INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AND FAKE NEWS RELATED ACTIVITIES IN LIBRARIES: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATION FOR NIGERIAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Authors

  • Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari, Joseph Kehinde Fasae

Abstract

Libraries of diverse kinds have through the ages being fulfilling their primary goals of creating access to codified knowledge and information resources of all types and formats. They also preserve knowledge artifacts for perpetual access. Libraries have also been involved in user education services to help save users’ time and locate authentic information. These duties have not been carried out in isolation of waning issues such as censorship and false information or misinformation now regarded as fake news. In the bid to preserve the sanctity of the library as the safe haven for all types of information resources and knowledge artefacts, libraries across the world have come up with coping strategies along the contentious issues of censorship and fake news in order to preserve intellectual freedom and fight misinformation at the same time. These activities were reviewed in this paper with specific interest in Nigeria’s library community. The review found little or no activities in Nigeria in comparison with other regions of library practice. Thus, recommendations were made to address this perceived anomaly while further empirical research was considered to be a natural follow up to this review.

Published

2021-04-05

Issue

Section

Articles