Levels of truth: post-truth, fake news and intellectual neutrality in libraries

Abstract

Post-truth, understood in a strong sense, as a negation or an overcoming of the concept of truth, is self-contradictory. Understood in a weak sense, instead, it coincides with the so-called fake news, which is here defined and against which the best antidotes are information literacy and a good media diet. In any case, truth is not a particularly relevant concept for librarians, also because there are several levels of it, because often it is not verifiable and because many of the documents typically kept by libraries are not truthful or do not contain information that can be sensibly classed as true or false. Intellectual neutrality of librarians is a less popular concept than post-truth and fake news, but it is much more complex and much more relevant to the profession. A definition of intellectual neutrality is given and main arguments favorable (considered the most convincing ones by the author) and against it are exposed.