training could be developed. Partnerships between the university and public libraries can raise awareness of the possibilities for teaching media literacy skills within the library setting.

Notwithstanding the potential positive outcomes of the university-public library partnership, some areas of tension emerged. Firstly, the financing of these projects can be precarious. While this one was funded by Meta, it was from a specific funding stream that is not regular or frequent, so financing for projects such as this could be compromised without sustainable development and investment in the area. Additionally, receiving funding from a social media provider can prove problematic, particularly when it comes to commercial interests or stakeholder influence over the final report. However, in the context of this study, these issues were circumvented as the grant was given as a gift, with no commercial obligations attached, ensuring that academic freedom could be achieved. Secondly, the question of the suitability of this kind of training, while continuing professional development is already being done by library staff. A number of the staff participants had experienced training fatigue, so further attention should be taken to address this and not overwhelm staff with further training. There is also a parallel need to ensure library staff “buy in” and that there is a willingness to engage with media literacy as an integral part of their job. Thirdly, the fit of this training within the university agenda must be considered. This project was undertaken as a one-off project with modest financing, which was spent on securing research assistants for the project. However, as pressure increases on university teachers and research staff to secure research funding, and to teach a rising number of university students, setting up such partnerships for the public good may be side-lined.

Following the delivery of the training sessions, some recommendations and adaptions going forward would include adapting media literacy training for particular program roles within the library. While not a major finding during the sessions, library management staff versus the staff working on the front line of the library may have very different requirements and needs in terms of learning about media literacy and teaching this to patrons. Accordingly, these variations in roles should consider how media literacy can be dynamics and varied across different roles within the public library setting. Another significant adaption would be to provide longer sessions. While this pilot only delivered training sessions across a two-hour period, all of the staff wanted this to be longer in duration, indicating a desire to engage with media literacy education through intensive training. Finally, the apparent confidence gap that emerged in the survey, between the librarians’ strong understanding of media literacy, and their self-perceived ability to teach it to others, pointed to a necessary amendment to the program going forward. While there was a lot of emphasis on media literacy education in each of the sessions on the pilot training program, more emphasis on ‘training the trainers’ or emphasizing teaching skills is therefore crucial, to bridge this gap. Accordingly, future training programs going forward will incorporate how media literacy can serve potentially as a teachable moment, directly relating this to the content.

The project also pointed to broader implications for the discipline of LIS. The university-public library partnership served as an example of how the oft-reported “disconnect” between academic research and workplace practice in LIS might be addressed. This perceived gap has been identified by several authors, including Pilerot (2016;2014) and Abbas et al. (2016), and suggested reasons for the gap have included a mis-match between academic research and practitioners’ areas of concern, the failure of researchers to communicate their findings in an accessible way, as well as research that is overly niche, dated, or out-of-touch. Practitioners cite a lack of time and specialist knowledge to engage with research, as well as a potential lack of knowledge of where to find information that addresses their specific information needs in a timely manner. Pilerot suggests that it may ultimately come down to differences in culture and communication between the two parties, meaning that they have “problems understanding each other” (Pilerot 2016;2014, 318). Proposed strategies for dealing with the issue tend to be twofold: increasing LIS practitioners’ research involvement, and improving the ways in which academic research is communicated to practitioners. Increased collaboration between the two groups is often highlighted as an important means of promoting mutual understanding and aligning the needs of practitioners with the goals of LIS researchers, and vice versa. The PAR approach employed in this project serves as a model for effective collaboration, in which the academic team directly engaged with library staff to shape the project outcomes around the pragmatic concerns affecting their day-to-day practice, while the library participants were presented with cutting-edge concepts and information that were focused on their immediate learning needs.

Conclusion

This project pilot phase is now complete, and has received positive feedback from all partners involved in the collaboration. The course developed for training public library staff has demonstrated how learning resources developed by academic departments, in collaboration with stakeholder organizations, can be structured around the specific needs of public librarians, particularly relating to their understanding of media literacy. Fostering a flexible approach in terms of identifying learning needs helped to develop learning outcomes along with a course that addressed the media literacy knowledge and skill gaps that many of the public librarians experienced. Developing this course has also identified gaps in media literacy training more broadly in Ireland and has highlighted the important role for public libraries in delivering media literacy information and skills to the public. Future work, involving the academic and public-library collaboration established through the current project, will include continued development of educational resources and further training of public library staff, with a goal of developing a more streamlined Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course. Overall, this project demonstrates the potential for academic and library staff partnerships that can affect much needed change in delivering media literacy training to a professional community, such as the public library sector, and accordingly make media literacy a core component of public library training.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Páraic Kerrigan

Páraic Kerrigan is an Assistant Profressor within the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

Claire McGuinness

Claire McGuinness is an Assistant Profressor within the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

Crystal Fulton

Crystal Fulton is an Associate Professor within the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

Eugenia Siapera

Eugenia Siapera is a Professor and Head of the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

David Carrie

David Carrie is a PhD Candidate within the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

Paige Pope

Paige Pope was a graduate student on the MSc Communication & Media at University College Dublin.