Digital literacy needs make librarians more important than ever

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Dive Brief:

• In an increasingly digital world, librarians and media specialists are perhaps more important in K-12 than ever. 
• Writing for eSchool News, Ginny Boughter, a librarian at Terrace Elementary in Texas, says librarians are now needed to teach the generation of "digital natives" how to evaluate and vet content amid an onslaught of "fake news" and "alternative facts," as well as to introduce them to new technologies.
• Teaching safe search skills is also a critical role, ensuring students don't access anything inappropriate in or out of school.

Dive Insight:

Amid the digital transition, digital citizenship has become a greater priority for schools and districts. The modern world necessitates citizens who can discern what content is reliable, how to find it, how to behave ethically online and more. These needs have been especially highlighted by a contentious election season where inaccurate or outright false stories are seen as having significantly impacted the outcome.

As a group of librarians detailed in a panel at this year's SXSWedu, titled "Future Ready Librarians - They’re Out There," librarians will also still be needed simply to connect students to new information, ideas, resources and people. Regardless of whether students have been using devices as early as infancy, that they know how to make the best use of them — especially in the process of locating, discerning, contextualizing and using information — is by no means guaranteed.