Infodemic, Info-vaccine and Libraries During the COVID-19 Pandemic Workshop: A Collaboration with the Naseej Academy

Panelists:
-Kendra S. Albright, Goodyear Endowed Professor in Knowledge Management, School of Information, Kent State University
-Clara M. Chu, Director and Mortenson Distinguished Professor, Mortenson Center for International Library Programs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-Bharat Mehra, EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice & Professor, School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alabama

The term infodemic, first coined by Gunther Eysenbach (2002), refers to the rapid, large-scale dissemination of all kinds of health information and misinformation through a variety of media and information channels. This term is apt because the global consequences of this mode of information dissemination resulting in an overabundance of information, some of it accurate and some not, resembles the transmission of a pandemic. The current COVID-19-related infodemic is of significant consequence that the World Health Organization has created mythbusters and multiple disciplines are collaborating in the new field of research, infodemiology, to combat this infodemic. How can the library and information field respond?

The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs and Naseej Academy will present a two-hour workshop on the infodemic during the COVID-19 pandemic for library and information specialists. It will introduce the COVID-19-related infodemic, the need for an information vaccine (Albright, 2016) and its significance for libraries. Then, it will explore solutions that library and information specialists can undertake, through a discussion of experiences with infodemics. The workshop will present ideas and actions that library and information specialists can undertake as solutions and prevent the spread of the COVID-19-related infodemic.