Empowering Communities Through News Literacy: Practical Strategies for Libraries
June 18, 2026; 2:00-3:00 PM Eastern
 
In today’s complex digital environment, information overload is on the rise, which has led to a significant increase in news avoidance and to the spread of misinformation.
 
This webinar will discuss the unique role that libraries (both academic and public) can play in facilitating healthier news consumption habits for their users, including how they can apply news-literacy-related instruction and outreach activities to different audiences.
 
Attendees will learn:
 
Why libraries are perfectly positioned to do this work
How to market our expertise in this area
What media literacy education can look like for different patron groups, including Gen Z and seniors
Potential news-literacy-related outreach and programming ideas
Ways to highlight news literacy through content creation
 
Presenter:
April Hines is the Journalism and Mass Communications Librarian for the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. Her research areas include information literacy instruction for journalists, library marketing and outreach, and social media engagement. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from UF, and an MLIS from the University of South Florida. She has presented and published on such topics as academic librarians and personal branding as well as marketing research and instruction services for libraries.