About the session
On 10 January 2017 Robert Kennedy Jr, conspiracy theorist and proponent of Andrew Wakefield’s discredited linkage between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism, emerged from an hour-long meeting with Donald Trump to announce that he had been asked to chair a commission on ‘vaccination safety and scientific integrity’. Although the President’s team later denied that there would be a commission, this story reflects an atmosphere of profound mistrust of scientific information in one of the most scientifically advanced nations on the planet.
We can look on and marvel: but we can’t just blame
opportunist politicians. We, the curators of knowledge –
academics, publishers and librarians – have to accept our
own responsibility for learning, understanding and truth.
Where else should people go to find objective truth than to
books, to journals and to libraries? And how should people
discern the difference between responsible reporting and
politicised media messaging?
During this debate we will investigate our own understanding of our roles in the knowledge economy of the 21st century. Is good quality knowledge accessible to all? Are people well equipped to understand the knowledge that is available to them? Is the very phrase ‘knowledge economy’ putting a cost on truth? Are we reinforcing an image of true understanding as being reserved for an élite – those who can enter the libraries (physically or virtually) or afford the publications?
This is a question for all of us. We will invite to the stage
representatives of our community to start the debate but we hope that you, the audience, will participate wholeheartedly.
