Thank you for this very thoughtful article--I agree that librarians should become much more curious about current alternative media and information sources in the interest of viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom.
I won't say more about the #Twitter Files or Matt Taibbi here (I've done that before in this space :-) ).
I'd also like to see librarians be more curious about:
--the current misinformation/disinformation conundrum we're dealing with, and the politicized discussions of both, and how better thinking from philosophy and psychology might help the field discuss these more effectively
--alternatives for credible news gathering (trusting news sources)
--interventions to reduce polarization and the research underpinning them--the Stanford Depolarization experiments)
--Various civil society initiatives where librarians can align in a nonpartisan way
Many librarians seem to believe that they are protecting us from mis/dis-information by excluding independent sources on Substack etc. These types of sources are explicitly maligned as unreliable and biased, as opposed to the certifiably reliable and unbiased traditional sources promoted by the likes of NewsGuard. This sort of librarianship embraces their own perceived moral superiority in order to determine the bad information that they must protect the public against, lest the public do their own research and reach the wrong conclusions.
The findings of the Twitter Files cannot be accepted as valid because they undermine this version of reality.
Libraries and the academy worked hard during the pandemic to oust anyone who spoke or acted contrary to the approved ideologies. The old values and norms of neutrality, which substantiated historical collection building, such as the Labadie collection, do not extend to today's milieu. Institutions such as U-M rejected independent thought and action in order to embrace the imperatives of the Covidian order and the attendant diversity regime.
The information literacy programs and collections at places like U-M do in fact pay lip service to social media and blogs etc because they are too big to be ignored. However, the overriding desire to curate and lead students and researchers to the "right" information is what negates the appetite to pay attention to the Twitter Files and other related independent media.
Thank you for making these arguments: in broad strokes I quite agree and the problem has a long history: consider how researchers studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were restricted for years to publishing their work in alternative venues because their theories were dismissed outright by mainstream news outlets. I do have a couple of issues with the article though: to make the assertion that librarians are "current[ly] apath[etic] or silen[t] on digital platform discoverability" you cite sources from 2002 and 2009; it would be good to see something more recent. As well, you do make the case that major media dismissed the Twitter Files story, but you didn't really make explicit how the controversty has been discussed in the LIS literature, which would have strengthened the argument.
Yes, that is a problem. Perhaps you could have included documentation of your efforts to make this determination as regards LIS, re: databases searched, terms used, etc.?
You are right. when I do database searches which I used to believe in, I think now that they retrieve a very small percent of relevant topics. And SE as you demonstrate are not reliable as also behind scenes messing with the searches. THESE are, I wish, what librarians need to solve or address.
This is such an important article. I would love to see a collaboration between Substack and a major library system—seems like it could be beneficial for both the platform and the library.
The information explosion had as an effect the reduction of barriers to entry to publication. I remember enjoying the fact that there were many more funny people to be found through the Internet than could be found in paper publications. Ditto with news. I grew up in a newspaper family and we were all news junkies. With digital media there were many more sources for news and for opinion than newspapers. Twitter/X as a source of news grew as traditional news media especially—lamentably newspapers—have been dying.
The new sources came faster than they could be organized. The amount of information available has stretched beyond discoverability to use your term. Your discussion of this fact is chastening. Particularly for an audience of librarians.
A problem we have that this article highlights is something I have felt for a long time: there is not a critical mass of librarians with the kinds of skills necessary to do the work required to catch up with organizing the kinds of sources of information this article examines.
Thank you for the citations and the Appendix. There is a lot here. I particularly liked the discussions of Substack but I am not done with that part of the article.
Characterizing new media platforms as the new samizdat is an intriguing analogy. However, unlike the classic Russian samizdat, which was written by a class of dissident intellectuals for a particular like-minded readership, the new media samizdat is much more diverse in authorship and readership, varying widely in political viewpoint, prose quality, rhetorical acumen, and even level of reality-based knowledge. Substack may be a good example of a better, more reliable communication channel, but others, like Medium, seem to me to be much more variable in tone and typology. It might be worthwhile having a librarian-brokered survey of these new platforms that examines the scope and reliability of each.
Very interesting. TBH, I am a librarian who reads more Substack than trad journalism or academic papers these days. But it never occurred to me to try to get Substack indexed in libraries.
I guess my thinking was "I don't need a library to find Substack articles if I have Google " But it is not always free ... I wonder if it would make sense to set up some kind of library subscription option for paid Substacks like we have for academic journals.
Excellent point - library subscriptions of Substack and I wish libraries would do that, but unsure if that'll happen though. Last year I was pretty upset by what I felt was a lack of understanding about Substack by some of the librarians on ALA Connect. That's why I created LibStack, the directory of librarians that's cited in this article's References. Thanks, Kathleen!
There's a kind of structural incuriosity in the profession shaped by disciplinary norms such as gatekeeping and authority, skepticism towards non peer-reviewed writing, and limited understanding of the history of printing and books (e.g. self-publishing, blogging, are still perceived as self promotion). [Full disclosure: I used to be an open access champion but now I write a weekly paid Substack. A generous amount of my content is free every week, but there is a paywall because I've finally recognized what Zurkowski explained in his proposal for information literacy - not all information should be made available for free.]
Thank you for this very thoughtful article--I agree that librarians should become much more curious about current alternative media and information sources in the interest of viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom.
I won't say more about the #Twitter Files or Matt Taibbi here (I've done that before in this space :-) ).
I'd also like to see librarians be more curious about:
--the current misinformation/disinformation conundrum we're dealing with, and the politicized discussions of both, and how better thinking from philosophy and psychology might help the field discuss these more effectively
--alternatives for credible news gathering (trusting news sources)
--interventions to reduce polarization and the research underpinning them--the Stanford Depolarization experiments)
--Various civil society initiatives where librarians can align in a nonpartisan way
--Alternative models to improve scientific credibility (Open Science Framework, Adversarial Collaborations)
Thanks again for this article!
Many librarians seem to believe that they are protecting us from mis/dis-information by excluding independent sources on Substack etc. These types of sources are explicitly maligned as unreliable and biased, as opposed to the certifiably reliable and unbiased traditional sources promoted by the likes of NewsGuard. This sort of librarianship embraces their own perceived moral superiority in order to determine the bad information that they must protect the public against, lest the public do their own research and reach the wrong conclusions.
The findings of the Twitter Files cannot be accepted as valid because they undermine this version of reality.
Libraries and the academy worked hard during the pandemic to oust anyone who spoke or acted contrary to the approved ideologies. The old values and norms of neutrality, which substantiated historical collection building, such as the Labadie collection, do not extend to today's milieu. Institutions such as U-M rejected independent thought and action in order to embrace the imperatives of the Covidian order and the attendant diversity regime.
The information literacy programs and collections at places like U-M do in fact pay lip service to social media and blogs etc because they are too big to be ignored. However, the overriding desire to curate and lead students and researchers to the "right" information is what negates the appetite to pay attention to the Twitter Files and other related independent media.
Thank you for making these arguments: in broad strokes I quite agree and the problem has a long history: consider how researchers studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were restricted for years to publishing their work in alternative venues because their theories were dismissed outright by mainstream news outlets. I do have a couple of issues with the article though: to make the assertion that librarians are "current[ly] apath[etic] or silen[t] on digital platform discoverability" you cite sources from 2002 and 2009; it would be good to see something more recent. As well, you do make the case that major media dismissed the Twitter Files story, but you didn't really make explicit how the controversty has been discussed in the LIS literature, which would have strengthened the argument.
The Twitter Files have not been discussed in the LIS literature. Or the media literature. I wish they had been. Why haven't they been?
Yes, that is a problem. Perhaps you could have included documentation of your efforts to make this determination as regards LIS, re: databases searched, terms used, etc.?
I can do that but we did search LIS databases and media databases and worldCat there was nothing. Early on there was dismissal. Then silence.
Thank you for covering this very important topic!
From a comment thread on an earlier piece I was heartened to learn that students do use these alternative sources in their research papers.
I think there is some recognition but they can’t be used in Wikipedia. We found very few articles that recognized Substack as a reliable source.
Interesting!
Excellent article. But libraries also need to find a way to search independent of Google because of issues like this:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/google-censors-are-still-waging-the
You are right. when I do database searches which I used to believe in, I think now that they retrieve a very small percent of relevant topics. And SE as you demonstrate are not reliable as also behind scenes messing with the searches. THESE are, I wish, what librarians need to solve or address.
This is such an important article. I would love to see a collaboration between Substack and a major library system—seems like it could be beneficial for both the platform and the library.
Thank you both for this analysis.
The information explosion had as an effect the reduction of barriers to entry to publication. I remember enjoying the fact that there were many more funny people to be found through the Internet than could be found in paper publications. Ditto with news. I grew up in a newspaper family and we were all news junkies. With digital media there were many more sources for news and for opinion than newspapers. Twitter/X as a source of news grew as traditional news media especially—lamentably newspapers—have been dying.
The new sources came faster than they could be organized. The amount of information available has stretched beyond discoverability to use your term. Your discussion of this fact is chastening. Particularly for an audience of librarians.
A problem we have that this article highlights is something I have felt for a long time: there is not a critical mass of librarians with the kinds of skills necessary to do the work required to catch up with organizing the kinds of sources of information this article examines.
Thank you for the citations and the Appendix. There is a lot here. I particularly liked the discussions of Substack but I am not done with that part of the article.
Bob Molyneux
Characterizing new media platforms as the new samizdat is an intriguing analogy. However, unlike the classic Russian samizdat, which was written by a class of dissident intellectuals for a particular like-minded readership, the new media samizdat is much more diverse in authorship and readership, varying widely in political viewpoint, prose quality, rhetorical acumen, and even level of reality-based knowledge. Substack may be a good example of a better, more reliable communication channel, but others, like Medium, seem to me to be much more variable in tone and typology. It might be worthwhile having a librarian-brokered survey of these new platforms that examines the scope and reliability of each.
Very interesting. TBH, I am a librarian who reads more Substack than trad journalism or academic papers these days. But it never occurred to me to try to get Substack indexed in libraries.
I guess my thinking was "I don't need a library to find Substack articles if I have Google " But it is not always free ... I wonder if it would make sense to set up some kind of library subscription option for paid Substacks like we have for academic journals.
Excellent point - library subscriptions of Substack and I wish libraries would do that, but unsure if that'll happen though. Last year I was pretty upset by what I felt was a lack of understanding about Substack by some of the librarians on ALA Connect. That's why I created LibStack, the directory of librarians that's cited in this article's References. Thanks, Kathleen!
There's a kind of structural incuriosity in the profession shaped by disciplinary norms such as gatekeeping and authority, skepticism towards non peer-reviewed writing, and limited understanding of the history of printing and books (e.g. self-publishing, blogging, are still perceived as self promotion). [Full disclosure: I used to be an open access champion but now I write a weekly paid Substack. A generous amount of my content is free every week, but there is a paywall because I've finally recognized what Zurkowski explained in his proposal for information literacy - not all information should be made available for free.]