LITERASI KRITIS PUSTAKAWAN PERGURUAN TINGGI DALAM MENAVIGASI INFORMASI SOSIAL-POLITIK DI ERA POST-TRUTH

Abstract

Librarians, as information professionals, perform two types of work: technical and analytical. One
analytical task inherent to academic librarians is running literacy programs to help students understand
information accurately. The definition of literacy continues to evolve, from mere literacy skills into a
social practice involving values, attitudes, and power relations. In the post-truth era, marked by the rapid
flow of digital information, disinformation, and content generated by generative artificial intelligence,
critical literacy has become an urgent competency for librarians as literacy advocates, enabling them
to question the power relations, discourses, and identities embedded within information before passing
it on to users. This study aims to describe the critical literacy competence of academic librarians in
Semarang in responding to information containing socio-political issues, using a four-dimensional
critical literacy framework: disrupting the commonplace, interrogating multiple viewpoints, focusing on
sociopolitical issues, and taking action. The study employs a descriptive qualitative approach, with data
collected through in-depth interviews, observation, and literature review of two purposively selected
academic librarian informants. The results show that librarians read information from multiple
perspectives, recognize that information is produced by individuals with particular interests despite
being nominally neutral, and remain alert to opinion-shaping tendencies. This critical understanding is
then acted upon through discussion and shared within literacy programs, in line with the SDG 2030
agenda on quality education.