Marni: Hi everyone. Welcome to "Your Family, Your Library," a podcast where we discuss the many ways our libraries here for families of all shapes and sizes. Each episode we will bring you information and resources relevant to your family and beyond. We are "Your Family, Your Library," and we're glad you're here. You might remember me. I'm Marnie Blunt, your podcast host for today. And today I will be joined by none other than Amy Budzicz. Who are you and what do you do?
Amy: Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm Amy B, if you ever want to find me again in the library. The "B" is important. We have a number of Amy's that work here.
Marni: Many, many Amys.
Amy: Man, many Amys.
Marni: At least four.
Amy: I am the information services supervisor here at the library.
Marni: That sounds very important. What does that mean?
Amy: What does that mean? Information services on a on a really personal level, it's such a cool, very broad term because it kind of doesn't mean anything. I know that sounds bad, but information services is...
Marni: It means nothing and it means everything.
Amy: And it means everything. Yeah, but like you have a question and we have we are the service to provide you the information. Does any like does that make sense?
Marni: I think it makes sense because for me, when I first started working here, I would be like, I have a question and you'd be like, let's find the answer.
Amy: I'm gonna find out, eah. So on a very professional level, the way I describe it to people is that we are information literacy. So we're like helping you learn to find the information that you need. And we're also digital literacy, literacy. So we're helping you use the tools that may be available to you to find the information that you need. So we're all about connecting people to tools.
Marni: The "how-to" do something.
Amy: The how to do something, kind of the lifelong learning of libraries. We ultimately want you to feel confident and, learn something new and continue to learn something. But we're also here to support you in that. We want to, take you through what you need to know.
Marni: I think that's really amazing, too, especially the how to learn how to do something and so, I mean, I've personally seen you and your staff do this where like if someone comes ask a question, you're like, oh, let me turn my computer screen and show you how I got there because x, y, z. Now you can do it next time, which I think is really amazing.
Amy: Yeah. And to be more specific in the library information services is the majority of the second floor of the library. So we're not the makerspace, not the, the adult Studio. That's actually your department.
Marni: That's my department.
Amy: But the rest of the second floor, everything up there is what my team supports. So we can help you with the public computers. We're going to have, like, those beginning tech classes. If you need to learn something. We have technology one on ones.
Marni: Which are great resources.
Amy: Come drop in and ask us your tech questions.
Marni: And then you direct people to the Studio when they have a question about that.
Amy: Yeah. So we what they do and we're answering your reference questions. You know, one of my favorite topics that we get a lot is local history, so...
Marni: Speaking of that, what's one of or some of the most memorable questions you've ever been asked at the info desk? You could either give me, like the most common question or question that you remember, that you're like, wow, this was not a question I ever expected to answer.
Amy: So one of the most memorable questions we've gotten at the info desk was a patron who has a background from a different country. He's originally from an East Asian country, and he had, a like a local dictionary of a specific dialect, where he where he's from, he shared with us that he needed to send this dictionary, this document back home because this dialect was, was going away. And he wanted people to still be able to learn it, read it. So we were and we embarked with him on a month at least, long journey to help him scan all of the pages individually. And ultimately he was able to scan everything like months, months later, he told us that he got it printed and bound and sent back home.
Marni: That's amazing.
Amy: Yeah. So it was a really incredible project and time consuming for all of us involved, but,
Marni: A little stressful at points sometimes. Because it's an important document that he wants to make sure.
Amy: It's like crumbly pages.
Marni: The ones that feel like tissue paper.
Amy: Yeah, yeah. They're like yeah, discolored. And how to make it look good in our scanners. And it was a whole thing, but really rewarding that I don't know, we got we got him through his project.
Marni: That's amazing. What's the most common question you get?
Amy: Definitely just some of our basic library resources. So, mobile printing is extremely popular, but it's also, unfortunately, a weird, complicated process. So how great to be able to, you know, print that shipping label off of your phone. But we'll walk you through it the first couple times you do it because it's just a clunky thing. And then, you know, just like using our study rooms, come, come use the library. And we're here to help facilitate that. So people are asking us, can I have this room? Can. I'm looking for something for six people. Can I have my study group in there? Do you have whiteboard markers? So just all the things that, like, help you do what you need to do in the library.
Marni: I also feel like too, like we made this joke before that, between the two of us, we make up the entire second floor because I have the Studio and you have all the other space, which is great, but I feel like a lot of people don't realize how many resources are on the second floor.
Amy: Absolutely.
Marni: Even just specifically, like, spaces to be, like, there's so many desks and chairs and cubbies and study rooms and a quiet reading room.
Amy: Yeah. So the quietest place in the whole library is on the second floor, which you might not expect. It's a communal space. But. So it has these beautiful big, long wooden tables, but it is expected to be quiet, so.
Marni: People will be like, you need to be quiet.
Amy: Yeah, yeah. And come tell us if something's bothering you, because we want that to be a space, really, for that study stuff. But then on the topic of quiet and resources, one of my absolute favorite things that the library provides in general, not just on the second floor, but we have a quiet room, which we hand out a keycard for folks, and it is used for meditation. It's used for just, you know, a brief brain break. You need a quiet space, and it's used for prayer a lot. A lot of the Skokie community is Muslim, and they have specific prayer times. So instead of, you know, having to do something in the stacks or out in public or, I don't know, it's just a lovely space to go. And, and I love being able to facilitate that for people.
Marni: Something else I love about the second floor that I will say is that we also have a community puzzle that gets changed out on a pretty regular basis that I think is a really great brain break when people are studying all day. Specifically, we see a lot of students during finals and stuff. And this is sort of on one end of the second floor near some big windows. It's just like, come for a minute to a few pieces, take a brain break. And I think it's really sweet, actually.
Amy: I agree, and that plus, right near the info desk when you're walking up the the stairs to get anywhere on the second floor, we also have our like engagement whiteboard that we try to do interesting, fun questions or little informational displays. And we've seen just I love the engagement of the last question we just put up was, what's something you cook during the holidays? So I just love seeing...
Marni: Did you get a bunch of good recipes?
Amy: There were some that I wanted the recipe. I was like, oh, tell me more. But I love seeing the things that people are willing to contribute and like, share. Like, I'm making this for Christmas, I'm making this for Hanukkah. I just it's I just love our community. Really.
Marni: That's so sweet. I love to hear that. So now we're going to talk about how has finding information changed. So we talked a little bit briefly about what Info Services does like some questions you get asked. But like how is finding information changed over the last year, five years, ten years, internet age piece? We have a couple people who work here at the library that remembers when we moved from no computers to computers, which was a wild time. But now we're like getting so much information on a daily basis. How does it mean to find information?
Amy: Yes, I think it has changed a lot and not really in the greatest of ways. So a lot of times the way we're thinking about our research and reference duties, which is finding that factual information helping you find answers to things that are credible, reliable, authoritative, these are all things that are very important to us when we're thinking about finding information and answering questions. It really is more now like filtering and curating rather than a quick, easy answer. Like we know exactly where to look and where. So like you come to us, we have the resource exactly of what you need know, like where we are going to take the time that it takes because it is more important than ever to be like cross-checking things. It's more important than ever to look into who is the one that's telling you the information.
Marni: Where is that information coming from? Yeah.
Amy: Exactly. And, and, and why? Honestly.
Marni: Why is this person telling you this information? Where have they gotten this information from.
Amy: Exactly as is it something that has just been spread on the internet? Because that's kind of what we do now. Is it sounds good or has a certain hook to it, you know, click bait obviously. So yeah. So when we think we think about finding information how do we find information. It is the process of slowing down because there's so much information now. Because there's, it is so easy to find a answer. An answer.
Marni: Doesn't mean it's correct.
Amy: Doesn't mean it's correct. It doesn't mean it's not worth verifying even if it is correct. Does that answer the question?
Marni: I think it does, because I think a lot of what I've heard from folks over the last couple of years has been the like, absence of verifying this information. Like even now, when you do, like a simple Google search, you get that AI summary and you're like that AI summary is also taking information from things that are technically incorrect.
Amy: Could not be trustworthy, right.
Marni: Which I think is...
Amy: And I think it's like if you do need just that quick answer, you know, I like one of the classic ones is how many miles is it to the moon? Maybe AI is that overview is a good source for that. You just need that number.
Marni: Yeah.
Amy: Hopefully you can trust it and move on with your life. But for the things that really matter and especially like some of the issues that we're grappling with, I think it's so important to take the time and verify. And that's not an easy skill. It's not quite a luxury that we get to do it, but because it's our jobs, we at least get to focus on it in a way that's hard to find in your day to day otherwise. So that's part of what's really rewarding about answering people's questions is like, we get to put in that time for you if you don't have time yourself.
Marni: And also that's what you're trained to do.
Amy: Exactly. Yeah.
Marni: It's your literal job.
Amy: And we think about it a lot. We think about it very hard of like, okay, how do we answer this question? How do we cite our sources for you to understand? Can we give you that nugget so you can understand for next time
Marni: A little nugget of information.
Amy: That's...
Marni: Yeah. You know, a little treat.
Amy: Not a treat. Hopefully the valuable information that enriches your life and answers your question.
Marni: I think that's really interesting too, because I also know that it is something that you take with you and think about a lot, because every once in a while you'll be like, have you heard about xyz? Or have you thought about like how music has changed in the last 300 years? Or sometimes you'll be like, have you heard about this weird bird? Or like, you'll come to me with something that I'm like, I, who asked you this question?
Amy: Because someone else brought it up and I was like, oh, that's really interesting. I am going to go down this rabbit hole a little bit. That's that's also was really fun about our jobs as, like, your questions inspire us and the questions that you are asking are often things that are worthwhile for most people to know, like, well, you should take that and learn a little bit ourselves. Yeah, I, I'm very grateful that we get to do lifelong learning along with you. It's very exciting.
Marni: Well, I know that you love learning and things like that, but do you ever think that people have too much access to information?
Amy: I think it's a really interesting question. I would lean towards yes, simply because, it's back to that idea of filtering, simply because, like, we all need to just live our lives, and we are being bombarded. We are being...
Marni: At such a rate that we were never where before that we have so little capacity for in our tiny human brains.
Amy: And thinking about the sources of things. So like, okay, something happens in Skokie. The water main break is a great example. Oh yeah. Am I going to read about it from the Village of Skokie? Do I do that just to my government resources? Am I going to be read about it in the Chicago Tribune? Does Evanston have something to say about it? Did someone on Reddit like, post and say, of course, the water main breaks. Skokie is the most terrible community. so you're getting all of these different inputs. You have to choose which one. And the idea of too much information. I do think like that is where the problem lies, is what if you're missing the crucial things? How are you tapping into the most important things to you and your community? Right? How and how can the library help facilitate that? I think about a lot because not everything applies to everyone. There are a lot of things that affect many of us. Some things do kind of need to be on the nicher other side, but some things do need to be really broad. So it's, it's a very open question of like, yes, we need access to a lot of information. It is probably good to have more information than less. Certainly. But where is that line of, oh gosh, this is overwhelming. I need to, you know.
Marni: Tighten it up.
Amy: Tighten it up a little bit.
Marni: Not too much because you still want the flow to come in.
Amy: You got to stay informed somehow. Yeah.
Amber: Happy birthday, USA! 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. The library is creating lots of opportunities for you to explore this historic moment. Visit our website for more information.
Marni: So when you're talking about information, something that's come up a lot that we were talking about was media literacy. So when you talk about how do you get your information and if we have access to too much information, how does media literacy sort of fall into that?
Amy: Yes, media literacy are the skills you need to think about any of this. So a little bit dry, but I'm going to actually read the definition.I think it's worthwhile. Media literacy is the ability to access analyze evaluate, create and act using any form of electronic, digital or print visuals and messaging. So it's all...
Marni: That's a lot.
Amy: It is but, but thinking about like accessing information how am I getting to the information. How, what sources am I going to. Is it a website? Is it a print newspaper? Is that the billboard I see driving?
Marni: So literally just general information.
Amy: Right. Analyze and evaluate. How am I thinking about what I'm reading? How am I internalizing that? How am I connecting it to other things I'm seeing?
Marni: How is it influencing how you act?
Amy: How, right. What is that personal element? I think, am I hearing something on the radio and then also seeing a billboard for it and then reading something online that's completely different from those things? So how are you connecting and then what are you doing with that? Evaluating it for yourself? And then create ane act, must not be forgotten because the crux of media literacy is like, you get to decide what to do now that you know. So are you sharing it with neighbors? Are you going to write a newsletter or a blog post, or are you just going to post it on Facebook, on social media? I think the main way we see people acting with information now are these kind of like, oh, that's this is important. I'm going to share it out somehow.
Marni: They're skipping the middle steps at the end.
Amy: Right. Exactly. The evaluation of the information. Maybe you're identifying it as important and you're like, yes, I want to share this, but have you done those other steps of who produced this? Why did they produce this?
Marni: Do you see like a higher rise of patrons coming to the library that are going from like seeing to sharing without doing those middle steps?
Amy: You know, not our library patrons. It might, might be because we're not quite engaging in that way with folks. But definitely in my personal life, I...
Marni: Wish people would do more of the analyzing and affecting first before they're sharing?
Amy: Yes, I do, I think it's this essential step of understanding the quality back to too much information, back to the reasons why something was shared like understanding the messaging behind a piece of information.
Marni: Gotcha.
Amy: Before sharing it.
Marni: I think sometimes too, that like sitting with information and like the simmer, the act of simmering on something and just seeing like, how does this affect me? Does it affect my neighbors to this affect my family? Does it affect my community in like going and steps versus like it's information I have. Everyone needs to know about it.
Amy: This is such an important point. And I was talking about this a little bit before with like the idea of slowing down. Yeah, this is so important because there is ambiguity like so many things.
Marni: Tell me more.
Amy: I mean, yeah, so many things are not black and white. So many things rest in this gray area. On top of that, so many things are designed to rile you up to elicit an emotion of some kind. So maybe you see something and it makes you immediately angry. Like, I can't believe they did that, but I'm thinking about it from the other perspective. What if someone says, like, I'm so glad they did that. I've been waiting for that. So slowing down, taking the time and like sitting with the gray area, sitting with the ambiguity of like, because information is not good or bad, right? There's no...
Marni: Information is just information.
Amy: Information is just information. And there's a million ways to interpret it.
Marni: And that's where that's the good versus bad information sort of comes into play. Not that we are putting that qualifier on it, but people are like this is good information. This is bad information because we're putting our own personal bias.
Amy: Personal. You get to interpret information for yourself, and it is worthwhile to try to think about how other people may be interpreting it, especially the people that put it out in the first place. How are they interpreting it? Like how, how are they intending you to interpret it? Can you think about it a different way? Is there any value in understanding, like what a different perspective of it would be? Because everything and this is a not to be neglected part of media literacy. Everything has a message. Again, not a good or bad message, but there's there there is one. There. Even if you're saying like, hey, you need to brush your teeth, guess what? There's, there's reasons, there's science, there's opinions. Like there is a message behind that.
Marni: Right.
Amy: Who is saying it? Is it a dentist or is it...
Marni: Mom?
Amy: Sure. Yeah. Is it is it a disgruntled parent or is it a pirate? Who is telling you the dangers of tooth decay.
Marni: I don't know from personal experience.
Amy: So apparently everyone's still just talking about tooth decay.
Marni: Oh, everyone's always going to talk about tooth decay, but I feel like I'm going to leave this podcast episode with more questions. And I started, which is a fascinating. And it's like it's more about we're not necessarily answering all the questions about media literacy and information services, but we're giving people more questions to think about in their day to day life, to simmer in the gray area, which I think is important.
Amy: That's arguably what we as librarians in your community want. We, as much as we love to answer your questions, we can't give you the answers to a lot of things. I, I'm saying that quietly because it feels like a secret. But we, we want to provoke thought. We want to, part of, like, the tools we're giving you is like, how can you think about this? How can you research this? Someone asked for a copy of the inauguration speech in 2025, which they have to record for historical reasons. And but along with their question, they, they said, can you tell us how it compares to other speeches in the past? And I was like, you know what? We can provide you with other speeches that have happened in the past, but I can't make this like qualitative opinion for you of like, this was a great speech. And those were worse speeches, those speeches were amazing. And this one was bad. That's something you have.
Marni: To do in your.
Amy: Own right. And we can we can ask for it. Right. We could also provide you with tools like how do you assess rhetoric, how do you look into the language that is used to give you those tools also. But I can't form the opinion for you on whether it was a good speech.
Marni: Right. So we're going to get personal for a second.
Amy: Okay.
Marni: How do you think about your media consumption?
Amy: Big pause. There was a big pause there. I...
Marni: I stumped her folks.
Amy: I try very hard to figure out the things that matter to me and let other things go. So if I come across something, you know, we're all scrolling or getting those news alerts on our phone, things like that, I want to make the choice whether or not I'm engaging with it. So I'm not posting. I am not a big share-er unless it's, it's more just like an interesting, almost like a hobby related thing. I'm like, oh, I just found out there's a sorry, this is an aside, but there's an AI deejay in Iowa that they put, like the overnight. And I was like, that's really interesting to me because like, the idea of radio historically, I. Okay, sorry. That's a, that's a rabbit hole. But I'm going to go down that rabbit hole. like that. But I want to learn more about that.
Marni: Interesting.
Amy: So I am going to engage with it. But then in general, I am scrolling the New York Times every morning trying to click on things that will help keep me informed but not overwhelm me. And then one thing that became really, really important to me over the last few years is local news. So now I am a subscriber, I'm a subscriber to Block Club Chicago. I live in the city, not in Skokie. I'm actually I'm a subscriber to all of the Skokie newsletters as well. I love the Village, The Scoop, shout out. I think they're doing a great job. It's also, for me, setting the times when I can engage. So again, thinking about that filtering, kind of curating my news for myself, I sometimes just have a crazy busy day and I'm like, I can't deal with any outside information. I need to focus on my what's for dinner tonight, just the basics. And but I think that's really important because if you're always letting information wash over you, if you're always consuming at these rates like never before seen.
Marni: Never before seen.
Amy: I think we all get to that overwhelm stage a bit too quickly.
Marni: Is this like active versus passive information gathering?
Amy: That's a really good way to frame it. Yeah. And I think my suggestion would be that everyone is a little more active in their in their interest, but.
Marni: Intentionally active to not get overwhelmed.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. Don't just let it happen to you. Don't let it don't. That information happened to you. That sounded like a joke, but I kind of mean it, actually, I think I think the act of gathering information and trying to stay informed should be an act.
Marni: You're like, I'm intentionally doing this in this day, and engaging.
Amy: Yep.
Marni: Everyone should be like the Sunday newspaper and take a break for a moment sometimes, too.
Amy: And read the comics. Yeah.
Marni: The funny pages.
Amy: Don't forget, do that crossword puzzle. It's good for your brain.
Marni: It is, yeah. Doing puzzles, things like that. You told me that you had a bunch of acronyms to share with us.
Amy: Yeah, I think, as much as we can, trying to make media literacy easier to learn and understand,
Marni: Let's have an acronym!
Amy: There's two that I think are really good and helpful to remember. So first is the idea of SIFT, which already by itself is a great.
Marni: sift through some information.
Amy: Exactly. So SIFT stands for Stop. So again did something did you react to something. Did you have strong emotion? Is it something where you're like, oh my God, immediately. So stop, pause, take a second. To investigate the source. So where did this come from? Who is putting it out? Why are they putting it out? Investigate where it came from.
Marni: Yeah.
Amy: F is for find better coverage. So did you see it as a meme? Did you see? I know someone just shared it on your social media. Where else? Who else? Maybe posted about it? Is there? Right? Can, can we go to a news story...
Marni: Can we find a legitimate source, whatever that means to you.
Amy: And once you're knowing it once or knowing once you investigate the source, say, okay, is anyone else talking about this in the same way? So like this one, I'm supposed to be outraged. But does anyone have anything that's not going to immediately give me that? Right?
Marni: Something that's like a little bit more neutral?
Amy: Yes. Thank you. Yeah. What are the facts? And then T for Trace the original context. This is, something we love for lateral reading.
Marni: What does that mean.
Amy: Especially on social media and across the internet, you see a lot of things out of context. So thinking mostly in the realm of politics, you know, here's an image of a protest. And I'm using this image of a protest to tell you that this was a riot. And people died. And this is unacceptable. But actually, that image was from a protest in the 90s, and we've taken it out of the context iIt was originally in, to use that to shape your opinion. It's...
Marni: To get an emotional response.
Amy: Exactly. So, so, Google image searches are really great, like reverse image search. And look up. Where did that picture originate? Is it.
Marni: Speaking of that...
Amy: Is it AI? I so I know we don't really want to talk about AI today, but.
Marni: There's it would be a whole episode where to talk about AI.
Amy: Truly.
Marni: Truly. But what I was saying to is your staff have also introduced me to this website. I think it's called World Guesser.
Amy: GeoGuessr.
Marni: GeoGuessr. Thank you. And like it shows you a picture and from context clues you're supposed to try and figure out from this picture where in time did it happen? What country is it in just based off of? Like the picture? Like I said, if someone's wearing like a 50 style outfit is the sign in Italian.
Amy: Does anyone have a cell phone visible?
Marni: Exactly.
Amy: This could be a place for color. Yeah.
Marni: It's so it's really interesting because it does really make you think you're like, okay, if I'm doing that with every picture that I see, what time period is it? What is it?
Amy: What is the context?
Marni: What is the context? Such an important question.
Amy: So that's SIFT. Stop, investigate, find better coverage, trace the context.
Marni: Just kind of sift through that information.
Amy: And then I will say, like any acronym you're going to get about media literacy, they're all very similar. They're all trying to get the same things. But this is a this is a newer one. The second one I want to share that I really, really I'm on board with, it's called WISE. So again you want to get wise with information.
Marni: It sift through and get wise about your information.
Amy: That's my tagline.
Marni: Information services: sift through and get wise.
Amy: I like if we can we get some t-shirts.
Marni: You know, you know somebody who works in the Studio.
Amy: So WISE is, similar again. Who is behind this?
Marni: Who.
Amy: Who, who put it out there? I is that intention check. Why did they put it out there? What's the intention? S is what supporting evidence is there. So this one's not in sift as much, but as I love this idea of, like, are they backing up? Do they have a research study? What kind of research studies does.
Marni: Or does someone else have a research set up? Right. Like where is that information?
Amy: Is there a billion articles about this? Because it's really important and everyone's covering it. Or is there the only thing only thing. Is there any supporting evidence? And E explore more again that lateral reading. Are there other places you can find?
Marni: Sometimes you just got to find more information.
Amy: Sometimes you got to go down the rabbit hole a little bit, a little bit. So those are that's where we're sifting and we're getting WISE. Yeah.
Marni: Wow. Those are great acronyms. Thank you for sharing with us and our listeners.
Erin: You're listening to "Your Family, Your Library," and this is a meditation moment.
Marni: So how would you recommend people to learn more. And this is like a very broad, general question. But like if people want to find more information or learn more, do something and maybe they can't come to the library, which would be, I think, your first recommendation.
Amy: Yeah. Come, come ask us is.
Marni: But if...
Amy: Like we want to hear from you have it be like we can we can help you in person with this question where.
Marni: But if they can't come ask.
Amy: Us. Yeah I, I do think the library has some really incredible resources. We have access to most of the major newspapers that you could want. If you want to dip your toe in the news, you can access that from home. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, all of these resources.
Marni: The major.
Amy: You can have in the comfort of your home. But there's a really great organization called the News Literacy Project and NLP. It's a national organization. And I actually really recommend following them on social media and maybe has an overall tactic, sprinkling into your follows into your feeds, resources and organizations like this...
Marni: That you trust.
Amy: Yeah. That well that are intending to help you with this thoughtfulness that I'm trying to promote here today like.
Marni: SIFT WISEly.
Amy: The Newsline, the News Literacy Project, does these really great little Instagram Reels that are like, did you hear this in the news? Let's go over all the ways that it has been reported.
Marni: Oh interesting.
Amy: Did you know that this was I could you tell the difference?
Marni: Media literacy was a few weeks ago and you had something set up that was like, is this AI or is this a real photograph? And people were coming up just to guess.
Amy: And it's not always obvious.
Marni: It's not always obvious.
Amy: And we also had a chart called a media bias chart. And there's an organization that updates that puts it out every year. So it's also possibly if, if you're comfortable a worthwhile tactic. Again, sprinkling into your feeds like a news source you wouldn't normally read just to kind of see that quote unquote other side of the story, just to get a different perspective.
Marni: Yeah. So basically, what we've learned in this episode is that you just got to SIFT WISEly through a bunch of different information and know that if you come to the library and you ask us a question, you may not get an immediate answer, but you may have to do some digging for yourself.
Amy: We're going to give you some tools.
Marni: Tools and resources.
Amy: And we want to talk to you about those tools. We want to equip you and empower you.
Marni: Yes, we want to give you access to that information. It's there. You just got to go look for it a little bit. Amy. It's been a pleasure and a delight. But I have one more question for you.
Amy: Yes.
Marni: Do you have a book recommendation for the folks who are listening to us today?
Amy: I've learned well from the advisory team that book recommendations should be tailored to people's interests. But if you're just asking what I like, I'm going to have two recommendations.
Marni: Okay.
Amy: The first is a nerdy one.
Marni: Surprise, surprise.
Amy: I still in the realm of media literacy. So that's what we were talking about today. Really great book from 1985 by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. This is talking about how television changed our relationship to information and what that did to our brains. And, it's.
Marni: Almost like that has happened several times.
Amy: Well, and it's amazing. I'm like, this guy didn't even know about the internet. So that's my nerdy one sticking out the topic of media literacy. And then my personal one is The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. It just won the Hugo Award for Science Fiction. So it's like fantasy. It's also a mystery. The characters are so endearing and like, lovely to follow along with and kind of learn with them. It's a series. So there's the second one and there's going to be at least one more.
Marni: Is it still in progress? I hate reading a trilogy that hasn't yet finished.
Amy: I yes, if it's going to be a trilogy, the third one, it's not.
Marni: It might not be a trilogy, it might be longer.
Amy: I don't know, I don't.
Marni: We don't know, it could be the seven books.
Amy: You could read it as a standalone. The Tainted Cup could be a standalone and it is great.
Marni: Okay, you heard it here first folks. She says it's great. Anyways, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so happy to have you here and learn about media literacy and information services, and how you can sift wisely through all the information in your day to day lives. But that's it for us this month to remember to keep in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you, dear listener. Email us at podcast at Skokielibrary.info and we'd be glad to hear whatever you have to say. And don't forget if you've enjoyed this episode or previous episodes, rate and reviews on your favorite pod catcher. Bye.
- USA 250
- SIFT (The University of Chicago)
- DataWISE (National Center for Science Education)
- Newspaper access from the library
- News Literacy Project
- Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Information Services Supervisor Amy shares her tips for evaluating and navigating information, as well as some of her favorite reference questions.