Hacking the Research Library: Wikipedia, Trump, and Information Literacy in the Escape Room at Fresno State
How can librarians teach information literacy in such a politicized atmosphere? In spring 2017, the library at Fresno State held a series of workshops that introduced first-year students to information literacy in a “gamification” setting, an escape room, to encourage community learning. The theme of the workshop focused on President Donald Trump. In this one-shot workshop, students were “locked” in the escape room in the library and had to solve a series of information-literacy puzzles and research tasks, including hacking into Donald Trump’s Wikipedia page, fact-checking Trump’s tweets, and comparing and analyzing fake news with online databases. The article presents this workshop as a case study on how librarians can creatively engage with students to collaborate, learn, and build information literacy skills using Trump as the teaching subject. Read More
