Connecting and acting: Croatian academy and library practitioners helping users to be effective information consumers

Abstract

Being members of the LIS academic community, we feel the urge to work closely with library practitioners on responding to the needs of the world affected by global crises. Finding one's way in the challenging information landscape is crucial. Teaching media and media literacy is traditionally one of the primary roles of librarians. This topic draws a lot of attention, but it remains unknown what the Croatian public libraries are doing to enable users to become effective information consumers, due to the lack of systematic analysis. To take a further step toward creating a common framework for effective education, we set out to investigate the existing information and media literacy education programs across public libraries in Croatia. The poster presents the results of the first phase of the ongoing research that started in 2022. The results were used for the development of the instrument utilized in the second part of the research project. The overall project will enable the development of effective educational programs that would inspire and enhance professional practice. This ongoing project connects and empowers Croatian academic and professional communities, strengthening the traditional role of librarians as information educators.