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Libraries from Andalusia, Catalonia, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Extremadura and Galicia, among others, will participate in this international training project on media and information literacy, which is being developed in Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.

Given the great interest among Spanish libraries and the high number of applications received to participate in the international project Media and Information Literacy Community Connections (MIL CC), Learn to Check has decided to double the number of available spots. As a result, more than 100 professionals from 50 Spanish libraries will take part in this training initiative on media and information literacy (MIL) and resilience against disinformation.

The MIL CC project, funded by the prestigious European Media and Information Fund (EMIF), is coordinated by the Instituto Universitario de Lisboa and has Learn to Check and Dublin City University as partners. In Spain, it is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Society for Documentation and Scientific Information (SEDIC), with the goal of strengthening the role of libraries as key agents in the fight against disinformation. Libraries from Catalonia, Andalusia, Murcia, La Rioja, Galicia, Asturias, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, Castilla y León, the Valencian Community, Navarra, and Aragon will participate in the initiative.

Through a series of training sessions, participants will receive tools and methodologies to encourage critical thinking and information verification among their user communities. This pioneering and free training will start with a face-to-face session that will take place in Madrid on April 8. This face-to-face session on April 8 will be held within the framework of the XXVI Jornadas de Gestión de la Información de SEDIC «NO OLVIDAR: Lecciones aprendidas de innovación y serendipia en la gestión de la información» which, in addition to hosting the workshops of this project, will offer three days of activities, presentations and debates. The MIL CC training will continue with online sessions during the months of April and May.

Starting in June, the Learn to Check team will accompany participating professionals in the development of AMI activities specifically designed for the communities they serve. Participants will have the opportunity to be part of an international network of libraries aware of disinformation and share experiences with professionals from Ireland, Portugal and other countries.

MIL CC is inspired by the project ‘Entre línies, llegint la desinformació’, promoted by the Library Services Management of the Diputació de Barcelona and developed by Learn to Check, thanks to which professionals from 40 libraries of the Municipal Library Network (XMB) of the Diputació de Barcelona have already been trained in two editions. They were trained in disinformation and digital verification and were advised to create and carry out activities against disinformation among citizens. In these two editions, 600 people, including teenagers, adults and seniors, have already participated in activities resulting from ‘Entre línies, llegint la desinformation’.

At Learn to Check, we celebrate this great reception and appreciate the interest of all the participating libraries. We are convinced that this increase in places reflects the great social interest that training to prevent the spread of false or erroneous information arouses and reinforces the role of libraries as spaces for learning and critical thinking in the face of disinformation.

At Learn to Check, we have already directly trained more than 17,000 people on disinformation and digital verification. The MIL CC initiative joins more than a dozen projects that Learn to Check promotes with the more than 70 entities with which it collaborates, such as the intergenerational project “What I know about Europe. And you, what do you know?” or the project “Don’t touch them, we defend children’s rights against disinformation”, with UNICEF Spain.