By Steven J. Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University Libraries

It’s really hard to know who to trust now.

Who has much faith in product reviews? You just cannot trust them. There may be one exception. Wirecutter guides give me more confidence because each is accompanied by a personal statement from the author on “Why You Should Trust Me”. 

Librarians consider themselves to be trusted guides as well. 

We’ve heard this throughout our careers. We hear it from our thought leaders. We see it established in citizen surveys. It is embedded in our librarianship DNA.  We seek to establish a relationship built on trust with the people who use our libraries. 

Where other societal institutions, even our venerated higher education system, see public confidence and trust diminished in 2024, libraries, public and academic, have largely retained their reputation as trusted community resources. Despite those community members who fallaciously claim libraries are a place where young minds are indoctrinated to dangerous ideologies, there is a clear national majority who regard them as a highly trusted sources in a time of declining institutional trust.

What we know is supported by surveys and studies reinforcing our position as trusted organizations. A 2023 survey of parents confirmed they show a high level of trust and satisfaction in libraries of all types. By comparison, libraries are trusted far more than other American institutions, be it Congress, the Supreme Court, mainstream media, or even – take note academic librarians - higher education.

This chart is found in a Kevin Carey article, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. in which he argues that claims that Americans have lost confidence in higher education is far from accurate. Unfortunately, the public library was not among the options available in this Gallup poll on institutional trust. 

But even if it had been included and it was the number one most trusted institution, this profession must never take our position and reputation as a highly trusted source for granted. What’s taken generations to build is easily broken in a world of institutional mistrust. How do we make sure that never happens?

For starters, let’s change the strategy from resting on laurels to proactively establishing that we are THE trusted source through a well-designed and intentional campaign that documents and advances the why, what and how of library trust. To be sure, organizations such as the American Library Association and EveryLibrary seek to get that message out to the public. To go beyond these existing efforts, let’s take some cues from other organizations to identify new strategies. How would academic librarians take part in such a campaign?

On October 25, 2024, I attended a program that sought to begin a conversation aimed at addressing this exact question.

Sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, this webinar featured a presentation by three journalists from the New York Times (NYT), acknowledge by many as a high trust institution.  We learned the deep commitment the NYT has to establishing and demonstrating the accuracy of its reporting and the transparency of its reporting staff when it comes to being independent, fair and ethical.

What we learned (Sorry, I am unable to link to a recording) is the incredible degree of painstaking in-depth investigation that NYT journalists, and those who support them, go to in order to know their reporting is completely factual. For example, in reporting a massacre of Ukrainian civilians conducted by invading Russian troops, the journalists and technology experts collected hours of video, satellite images, geolocation data and more to confirm exactly when and where the slaughter occurred. They didn’t simply report what other townspeople told them. Every detail was documented, even down to the shirt color of one the victims that provided video evidence of what happened in that town on that day. 

This was just one example. We saw others. Now multiply that by dozens and dozens of similar events that must be fact-checked and documented. This is how the NYT builds and maintains its trusted reputation. I now take notice that each reporter, as part of their byline, provides a statement of independence and ethical compliance. For example, a journalist who reports on financial markets will state they do not invest in stocks of companies on which they report, nor do they accept gifts, favors or meals. Might we imagine librarians adding similar statements to their website profiles?

What are some things we can do to re-double our efforts to maintain our status as a trusted institution in times of increasing institutional distrust? We could draw some inspiration from two sources. One of them is the EDUCAUSE 2025 Top 10 List. With the theme name “Restoring Trust”, the list identifies “a matter of trust” as the fourth item on their list. While it mostly focuses on what academic information technology groups can do to tackle the diminished trust levels in higher education, it offers several areas of operation where trust can be built.  

The other is the well-known annual Edelman Trust Barometer. While the 2024 global report focuses on trust levels for business and government, it too offers some insight into factors that increase or diminish trust levels. According to this report, despite the efforts of newspapers like the NYT to establish trust, media organizations are roughly on par with government agencies when it comes to getting the truth. It’s not expected from either one.

What both EDUCAUSE and Edelman have in common is the identification of two key factors that are critical to a trusted organizational reputation: competence and ethics. I imagine that other qualities, such as honesty, transparency, dependability or accountability matter. These and other trust factors are potentially incorporated into either competence or ethics.

When organizations are perceived by the public as being both competent and ethical, levels of trust elevate. To this, EDUCAUSE adds an additional factor, caring. Organizations demonstrate high levels of caring when they are exhibit attributes such as being welcoming, providing easy access to needed information and resources, and making safety a high priority. Based on these observations, here are some ways in which libraries across the spheres of operation can establish, build on and leverage their reputation as a trusted institution:

• While neither librarians or libraries have official government certifications, library organizations can better promote that their librarians, and possibly themselves, are members of the American Library Association and that as members they observe and adhere to the professional Code of Ethics. Give this Code more prominence on the library website. It certainly helps if library staff support ALA through membership.
  
• Taking a page from the NYT and other organizations, consider developing a “Here’s Why You Can Trust Us” statement or document for your library. 

•  It helps if the staff and collections reflect the diversity of the communities in which they operate. The New York Times reporters acknowledged that in the past their reporters lacked diversity, and it contributed to the development of an exclusionary institution. Increasing their staff diversity, they believed, helped them to build a more inclusive readership. Trust needs to be established over time. It can be a slow process.

• As an institution that leverages technology and data, we should pay attention to what EDUCAUSE is recommending to its higher education member institution for working to overcome constituent skepticism about “how we use data ethically, transparently and safely”. That could include being more public and transparent about what we do to protect user data, and in what situations it may be accessible to third parties.
  
• Libraries cannot afford to ignore artificial intelligence and how we might incorporate it into our practice and operations. AI comes with lots of trust issues and is likely to do so for the near-term future. As an information profession we absolutely need to explore AI’s capabilities for enhancing the discovery of and access to library content. As we do, let’s keep reminding ourselves to look closely for ways in which AI adoption could damage our trust reputation by irreparably harming our competence, ethics, and caring.

After participating in this ARL webinar on “Building Trust Within the Community”, I came away feeling confident in my trust of the New York Times, as a subscriber, in all of the multiple approaches taken to achieve both competency and ethics. 

Yet, for all of the effort to which the Times and its journalists go to establish trust, the newspaper industry’s position on the Gallup Poll of trusted institutions is still quite low. The problem may be that too few people understand or have explored the lengths to which the Times goes to achieve journalistic trust. It certainly doesn’t help knowing that too many citizens have deeply bought into false narratives about fake news media.

The good news is that at least for libraries, when it comes to public levels of confidence and trust, we are well positioned. Can we afford to assume it will always be that way, much in the same way that academic librarians tend to take it for granted that they will remain unaffected by book banning campaigns? If we pay attention to the trends and what they tell us about public erosion of trust in nearly all societal institutions, we would be doing ourselves a favor to begin planning how to maintain and defend our status as a trusted institution.

 I would advocate for ARL to build on this “building trust” webinar with the NYT journalists to create a more substantial “sustaining trust” initiative. Let’s develop common sense strategies and tactics that academic libraries and their librarians can adopt to ensure our communities never forget why we are their most trusted partners and what we will commit to doing to maintain that status.