The project I haven’t been able to bring myself to think about for two weeks is a civic education workshop series for adults and seniors. It’s been something that has percolated in my brain throughout and even before my two years here at SJSU, and ongoing attempts at restricting voting rights for women and minorities would suggest that I’m a bit behind in the game at this point (Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, 2025). Worse, these workshops need to be grounded in media literacy, and honestly, I just feel utterly defeated. The misinformation shadow campaigns that began in the 90s with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News has ensorcelled my father’s generation and continues to sink its tendrils into mine (Meagher, 2012). The influence on our children is evident in the rise of grifters like Andrew Tate and the stratospheric (no pathetic pun intended) trajectory of the Elon Musk led oligarchy as they both enjoy unprecedented success on social media despite being openly racist, misogynist, and xenophobic. Small gains in the courts are wiped out by the dismantling of federal agencies charged with enforcing judicial rulings (Perez, 2025; Wong et al., 2025). Beyond the abandonment of its mandate as the predominant world power to protect individual liberties and an imperfect and already tenuous world order, this administration has brought its ax to us. The elimination of funding for the Institute for Museum and Library Services has already had an impact in California as libraries were recently notified by the California State Library that completion funding for programs in progress would not be released (Barbosa, 2025).
Stephens advocates for librarians to lean into creativity and curiosity (2014). While I have fits of creativity and am capable of creating interesting and engaging material, it does not come easily and instead takes enormous energy to produce. What I do have is a seemingly bottomless reservoir of curiosity, but while that is often a strength that energizes me, it can sometimes lead me down into rabbit holes that distract me and cause me to waste time. Given that so much of my time is now occupied by doom scrolling and ruminating on answers I don’t have to questions of how I will be able to support my children as they step into adulthood, I need to tighten things up, and I need to do it quickly.
Because information is packaged differently to adults and to youth, media literacy is a skill that needs to be taught in a different way for each group. The American Library Association provides materials for teaching civic and media literacy to adults, and there are many references to programs that I have already explored in past assignments. I think this is a sign that I have found an anchor point for my Inspiration Report! This has been a lot of words to realize that, as I work further towards bringing the process of Infinite Learning and civic engagement to my library community, I am also participating in Infinite Learning in my own journey.
P.S. I actually got a bit energized by writing this blog post, and I am reminded that my deepest desire is to resist as long as I have breath, and by committing myself to preserving and disseminating knowledge about our flawed democracy, I am doing just that.
References
Barbosa, J. (2025, April 3). California State Library Receives Notice of Termination of Federal Grant by IMLS. California State Library. https://www.library.ca.gov/uploads/2025/04/California-State-Library-Notice-of-IMLS-Grant-Termination-Press-Release.pdf
Meagher, R. (2012). The “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”: Media and Conservative Networks. New Political Science, 34(4), 469–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2012.729738
Perez, E. (2025, April 15). Justice Department fires immigration lawyer who argued case of mistakenly deported man | CNN Politics. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/politics/doj-fires-immigration-lawyer-who-argued-abrego-garcia-case-source-says/index.html
Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. (2025, March 25). The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections/
Stephens, M. (2014, November 26). YLibrary Infinite Learning. State Library of Queensland YLibrary Project. https://www.dropbox.com/s/p46kkmbkvwpdsng/YLibraryInfiniteLearning.pdf?dl=0
Wong, S., Manona, M., & Kaplan, R. (2025, March 25). Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johnson-floats-eliminating-federal-courts-rcna197986
2 thoughts on “Reflection on Infinite Learning: Library as Classroom”
Media literacy is definitely, in a lot of ways, more important now than ever before! With the growing digitization of so many aspects of everyday life, it becomes that much more important to be able to navigate and evaluate where you’re getting your information — especially in order to avoid the rampant spread of misinformation. I feel like the convenience of technology sometimes just worsens that problem, with people being more interested in “convenience” and “quick” answers which can lead them to accept “truths” from questionable sources so long as its packaged in an easily digestible way that requires minimum effort.
It also leads me to think about the fact that younger generations (such as Gen Alpha), though entrenched in technology from increasingly younger ages, doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re highly adept at media and technological literacy. They’re still important skills that have to be learned and are not always intuitive. These concepts would definitely tie into a civic education workshop, and I’m interested in seeing where you end up going with it for the Inspiration Report! Hopefully I can find a similar inspiration for mine soon, since yours feels like a perfect match with your interests and passions!
I think you are so right about the supposed convenience of information availability, and I think that convenience quickly turns into overwhelm. It’s almost as if libraries and universities are Michelin-starred restaurants, and the internet is rapidly devolving into the 7/11s of information. That comparison actually really helps me with accessing more empathy for people who get caught in information downward spirals.