Social Justice Commons^™

Inclusive Global Scholarly Communication: Toward A Just And Healthier Information Ecosystem, Angel Y. Ford, Daniel G. Alemneh

Information Science Faculty Scholarship

Scholarly communication has long been a central topic in the field of information science. However, philosophical, and even perhaps some legal reflections, including the moral and ethical considerations of the health of information ecosystems, are fairly recent developments. In fact, recent topics are propelled by various contextual factors including economic, disciplinary, societal norms, and cultures.This article explores literature discussing the plight of scholars in low- and middle-income countries that struggle to engage in scholarly communications in their fields. This topic has been explored for years, however, has often been addressed in disciplines outside of information science and knowledge management. This …

Fiu Libraries Salary Task Force Report On Staff Salaries To Library Assembly, Kelley Rowan, Annia Gonzalez, Adriana Harris, Christopher M. Jimenez, Patricia Pereira-Pujol, Jamie Rogers, Jennifer Scholl

Works of the FIU Libraries

The Florida International University (FIU) Libraries Salary Task Force was commissioned to address salary disparities among library staff. By conducting a comprehensive analysis, the task force identifed salary inequities and recommends areas where fair compensation could be addressed. Guided by principles of transparency, sustainability, and competitiveness, the task force suggests employing a more equitable salary framework. Their goal is to enhance job satisfaction and morale while attracting talented professionals. This report outlines their findings and recommendations.

Creating An Interactive Guide To Support Health Disparities Competency, Lauren E. Robinson, Stephanie Henderson, Cayla M. Robinson, Rebecca J. Morgan, Beth Reeder

2024 R&I Day

Authors share their educational resource developed for the health sciences, that guides users in awareness of health disparities, vulnerable populations, and social determinants of health, directing them to specific guidance and resources available through the library.

Social Media As Fragile State, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite, Philip Mai, Anatoliy Gruzd

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Social media platforms are grappling with how to respond to hate speech, misinformation, and political manipulation in ways that address human rights, free speech, and equality. As independent ‘states’, they are enacting their own rules of conduct, deriving their own ‘laws’, convening their own extrajudicial self regulatory institutions, and making their own interpretations and enactments of human rights. With the rise of social states such as Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, how fragile are they in their ability to achieve outcomes of fair, equitable and consistent application of their own laws? Could an assessment of the fragility of …

Guide To The Dr. Jo-Ann Della Giustina, Esq. Social Justice Collection, Olivia Englehart

Archives & Special Collections Finding Aids

The bulk of this collection consists of a wide array of far-left political pamphlets on various topics, mostly communist and socialist political movements within the United States, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and China. The topics involve labor unions and strikes, political revolutions, global women’s rights, communist and socialist history and dispelling false propaganda, LGBTQ+ rights, and African American rights. In addition to pamphlets, Dr. Della Giustina also collected newspaper runs published by far-left US labor groups that sought to expose big businesses, highlight the struggles and threats to immigrant workers, and bring awareness to the …

Let Freedom Read: Exploring Banned Books And Intellectual Freedom In Florida, Christopher M. Jimenez, George Pearson, Melissa Del Castillo, Stephen Thomson Moore, Lowell Bryan Cooper, Jacqueline Radebaugh

Works of the FIU Libraries

On October 5, 2023, the FIU Libraries’ Academic and Intellectual Freedom Committee hosted a crucial discussion on the current state of book banning and censorship in the United States, with a specific focus on Florida. This special session was part of the First Thursdays Library lecture series.

During the event, attendees were presented with startling statistics from the American Libraries Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA OIF), PEN America, the Florida Freedom to Read Foundation (FFTRF), and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that led experts to declare 2022 the worst year for book bans in history. The …

Oppressive Authority: Dismantling, Reexamining, And Reconstructing Notions Of Authority In Information Literacy Instruction, Melissa Chomintra

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The following chapter examines ways knowledge authority structures can be oppressive in relation to information literacy instruction and discusses how librarians can implement equitable and inclusive pedagogy in their library instruction by dismantling, reexamining, and reconstructing notions of authority.

Diversity, Not Division, Elaine Chapman

Other Resources

This paper will contain observations about the library field, the wider societal barriers that are impacting the potential staff we could employ. It will also be talking a bit about TU Dublin and what we hope to do and become, and will finish with looking towards the future of third level education. The aim of the paper is for readers to be able to partake in an open dialogue about disability, and wider social struggles. Through enabling this it will help to increase action on equity, and reduce staff's fear of acting.

Copyright And Racism, Kimber Thomas

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Slides on copyright and racism by Dr. Kimber Thomas with an emphasis on United States copyright.

Includes points related to the origin of United States copyright law, original authorship and tangibility requirements, creation of works via oral or visual tradition and knowledge, the useful articles exclusion, and works made for hire.

Guide To The Alice Pettee Adams Collection, 1880-1990, Orson Kingsley

Archives & Special Collections Finding Aids

Alice Pettee Adams came from Jaffrey, New Hampshire when she enrolled at the Bridgewater Normal School (now Bridgewater State University) in 1885. She graduated from the four-year program in 1889. In 1891, after a brief stint as a teacher and principal of a high school in her hometown, she went to Okayama, Japan through a Christian Missionary program. She originally had the ambition of dedicating ten years of her life to this social work/education endeavor. Rather than ten years, she went on to dedicate the rest of her life to helping the poor and impoverished in Okayama, Japan.

By the …

Library Curriculum As Epistemic Justice: Decolonizing Library Instruction Programs, Heather Campbell, Dan Sich

Western Libraries Publications

Information literacy scholars and leaders are calling for the decolonization of library instruction, knowing that our work helps to maintain colonial systems. While there is no checklist or road map to program decolonization, academic libraries and instruction teams must start the work anyway. This article shares the story of curriculum decolonization at Western Libraries, so far, including the decolonization ‘cycle’ we followed and our resulting six learning outcomes. Grounded in epistemic justice, our new curriculum prioritizes living beings over information, and uses a broad, inclusive definition of knowledge throughout. Librarians at Western University acknowledge that the first step in decolonization …

Prison Libraries, Intellectual Freedom And Social Justice In Nigeria, Olusegun Adebayo Opesanwo, Oluyomi Abidemi Awofeso Phd

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper deployed a systematic review to examine prison libraries and intellectual freedom towards attaining social justice in Nigeria. Information resources used cover the periods of 2010 and 2020 to articulate the necessary development in prison libraries, intellectual freedom and social justice in Nigeria. Search engines such as Google scholar, Semantic Scholar, and RefSeek were used to retrieve information and through different queries yielded several results but very few of them were selected to fit in the study due to limited studies directed to address the focus of this study particularly in the Nigeria scenario. Information obtained were subjected to …

2021 Depaul University Library And Art Museum Climate Survey Report, Wendall Sullivan, Subcommittee For The Survey And Report, Idea Committee, Depaul University Library, April Hummons, Dorian Rodriguez-Spicer, Christine Mcclure, Matthew Krause

Climate Surveys and Reports

In the fall of 2021, the DePaul University Library and Art Museum’s IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility) Committee decided to conduct a survey of the library’s climate to establish a baseline for its work. The survey was sent to all full and part-time library staff and ran for six weeks. One of the goals of the IDEA committee is to bring awareness of implicit biases, micro-aggressions, exclusionary practices, and structural racism and discrimination within Library and Art Museum operations, environment, and culture; to review, audit and propose internal polices and processes for the Library and Art Museum to implement IDEA …

Climate Justice And Racial And Gender Equity: Creating And Promoting Featured Collections, Sherry Buchanan

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

PDXScholar, the repository for Portland State University, showcases three main collections that are automatically curated based on filters – tags that collect and display the content: Climate Justice, Racial and Gender Equity, and COVID-19. In this presentation, I will give an overview of our featured collections, their development and promotion, including the criteria for inclusion, technical aspects, and impact. The Digital Commons automated collection tool and system configuration will be briefly explained.

Burning The Candle At Both Ends: How And Why Academic Librarians Who Are Parents Experience And Combat Burnout At Work, Michael Holt, Amy Chew, Jessica Lee, Robert Taylor

Faculty Publications

Academic librarians already wear many hats, juggling a multitude of skills and duties in order to meet the needs of their patrons. When one of those hats is parenthood, however, balancing work and home life can sometimes seem like an insurmountable task. In this chapter we explore how and why academic librarians who are also parents experience burnout, as well as methods used to combat burnout by examining the results of a nationally distributed mixed-methods survey. The survey also addresses practices to combat and prevent burnout, both on a personal and institutional level, and the perceptions of their effectiveness.

When Deia Meets Faith In Heightened Tensions: Deia Initiatives At Catholic-Serving Institutions, V. Dozier, Martha Adkins, Alejandra J. Nann

Copley Library: Faculty Scholarship

Copley Library at the University of San Diego launched the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Committee in August 2020. The committee was developed in an effort to identify and work through the DEIA-related challenges affecting our country and our local community. Three librarians from the committee endeavored to explore what USD is currently doing as well as how libraries at Catholic-Serving Institutions are providing resources and services in regard to DEIA. Our approach was to survey USD faculty, staff, and administrators who participate or engage in DEIA efforts. The external survey was intended for librarians who work at Catholic-serving …

Conscious Editing And Metadata Enhancement For Library Collections, Sai Deng, Jeanne Piascik

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

To promote Diversity and Inclusion and conscious metadata editing, the librarians in Cataloging Services at the University of Central Florida collaborated with several departments for the audit and reparative editing of digital collections related to sensitive materials, and enhancement and enrichment of subject headings for physical collections on biographies.

Working with Digital Initiatives, and Special Collections & University Archives, the cataloging librarians have been auditing and editing metadata for The African American Legacy: The Carol Mundy Collection, 1794-2010, The Civil War Collection, and PRISM: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements. For instance, an inclusion statement has been added to …

Hacia Un Contra-Archivo Radical Y Queer: El Archivo De La Memoria Trans Y La [Re]Construcción De La Memoria Colectiva Sobre La Violencia Institucional En Argentina, Valeria Bula

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación analizará algunos procesos vinculados a la producción de la memoria travesti y trans* en Argentina a partir de la experiencia del Archivo de la Memoria Trans (AMT). Reconociendo el espacio de la memoria en Argentina como un espacio de lucha política, compuesto por diferentes interpretaciones y narrativas, el relato ofrecido por el AMT se estudiará como la adición de una nueva dimensión de complejidad al campo de la memoria en torno al terrorismo de Estado, específicamente en relación con la identidad de las víctimas. En este trabajo, propongo un análisis de la manera en que el AMT se …

Actions Speak Louder Than Words- Why Creating A Plan, Rejecting Neutrality, And Recruiting A Racially Diverse Staff Are Effective Ways To Increase The Presence Of Diversity In Libraries., Jennifer Van Vegten

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The urge to diversify workplaces has spread nationwide. Although many institutions feel that formal statements and pledges are enough to satisfy the public outcry, actions such as setting up a direct plan to address the rejection of neutrality, to expand the access of materials, and actively hiring and promoting a racially diverse staff are less often seen. In America’s libraries in particular, good-natured sentiments about how a modern, socially diverse library should look are met with half-hearted efforts. While some libraries, such as the Oregon Library Association, are making significant strides towards their intended directions, others, such as the Rural …

The Global Drumbeat: Permeations Of Hip Hop Across Diverse Information Worlds, Kafi D. Kumasi, André Brock

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This article outlines the scope and significance of a special issue of The International Journal of Information, Diversity & Inclusion dedicated to exploring the intersections of hip hop and the field of library and information sciences. The co-guest editors, Kafi Kumasi and André Brock, describe their respective research trajectories to help illuminate what constitutes a hip hop epistemology of LIS knowledge. This issue demonstrates that there are many robust conceptual access points for better understanding the LIS field through the lens of Hip Hop including areas like computational neuroscience, copyright and data science. The research articles are complimented by: two …

As Librarians Convene Here, Multnomah County Library Showcases Work In Equity And Inclusion, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

As more than 3,300 U.S. librarians flock to Portland for the Public Library Association conference March 23-25, they’ll witness up close Multnomah County Library’s groundbreaking work in diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice. The pandemic, and social justice work after the 2020 protests, have permanently influenced how the library delivers services.

Small And Rural Libraries Have Persevered Amid Challenges, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

When the Public Library Association holds its 2022 conference in Portland March 23-25, those overseeing the event will include Stephanie Chase, an association board member and the executive director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon.

About one-third of libraries in eastern Oregon are staffed with just one person. Still, Chase’s organization, a consortium of 15 rural county libraries, offers access to a bigger collection of materials than people living in the sparsely populated region could previously have dreamed of, including the 66,000 ebooks and audiobooks accessible on a smartphone through OverDrive’s Libby app.

Bias In The Stacks: Seeking Justice On The Shelves, Liz Kielley, Sarah Myers

Library Exhibits & Events

Words matter. To make materials findable, libraries have relied on subject headings and classification numbers to organize their resources. Have you ever wondered how these subjects or classification numbers were developed? Both the Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Classification were developed with a Western-centric, white, Christian, male perspective. How does the language we use in our subject headings reinforce marginalization? In what ways can libraries reconcile the inequalities found in these standardized policies to be inclusive of diverse and multicultural perspectives? What are Messiah’s Murray Library and other institutions doing to create balance?

Speakers:

• Elizabeth Kielley (Discovery and …

Democratic Belonging As Informed Citizenry - Empowering Faculty To Empower Learners Via Information Literacy, Anna Santucci, Amanda K. Izenstark, Mary C. Macdonald

Public Services Faculty Presentations

Presentation at the AAC&U 2022 Annual Meeting as a Pre-Meeting Workshop.

Responsible citizens need the agility to navigate a changing information landscape. Intentionally designing learning experiences that integrate accessible Information Literacy (IL) skills for all students is a crucial step towards educational justice, a paramount responsibility in the democratic mission of our institutions. With this goal, the University of Rhode Island’s Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning has partnered with instruction librarians since 2018 in developing and facilitating a High Impact Teaching Seminar for faculty. Participants will learn about the seminar’s theoretical framework, impact and structure, engage in …

A Critical Phenomenology Of Whiteness In Academic Libraries, Emily Crist, Kelly Clark/Keefe

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This exploratory qualitative study examines how whiteness functions in the field of library and information science (LIS) within higher education institutions. Utilizing a critical phenomenological approach, three questions guided the inquiry: (1) How is whiteness embodied by academic librarians, (2) What perceptions do academic librarians hold that contribute to the maintenance or disruption of habits of whiteness in libraries, and (3) How and where is whiteness embedded within academic library settings and the field of LIS?

The aim was to begin understanding whiteness in libraries as an experientially-grounded and systemically reproduced phenomena. Four academic librarians participated in semi-structured interviews that …

University Libraries Faculty Assembly - Racism Impact Statement & Dean's Response, Maya Hobscheid, Samantha Minnis, Annie Bélanger

Library Reports and Communication

Racism and white supremacy culture have a profound impact on nonwhite faculty in higher education and throughout the tenure and promotion process. This document is intended to acknowledge the impact of racism on the tenure and promotion process in general as well as in our specific context of Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Libraries. It is not intended to be comprehensive of everyone’s lived experiences or of the effects of racism on all.

Integrating Doctrine And Diversity Speaker Series: When Law School Classroom Discussions Of Diversity Issues Go Wrong, Roger Williams University School Of Law, City University Of New York School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: Book Release Kick Off Celebration 09-15-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law, City University Of New York School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing & Indigenizing Lis, Heather Hill, Marni Harrington, Paulette Rothbauer, Danica Pawlick Potts

FIMS Publications

What does it mean to Indigenize and decolonize a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program? This paper outlines the process by which one Canadian MLIS program responded to the reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Library Association Indigenous Matters Committee that specify the implications and provide guidelines for best practices for librarianship and the information professions across Canada. In outlining the challenges of re-engineering our standard procedures, practices, and pedagogies, this paper provides a path forward for other MLIS programs looking to critically evaluate and develop their own programs.

‘Access Necessitates Being Seen’: Queer Visibility And Intersectional Embodiment Within The Health Information Practices Of Queer Community Leaders, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa Kitzie

Faculty Publications

Navigating healthcare infrastructures is particularly challenging for queer-identifying individuals, with significant barriers emerging around stigma and practitioner ignorance. Further intersecting, historically marginalised identities such as one’s race, age or ability exacerbate such engagement with healthcare, particularly the access to and use of reliable and appropriate health information. We explore the salience of one’s queer identity relative to other embodied identities when navigating health information and care for themselves and their communities. Thirty semi-structured interviews with queer community leaders from South Carolina inform our discussion of the role one’s queer visibility plays relational to the visibility of other identities. We find …