Feasibility Study of Providing Effective Services in Increasing Public Library Users' Ability to Detect Fake News

The ability to detect fake news is one of the most effective strategies to combat the spread of fake news. Library users are among those who can acquire these abilities by visiting public libraries. Hence the purpose of this study is to determine the views of librarians on the feasibility of providing effective services in increasing the ability of users to detect fake news, as well as the status of infrastructure and requirements for providing these services and the need to provide it in public libraries in Kermanshah.

The present research is of applied type and has been done by survey method. The statistical population of this study consists of librarians of public libraries in Kermanshah province (170 librarians) from which 118 were selected through Krejcie and Morgan table by the simple random sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect research data

According to the obtained results, the average possibility of providing effective services in increasing the ability to detect fake news was (3.14) and the necessary infrastructure and requirements to provide services was (2.80) and the need to provide services for librarians in public libraries was (23/3). Also, the results of one-sample t-test showed that the status of the possibility of providing services and the necessary infrastructure and requirements to provide services with the desired level were significantly different.

Given the importance of the ability to detect fake news for users and the negative effects of the widespread dissemination of fake news, training and measures should be taken to improve users' ability to detect fake news, so that people are actively exposed to fake messages from these use skills. Al so, using the results of this research, the officials of the public library institution can make effective plans in order to create the necessary conditions and measures for training users to detect fake news.