Is truth relevant to librarians? (Once more with feeling)

Some rights reserved by Andrew Coulter Enright

I’ve been chasing so many ideas down so many rabbit holes that I haven’t posted in a few weeks. So, just to get something out there, I’m posting the same thing twice as an experiment. This is the unpretentious post that avoids the unnecessary jargon and technical stuff. But, if you like the analytical stuff, you can take a look at the analytic mix. It’s unfortunately technical, so you can skip it if you’d like. In any event, my hope is that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

As I outlined in previous posts, I’m interested in the relationship between truth, information, and information literacy. The feedback I’ve received has been enormously instructive and the project seems to be headed down some interesting paths. However, one concern stands out above all others: is the concept of truth even relevant to librarians? I thought it might be worthwhile to say a little something to the effect that, even if the concept of truth is invisible to our patrons or to the everyday practicalities of librarianship, it is still relevant to the profession.

Academic concerns, or confusions?

Wayne Bivens-Tatum has raised quite a few thought-provoking points about the role of truth in librarianship. Though I think several of his points are the result of us just talking past one another and getting confused by one another’s positions, he does make a few claims that simply cannot be ignored. In particular, he makes the claim that:  

Truth is relevant to information literacy broadly conceived, but I’m not sure librarians play much of a role in information literacy. I wouldn’t send physics students to astrology books, but outside of factual questions, which I rarely get, I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten to the point where truth as such played a role in what I was doing with students.

As I read it, there are two main arguments here. One is that librarians don’t play much of a role in information literacy. The other is that truth doesn’t play much of a role in librarianship. Maybe I’m naive in thinking that information literacy and truth apply to librarianship, but I’d like to think otherwise. So, I’ll try to say something to the effect that truth is relevant to information literacy and information literacy is relevant to librarians.

From truth to information literacy to academic libraries

I’ll admit it: my previous “career” in philosophy has colored my perceptions of librarianship. For what it’s worth, when I decided that the life a philosophy professor wasn’t for me, I could have chosen any number of alternatives. Law school, an MBA, a teacher’s certificate, perpetual adjunct work…I have friends who went down each road. But, I was always motivated to do something about the lack of information literacy I kept running into with my students (though I didn’t know the term at the time). After several years and hundreds of term papers, it was very clear that the inability to find, access, and critically evaluate source material appropriate for scholarly research was a major barrier in higher education. Sure, I would assist them in my class, and they would do fine, but I wanted to address IL from a cross-disciplinary angle. Couple that with my existing interests in information theory, epistemology, and logic, and library and information science seemed like the right choice. Why? Well, because the LIS program seemed to be the only one that addressed information literacy head-on and information literacy was what I was most interested in. 

So, if information literacy isn’t something that librarians play a role in, I seem to have made a huge mistake. But, I do teach general information literacy skills almost every day. From showing a student how to select appropriate sources to assisting a student with a citation, the opportunities for IL instruction are everywhere. And it isn’t just in the classroom; every moment on the reference desk is a teachable moment, too. I don’t just “give some initial guidance on search and evaluation;” I give advice, insight, and instruction on search and evaluation. In less than five minutes a librarian can teach a patron a transferable skill or concept. And when we consider the extensive work on information literacy coming out of the ALA and ACRL, the nature of library instruction programs (at least as I have encountered them), and the extent to which reference librarians engage directly with the research process, it seems that information literacy is a direct concern to academic librarians. 

Then again, academic librarians come in all shapes and sizes and librarians engaged strictly in collection development, cataloging, ILL, or other activities may have a different take on IL than reference and instruction librarians. So, perhaps I should limit my discussion to academic, reference and instruction librarians. But, it should be noted, no matter what aspect of librarianship you’re in, information is a relevant concern, so the argument still stands: the concept of truth is relevant to librarianship. We are information professionals and it is incumbent upon us to have an understanding of the object of our trade: information.

Library Science/Information Science

There are several possible roles for librarians in the coming decades and one that I think we should be cultivating is a bit of a throwback to days-gone-by: the cultural role of librarians as authorities on information. Librarians used to be the supposed gatekeepers of knowledge and information. Google has all but demolished that cultural position, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be ambassadors for information.  If anything, I’d like to see librarians do more to sell themselves as authorities on the world of information in general. Librarians should be clamoring for interviews about Wikileaks, copyright legislation, information technology, and other information-related current events. We should brand ourselves as the experts on information and information related issues. To put it another way, we work in applied information theory and we have the ability to position ourselves as society’s information experts. But, we can only do this if we treat information theory as a relevant concern.

But what is relevance, anyway?

However we position ourselves, they bottom line is that information is the stuff we trade in, whether or not information literacy in particular is relevant. So, studying and understanding information is something we should be engaged in. Does that address the relevance issue? Well, yes and no. I think the real problem is that there are at least two types of relevance that are commonly discussed in libraryland and I think the distinction is best described by analogy…

Last night at dinner, Khristy offered a helpful analogy for how I’m envisioning the role of information in librarianship: think of librarianship like the financial world of economists, brokers, bankers, tellers, and more. For example, economists “analyze the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services”(Wikipedia). They analyze the flow of goods and services across various networks and they develop policies, procedures, and theories for managing and understanding that flow. They analyze and inform policies, they serve as advisors, and they construct the foundational theories. Then again, economists are only one part of the financial world. The money is actually handled by brokers, traders, bankers, tellers, etc. Whereas an economist may debate contractionary versus expansionary fiscal policies, the teller is actually counting out the change. The various aspects of money and finance that count as “relevant” will vary between all of these different roles. An economist may be interested only in what is relevant to the financial world in general. The stockbroker may be interested only in what’s relevant to investors. 

Now, what if we replace “goods and services” or “money” with “information”? Who studies the production, distribution and consumption of information? Who handles practical aspects of working with information? Why can’t it be librarians? After all, we’re uniquely situated to address almost every angle on information and information-related issues. We should join the computer scientists and programmers, the internet gurus, and the social network entrepreneurs as the go-to sources for the theory and the practice behind information. So, I propose that we think of librarianship in the same way we think of the financial sector; only, instead of dealing in money, we deal in information. This gives librarians enormous clout and places us near the center of the information ecosystem. (Of course, librarians tend to not to have such diverse roles as you’ll see in finance; so librarians have to be economists and bankers at the same time, so to speak.)


Following the analogy to its conclusion, it’s clear that what counts as relevant with respect to information will depend on what role we’re playing. Certain issues are only relevant to librarians when they act like economists: drafting policies, creating curricula, tackling ethical issues…in other words, surveying the profession and the information ecosystem in general. However, just as a stockbroker or banker uses economic theory (among other things) to develop practical solutions for assisting investors, so to do librarians use information theory (among other things) to develop practical solutions for assisting patrons.


So, there are two types of relevance: relevant to librarians and relevant to patrons, and both are important. Looking back at my interest in the nature of truth, information, and information literacy, I’ll concede that none of it is going to be very practical or show direct relevance to my day-to-day dealings with students. But, I’m hoping that it will be relevant to the economic side of librarianship, and help me to understand the increasingly complicated nature of information in libraries.

For next time

So, where do we stand? The philosophical concept of truth is probably not going to do a bit of difference in how I build collections, manage the reference interview, direct research consultations, or teach classes. But, if truth plays a role in understanding what information is, and if studying the nature of information can inform collection development policies, reference services, information literacy, and beyond, then the concept of truth can make a difference. It may not be relevant to patrons, but it is relevant to librarians. 

Here’s where I want to go in the next few blog posts: First, I’ll propose that libraries adopt Floridi’s semantic conception of information. Later, I’ll discuss whether misinformation and disinformation count as information, and if so, what kind of information. Finally, I’ll see if I can’t make a case that adopting the semantic conception of information–and understanding the role of misinformation and disinformation–can strengthen our information literacy programs, not to mention our commitments to privacy, freedom of information, and more. 

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Is truth relevant to librarians? (Analytic mix)

I’ve been chasing so many ideas down so many rabbit holes that I haven’t posted in a few weeks. So, just to get something out there, I’m posting the same thing twice as an experiment. This is the philosophical post that mirrors my thought process: it’s boring, poorly written, and unnecessarily technical. The other post isn’t as pretentious; it avoids the jargon and stupid technical stuff. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

It’s been a few weeks since my last post about the nature of truth and it’s role in information literacy. Liam was violently ill, nieces and nephews came to visit, loads to do at work…you know the drill. But, I do have several aborted posts that, for one reason or another, I couldn’t seem to finish. I have long attempts at addressing issues ranging from the problems of pragmatism in library and information science to why the “articulation problem” rests on a misunderstanding. Along the way I took another stab at answering the many concerns raised by the Academic Librarian. Here’s an effort at answering what I think is his biggest issue with the role of truth in information literacy: is a philosophical inquiry into truth even relevant to librarianship?

Academic concerns, or confusions?
I’ll start by listing the issues Bivens-Tatum raises in his initial post and subsequent blog comments. I’m trying my best to abide by the principle of charity, so I hope this is close to the original intent…

1. Inquiring into the nature of truth is redundant. (“The library is part of [a] larger academic enterprise that already assumes [a realist conception] of truth“)
2. A philosophical theory of truth “still doesn’t explain why academic research takes place, or why academic libraries collect things.”
3. Librarians should remain neutral with respect to the truth of the information they collect (Librarians should hope “for “truth” in the aggregate, not in the truth of any given work“)
4. Librarians do not “play much of a role in information literacy” (The job of a librarian “is to build collections and give some initial guidance on search and evaluation.”)
5. Truth is simply not a relevant concept in librarianship; what librarians “teach has more to do with certain academic standards” not truth. (“‘truth’ isn’t a direct professional concern of ours”)

Some of these are simple philosophical errors. #1 is a fallacy of division, #2 is a category mistake, and #3 confuses fact and value. However, the final two objections are substantive and are directed at my underlying position, so it’s best if I try to reconstruct exactly what I aim to prove, show where his objections fit in, and attempt a response. I’ll start with a logical reconstruction…you can skip it if you want to avoid the technical stuff.

From truth to information literacy to academic libraries
Here is a reconstruction of the argument from my previous two posts…the argument I’d like to make for the relevance of truth to academic librarians:

(1) For any term C that entails necessary conditions (c₀, c₁, …, c_n), if C is relevant to subject S, then c_n is relevant to S.
(2) Information literacy is relevant to academic librarians.
(3) Information¹ is a necessary condition in defining information literacy.
(4) Subconclusion: So, information is relevant to academic librarians.
(5) The concept of truth² is a necessary condition in defining information.
(6) Conclusion: So, the concept of truth is relevant to academic librarians.

Again, I realize that this may come across as unreasonably technical, but I want to make a sound argument. The argument above is valid, so if I can show the truth of the premises, then I have made my point. I hope that (1) is uncontroversial…it makes sense as a general epistemic rule. I also hope that (3) is uncontroversial given that information literacy seems to have at least some relation to information. Obviously, (4) follows from (1)-(3). I admit that (5) is an open question, but if it is true, then (6) follows. Proving (5) will let me prove (6), which is the whole point of my research.

Moreover, this presentation makes it easier to show how Bivens-Tatum’s concerns fit in. Specifically, he is objecting to (2) and (6). We can strike the objection to (6) on the grounds that it doesn’t address the argument itself. This leaves premise (2) and the objection that librarians don’t play much of a role in information literacy. I actually find it hard to believe that academic librarians don’t see the importance of information literacy  Given the extensive work on information literacy coming out of the ALA and ACRL, the nature of library instruction programs (at least as I have encountered them), and the extent to which reference librarians engage directly with the research process, it seems that information literacy is a direct concern to academic librarians.

Then again, I forget that academic librarians come in all shapes and sizes and librarians engaged strictly in collection development, cataloging, ILL, or other activities may have a different take on IL than reference and instruction librarians.³ So, perhaps I should limit my discussion to academic, reference and instruction librarians. But, it should be noted, no matter what aspect of librarianship you’re in, information is a relevant concern, so the argument still stands: the concept of truth is relevant to librarianship. We are information professionals and it is incumbent upon us to have an understanding of the object of our trade: information.

Library Science/Information Science

I grant that if academic librarianship is just about day-to-day operational duties, then there really isn’t a need for any theorizing about information, truth, knowledge, or other epistemic and metaphysical concerns. But, I understand library science as a type of applied information science (which probably explains why many librarians work within the hybrid field of library and information science). As librarians, not only are many of us dealing with issues of practical librarianship, but we are also dealing with the “analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.” Put another way, academic librarians have a vested interest in information; information is the stuff we trade in. The extent to which we work with information, and the nature of that work, will differ between libraries, between departments, and even between individual librarians. But, we are still information professionals in a way that other disciplines may not be. Every field makes use of information, but librarians are unique in that information is the object of quite a bit of what we do. If anything, it’s the reason our patrons are here in the first place. Information is the cornerstone of librarianship, so it is in our best interests to study it, debate it, learn about it, and teach others about it. It just seems so obvious: information is relevant to librarianship. 

But what is relevance, anyway?
The real objection to the role of truth in librarianship has to do with relevance, but what is relevance anyway? Perhaps everyone agrees that truth is relevant to librarians, but we all disagree about what type of relevance we’re dealing with. For most librarians, relevance is a practical issue and the idea is that X is relevant to Y if and only if X yields beneficial consequences for Y. Call this pragmatic relevance. But, pragmatic relevance comes in at least two flavors: relevant to patrons and relevant to librarians. 


Patron-centered pragmatic relevance (PCLR) is the idea that an idea or project is relevant if it yields direct beneficial consequences for patrons. This is an incredibly popular position (#echolib, anyone?) and probably the majority view. Recent examples of this pragmatism are seen in the heavy criticism leveled at elements of librarianship not directly relevant to patrons. John Dupuis’s Stealth Librarian’s Manifesto is one of the more recent and clear-cut cases of PCLR. Michelle Boule’s Being Articulate and Finding Context also comes to mind in the way it points to technical vocabularies and theories as a hindrance to librarianship. With PCLR, again and again, relevance to patrons is hoisted as the banner under which every aspect of librarianship must pass. Your patrons don’t get it? Then get out of the “echo chamber”!   


On the other hand, library-centered pragmatic relevance (LCPR) is the idea that an idea or project is relevant if it yields direct beneficial consequences for librarians and librarianship. The idea here is that librarians are professionals and projects in service to the profession are relevant, even though patrons may have no idea these projects ever occur. MARC records, metadata, and OpenURL resolvers are instances of library project that are not relevant to patrons. Another good example would be the IL standards drafted by the ACRL. The standards themselves are invisible to non-librarians. Yet, these standards help direct library information literacy programs, so they benefit our patrons indirectly. Assisting patrons is still the normative goal, but the tools and theories for doing so are oriented towards the librarians.


So, we can focus on the consequences our theories have for patrons or we can focus on the consequences our theories have for the profession. Or both.


Librarians serving librarians
This is where I make the controversial claim that not every aspect of librarianship is going to be directly relevant to non-librarians, nor should it. (and the philosophy of librarianship is a perfect example). Some of what we do is going to be directed at policies, technologies, or curricula that are inherently library-centric. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, I think that this is something we should do more often, not only so that we know what we’re talking about but also so we can figure out where we’re going as a profession, what policies we should adopt, and how we should handle thorny issues like censorship, fair use, and privacy. These and other issues merit discussions that may only be directly relevant to librarians, though indirectly relevant to patrons.  


What does this mean for my interest in the nature of truth? Well, Bivens-Tatum expressed the concern that neither information literacy nor truth are relevant to librarianship. I think this objection may be correct in the case of patron-centered pragmatic relevance and incorrect in the case of library-centered pragmatic relevance. From the patron side, I agree that we don’t need to carve out 15 minutes of class time to discuss epistemology. We don’t need to lecture students on information theory or the realism vs. relativism debate. These are patron-centered approaches to information theory and they are obviously absurd. But, for librarians who work with information, understanding the nature of information is highly relevant in how we develop the profession. So, a philosophy of information (i.e., an inquiry into whether information is necessarily true) is relevant to librarians, who can then create policies, curricula, etc. that are relevant to patrons.


For next time

So, where do we stand? To make my argument work I just needed to show that information literacy is relevant to librarianship. I think it’s pretty obvious that it is. But, even if all I can show is that information is relevant, then the argument goes through. The only thing to be careful about is in qualifying what we mean by “relevant”, and I only intend to work within the context of librarian-centered relevance because I’m only concerned with how information will affect our policies, curricula, procedures, and other “behind-the-scenes” aspects of the profession.


All that’s left is to say something about premise (5): the concept of truth is a necessary condition in defining information. I think that information is necessarily true, but it will take another post to propose an account of what information is, a second post to discuss whether information is true, and yet another to explain how this can strengthen our information literacy programs (not to mention our commitments to freedom of information, privacy, and other issues.). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can pull it off.

(1) i.e., information as an object of inquiry
(2) i.e., the property ‘is true’
(3) Wilder’s 2005 article in the Chronicle may be partly to blame, though his arguments were as ill-informed then as they are today.

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Truth is relevant to information literacy…it’s a fact!

In my last post I outlined an informal project regarding truth and information literacy. A few days later, I saw this interesting response from the Academic Librarian. As always, he raises some great points, not the least of which is the way he explains exactly what’s wrong with the historicist conception of truth (and I agree almost to the letter). But, towards the end of the post, Bivens-Tatum raises several questions about the relevance of truth to librarianship and information literacy. I wish I could say that I understand his concerns, but I find them very confusing and/or confused. I’ll attempt a response, but, just so I don’t accidentally misrepresent his arguments, I’ll quote at the paragraph level and offer plausible interpretations for three criticisms I’ve been able to extract. And, I’m aware that I may be completely and idiotically wrong, so don’t hesitate to tell me!

Problem #1: Information literacy is about evaluating and accessing information, not truth.

“We can’t really evaluate the reliability or accuracy of information without some standard against which to judge it. Nevertheless, I wonder whether truth is really the business we’re in, even when we’re working with students and helping them evaluate sources. By inculcating standards of information literacy, are we concerned with truth? Or rather, do we get to the level where a concern with truth is appropriate?

With students, we’re often helping them to find and evaluate scholarly sources, not assessing the factual accuracy of a statement. When doing this, is truth our standard? Is truth the standard of scholarship at all, especially in the humanities? Or is it something else? Maybe I’m not putting this right. Truth might be the ultimate standard, but how far along that path would we ever go with students? Even assuming information literacy is a meaningful goal for everyone to achieve and that it requires a theory of truth, how far towards information literacy do librarians ever take students? And if we don’t take them very far, do we need a theory of truth?”

There’s a lot going on in these two paragraphs, and there are a few ways to understand these concerns. I’ll try to be organized and address each possible way of understanding Bivens-Tatum’s line of questioning.

(Interpretation #1): The concept of truth is not an appropriate part of the information literacy curriculum.
There’s a confusion here between (1) telling students “These are the facts,” and (2) telling students “There are facts and this is how you find them.” Put another way, there is a big difference between an instructor teaching a concept of truth and an instructor having a concept of truth. I’m concerned with the latter. I don’t intend to argue that we need to carve five minutes out of our instruction session to address the distinction between realism and antirealism; I intend to talk about how competing theories of truth shape the way we as educators understand information literacy.

(Interpretation #2): The concept of truth is not relevant to information literacy.
Bivens-Tatum agrees that “we can’t really evaluate the reliability or accuracy of information without some standard against which to judge it.” But, he doesn’t think that truth is relevant to information literacy? I don’t understand this. Our conception of truth is a determining factor in how we identify appropriate standards for evaluation; evaluation is a core aspect of information literacy. The very concepts of authority, accuracy, reliability, and bias are radically different depending on whether you adopt an objective or a subjective theory of truth. For example, a philosophical realist about truth might describe the accuracy of a source in terms of how often the statements made by the source actually do describe the world (i.e., are facts). On the other hand, a cultural relativist about truth might describe the accuracy of a source in terms of how often the statements made by the source match up with prevailing beliefs of the cultural group to which the source belongs. In a nutshell, do we teach our students to look for fact-based resources or widely-believed resources? So, yes, when we teach information literacy we are concerned with truth. Of course, we’re concerned with a lot of other things, too, but truth is definitely something that guides how we evaluate authority, accuracy, etc..

(Interpretation #3): The concept of truth may be relevant, but librarians only get the ball rolling and never actually get to a point where truth is of concern
I agree that (except in the case of ready reference questions) librarians don’t take students all the way to the point of adjudicating whether a particular claim is true. That’s the job of the faculty, the students themselves, or someone else. But, even though information literacy instruction doesn’t directly cover the concept of truth, any information literacy initiative that’s worth it’s salt will mention evaluating sources, which entails accuracy, reliability, authority, etc. Moreover, we should take a step back and ask whether libraries have anything to do with knowledge or information at all. Knowledge is justified, true belief, so if you believe that libraries are concerned with knowledge (collecting it, organizing it, teaching others how to locate it, etc.) then truth is a concern by definition. Whether we think information must track the truth will also determine whether truth is a concern in information literacy.
For a detailed analysis of just how important truth is to evaluating sources, I highly recommend the Winter 2004 issue of Library Trends, specifically the articles by Don Fallis (“On Verifying the Accuracy of Information“) and Birger Hjorland (“Arguments for philosophical realism in library and information science.”)

Problem #2: There are many conflicting accounts of what is true, librarians should stay neutral and only judge whether a source meets accepted criteria for scholarship.

“Librarians are typically there for the initial stages of research, when it really is a search for information. For students in the humanities, I suggest finding a good recent scholarly book or article on the topic and chasing footnotes. “Good” would typically mean an article from a good press or journal by a reputable scholar. Would such a book or article be “true”? Almost certainly not in its entirety, because there is bound to be a similarly reputable work that will disagree with the interpretation of various facts, if not the facts themselves. If this is the case, we find ourselves in the situation that Lebaree and Scimeca find themselves with true and false documents in a library. When evaluating a single scholarly source at the level we do with students, we’re not dealing with truth or falsity. We’re concerned with whether the work meets certain standards of scholarship, which are designed ultimately to discover truth, but which never guarantee the truthfulness of any given work of scholarship”

A few points should be made here. First, books or articles cannot be true. Only propositions can be true. However, books or articles can contain true propositions. Second, the mere fact that a multiple sources disagree on the facts does not mean that we shouldn’t care what the facts actually are. Sure, some books in the library make claims that are patently false, but we should still retain them because although the primary information in the books may be unusable, the second-order information is quite valuable. For example, the first printing of the DSM-II includes the false claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder. As primary information about homosexuality, the DSM-II fails and is not an appropriate source for psychological research. But, the second-order claim “According to the 1968 printing of the DSM-II, homosexuality is a mental disorder.” is true and the book is relevant to, say, a research paper on historical attitudes towards homosexuality. Just because an information source is discredited does not mean that the information source is not valuable.

Here’s a question for anyone who works the reference desk: when students request assistance researching medical issues, do you routinely direct them to the books on homeopathy (LoC class RX!)? Do you direct physics majors to the astrology books? I know you don’t and I know that your reasons for not doing so will somehow involve either factual content and verifiability (i.e., an objective account of truth), or commonly accepted social practice (i.e., social constructivist account of truth), or some other account of truth. What I mean to say is that we do have theories of truth that play into our decisions. Usually, competing theories agree and truth can take a back seat to other concerns. But, every now and then the issue of truth becomes the deciding factor in the sources we recommend.

Finally, I agree that we are primarily concerned with whether a work meets certain standards of scholarship that aim at the truth. I also agree that we can’t necessarily guarantee that a work of scholarship does make all and only true claims. But, there is a big difference between understanding what ‘truth’ means and whether a particular statement is true.

Problem #3: Our job is to build collections and give initial advice on searching, so truth is irrelevant.

“Or so one might argue. If that’s the case, if the bulk of our jobs is to build collections and give some initial guidance on search and evaluation, then it’s possible that “truth” isn’t a direct professional concern of ours, that while the ACRL Standards as a whole do require a theory of truth, the relationship of academic librarians to information literacy does not.” 

This is extremely reductionist: there is obviously more to librarianship than collection development and giving basic research help. In any event, we should ask ourselves why libraries are important and why we perform research. To what end do we seek information? The answer is knowledge, specifically, justified, true beliefs. Don Fallis (2004) explains,

the goal is to acquire beliefs that correspond to reality. Philosophers typically take this to be the goal of information seekers…John Locke, for example, explicitly states that the reason that we should proportion our belief to the evidence is so that we will end up with true beliefs. Library and information scientists, however, are much less likely to take this to be the goal of information seekers. Jesse Shera, for example, says that “false knowledge … is still knowledge, it is knowable and known.” However, as a number of library and information scientists have recently argued, information seekers often do have the goal of acquiring true beliefs. For example, a student writing a report on the Eiffel Tower wants to know how tall the Eiffel Tower really is. In other words, she is after the truth. Similarly, a parent wants to know whether a particular treatment for a child with a fever really is safe and effective. In fact, it does not really make sense for someone to bother about verifying the accuracy of information unless acquiring true beliefs is her goal. (p. 468)

Even if we admit that not all information-seeking behavior is directed at determining the truth, we have to admit that a large percentage of it is. And, if librarians are to develop policies about how to organize information, develop procedures for handling morally difficult reference requests, instruct others in appropriate evaluative techniques, or any other of our duties, then we need to understand this thing called ‘information’ and how it relates to ‘knowledge’. Given that truth is integral to knowledge (and perhaps to information, too) it follows that truth is a professional concern.

Conclusion
I hope this isn’t taken as an attack on Bivens-Tatum. I’m only trying to understand his concerns. I also want to point out that I want to keep my discussion to information literacy. Collection development, censorship, privacy, and a host of other library concerns are impacted by our conceptions of truth, but I have a bad habit of getting lost on tangents, so I’m going to try to keep this discussion strictly to IL. I should also reiterate the is/ought distinction: I may advocate that truth is a certain way, but how we ought to act is a separate matter. So, don’t worry about setting flamethrowers to discredited books. Re-read the first half of Bivens-Tatum’s post for a great explanation.

I’ll try to get another post on truth up pretty soon. Perhaps I’ll do a case study or use some practical examples to show how the interpretation of truth we adopt will influence how we approach information literacy. Perhaps I’ll write a more cohesive narrative (rather than a response) about the relevance of truth in info lit. I’ll think about it.

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