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This perspective explains how waning trust complicates teaching information literacy by raising the risk that high-quality sources may reflect expert error. It proposes reframing library research toward understanding, emphasizing intellectual humility, recognizing contested points, and engaging complex research questions.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/dwindling-trust-in-experts-a-starting-point-for-information-literacy-article-12/599446/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/dwindling-trust-in-experts-a-starting-point-for-information-literacy-article-12/599446.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"WPS_1790064749","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":24},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does declining trust in experts make information literacy harder to teach?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Because students may find that even reliable research sources reflect instances where experts are inconsistent or wrong, weakening confidence in expert-based guidance.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What is the article’s proposed way to move forward with this concern?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Center class discussion on the public’s dwindling trust in experts and use that theme to guide how students approach information.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the article suggest reframing the goal of library research?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The goal is not to find sources to support an irrefutable argument, but to build a realistic understanding of a research question by acknowledging contention and pursuing complexity with humility.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},599446,1792161533,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":24,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":46,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":31},3985747859154,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Communications in Information Literacy  \n\n| Volume 17  Issue 2 | Article 12 |\n| --- | --- |\n| 12-2023\u003Cbr>Dwindling Trust in Experts: A Starting Point for Information Literacy\u003Cbr>Mark N. Lenker III\u003Cbr>University of Nevada Las Vegas, [mark.lenker@unlv.edu](mark.lenker@unlv.edu)\u003Cbr>Follow this and additional works at: [https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit)\u003Cbr> Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the Information Literacy Commons\u003Cbr>Let us know how access to this document benefits you. |  |\n\nRecommended Citation  \nLenker, M. N. (2023) . Dwindling Trust in Experts: A Starting Point for Information Literacy.  \nCommunications in Information Literacy, 17 (2), 554–572 . [https://doi.org/10.15760/](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.15760/)[comminfolit.2023.17.2.12](comminfolit.2023.17.2.12)  \nThis open access Perspective is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4 .0) . All documents in PDXScholar should meet accessibility standards. If we can make this document more accessible to you, contact our team.  \nDwindling Trust in Experts: A Starting Point for Information Literacy  \nMark N. Lenker III, University of Nevada Las Vegas  \nAbstract  \nLibrarians and teachers encourage students to include expert perspectives in their research, but recent public discourse includes high-profile examples of experts being inconsistent or wrong, and recent studies suggest that public trust in experts is declining. Waning trust makes it difficult to teach information literacy: I can push students to find high-quality research sources, but what if these sources turn out to be yet another example of experts getting it wrong? After a period of living with this worry, I found a way to move forward by centering class discussion on the public’s dwindling trust in experts. Part of this discussion addresses reframing the point of library research. The goal is not to find sources to support an irrefutable argument; rather, the idea is to build a more thorough and realistic understanding of a research question. Research for understanding emphasizes acknowledging points of contention and pursuing complex questions with intellectual humility.  \nKeywords: information literacy, evaluating information, authority, experts, trust,  \nunderstanding, humility, first-year English, higher education  \nPerspectives  \nedited by Andrea Baer  \nLenker, M. N., III. (2023). Dwindling trust in experts: A starting point for information literacy. Communications in Information Literacy, 17(2), 554–572.  \nDwindling Trust in Experts: A Starting Point for Information Literacy  \nIn the summer of 2022, I found myself in a new kind of information literacy funk. This was not just the usual anxiety about my efficacy as a teacher. It had more to do with my concerns about my students. Three years into the pandemic, after everything my students had been through (or were still going through), would they care about something as mundane as information literacy? Even deeper, was the information literacy I had been teaching sophisticated enough to meet the information challenges ofthe 2020s? Could I prepare my students for the most dubious features of our information ecosystem: political campaigns showering us with manipulative messaging at every turn, partisan agendas shaping our discourse concerning research, and artificial intelligence and deep-fake technology challenging our sense of what counts as authentic information? Even when I was at my best as a teacher, it felt like I was sending my students into the vast, wriggling snake pit of contemporary discourse with nothing more than a bulleted list of things to watch out for and my heartfelt best wishes.  \nThe news of 2022 featured particularly unnerving examples of experts getting things wrong, arguably influenced by the political expediency of their conclusions (Hanson, 2022) . For examp","cbCaio2VWJlIOEH5","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaio2VWJlIOEH5","pdf",205832,"English","# Abstract\n## Declining public trust in experts\n## Challenges for teaching information literacy\n## A discussion-centered starting point\n## Reframing research toward understanding","[{\"question\":\"Why does declining trust in experts make information literacy harder to teach?\",\"answer\":\"Because students may find that even reliable research sources reflect instances where experts are inconsistent or wrong, weakening confidence in expert-based guidance.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the article’s proposed way to move forward with this concern?\",\"answer\":\"Center class discussion on the public’s dwindling trust in experts and use that theme to guide how students approach information.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article suggest reframing the goal of library research?\",\"answer\":\"The goal is not to find sources to support an irrefutable argument, but to build a realistic understanding of a research question by acknowledging contention and pursuing complexity with humility.\"}]","Dwindling Trust in Experts: A Starting Point for Information Literacy - Article 12 | PDF",1792088786]