The Jenny McCarthy conundrum: Public libraries, popular culture, and health misinformation

Abstract

Throughout the United States, public libraries are important resources for all types of information and serve a variety of information needs. One of these areas is health information provision; in fact, public libraries were widely identified as institutions providing support for patrons with questions on the Affordable Care Act. Yet, not all public libraries are equipped to provide this type of support. Moreover, there seems to be an inherent tension between collecting popular literature that may provide dangerous misinformation with regard to health and access to high quality, authoritative resources. Collection development tools and policies aren't standardized across libraries, and often staff are not trained to provide health information. Researchers visited randomly selected public libraries in three eastern U.S. states and posing as a patron asked: do vaccines cause autism. Public library staff referred to print materials to answer the question in half of all visits; 69% of the time, the print resource did not provide a credible answer. The sometimes conflicting roles of popular literature provider and authoritative health information provider have implications for library practice, public health and provision of high quality health information in communities throughout the nation.