Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Book Review: The Promise Of Access: Technology, Inequality, And The Political Economy Of Hope, Daniel Greene, Boheme Morris

School of Information Student Research Journal

In The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope, Daniel Greene provides a comprehensive, approachable evaluation and critique of the concept of the “access doctrine” and how it has permeated American policy and organizations.

Looking At The Past To Change The Future: Showcasing Featured Collections, Building Communities, And Co-Creating, Sherry Buchanan

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

Academic libraries have the opportunity and the responsibility to promote and advance content that creates transformative and iterative learning opportunities. To that end, and in an effort to build communities and facilitate co-creation, Portland State University showcases three main Featured Collections in our open access repository, PDXScholar: Climate Justice, COVID-19, and Racial and Gender Equity, with a fourth pilot collection—Student Work: An Open Showcase of Outstanding Student-Created Research & Creative Work—under development. The collections include a broad range of audiovisual materials, such as podcasts and webinar series, as well as sustainability and equity work, student-created content, and numerous future-focused multidisciplinary …

Review Of Hopeful Visions, Practical Actions: Cultural Humility In Library Work, Carol A. Leibiger

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Wait, We’Re Invited, Too? An Academic Social Justice Book Club For The Community (A Case Study), Amanda Boyer, Amir El-Chidiac

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Political tensions, racial reckoning, and rising book challenges have led to deeper polarization in the United States, especially in Pennsylvania, where there is already an even divide between liberals and conservatives. The increasing division led two librarians from the Susquehanna University Blough-Weis Library (2021) to initiate a Social Justice Book Club. This club aimed to unite the campus and local communities to grapple with social justice issues in a safe environment. Librarians had concerns when starting the club due to the regional tensions. Still, they were determined to find a way to safely allow everyone involved to learn more about …

Looking At The Past To Change The Future: Showcasing Featured Collections, Building Communities, And Co-Creating, Sherry Buchanan

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Academic libraries have the opportunity and the responsibility to promote and advance content that creates transformative and iterative learning opportunities. To that end, and in an effort to build communities and facilitate co-creation, Portland State University showcases three main Featured Collections in our open access repository, PDXScholar: Climate Justice, COVID-19, and Racial and Gender Equity, with a fourth pilot collection—Student Work: An Open Showcase of Outstanding Student-Created Research & Creative Work—under development. The collections include a broad range of audiovisual materials, such as podcasts and webinar series, as well as sustainability and equity work, student-created content, and numerous future-focused multidisciplinary …

Pursuing Social Justice Through Visual Practice: Intro To Part Iv, Stephanie Beene

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This peer-reviewed chapter serves as the Introduction to the final section of the book, Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces, edited by Maggie Murphy, Stephanie Beene, Katie Greer, Sara Schumacher, and Dana Statton Thompson, and published by the Association of College & Research Libraries (2023). As the introduction to the final section of the book, it introduces readers to the final theme of the 2022 Framework for Visual Literacy in Higher Education, a Companion Document (VL Framework) to the 2016 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, “Learners …

Academic Librarians' Opinions On Social Justice Advocacy, Judith L. Brink Drescher

Librarian Presentations

This session presented the results of 113 academic librarians surveyed regarding their views on social justice advocacy. As part of a mixed-methods exploration, quantitative, qualitative, and integrated elements were revealed. Beyond a comprehensive survey administered, librarian advocates describe how they approach issues of social justice, what the benefits are of addressing inequities within academic libraries, what barriers they've encountered in their advocacy efforts and initiatives, and what advice a more experienced advocate might offer to a peer with less knowledge who is interested in becoming more involved.

When Librarians Talk With Conservatives About Libraries, Bill Crowley

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The article addresses the possibility of minimizing instances of book banning, program protest, director firing, and library defunding in conservative Republican communities. The aim is to suggest ways of reducing strife while preserving the maximum possible local access to socially just public library collections and services. It begins with an exploration of the causes of the present day’s seemingly irreconcilable confrontations in conservative communities over the socially just services of many public libraries. The influence of contemporary versions of the “library faith” and religiously inspired “callings” on disputes over children’s books and programming is examined. Finally, the article goes beyond …

Successful Equity, Diversity, And Inclusivity (Edi) Initiatives In Progressive Public Libraries And Their Communities, Jameson Paul Ghalioungui

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) initiatives in public libraries are noble and endless endeavors that take many forms of action. Obviously, no one community, nor library, is the same. Consequently, no one community and/or library-centered EDI journey is the same. However, interestingly, progressive Illinois (IL) state libraries have walked the same roads. Interestingly, these realizations have led to a shift in priority and strategic focus resulting in many of these libraries to take action by contracting consultants to conduct full-scale equity assessments. Conclusions from these kinds of equity assessments have helped to contextualize and legitimize EDI-focused strategic planning decisions and …

Review Of Using Open Educational Resources To Promote Social Justice, Hali Black

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Ivory, C.J. & Pashia, A. (Eds.). (2022). Using open educational resources to promote social justice. Association of College and Research Libraries.

Academic Librarians' Opinions On Social Justice Advocacy, Judith L. Brink Drescher

Librarian Presentations

This session will reveal the results of 113 academic librarians surveyed regarding their views on social justice advocacy. As part of a mixed-methods exploration, both quantitative and qualitative elements will be explored. Beyond a comprehensive survey administered, librarian advocates describe how they approach issues of social justice, what the benefits are of addressing inequities within academic libraries, what barriers they've encountered in their advocacy efforts and initiatives, and what advice a more experienced advocate might offer to a peer with less knowledge who is interested in becoming more involved.

Equitable Sustainability Literacy Guide: Creating A Resource Guide To Educate On Environmental Problems Through A Social Justice Lens, Jennifer K. Embree, Neyda Gilman, Jacqueline Jergensen

Library Scholarship

The Equitable Sustainability Literacy Guide (ESLG) is an online resource guide created by three student interns (Jacqueline Jergensen, Haley Arnold, and Sage Block) and two librarians (Jennifer Embree and Neyda Gilman) at Binghamton University to educate the public on the environment, climate change, and sustainability through a social justice lens.

Libraries As Community: Investigating Social Infrastructure And Community Cohesion, Mora N. Rehm

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Libraries are a form of public infrastructure that guide, protect, and preserve the spirit of community. Established as the guarantor of a peaceful, well-informed society, this research evaluates the library's methods and degree of influence over citizens' feelings of community alongside other social phenomena; looking both within and without existing systems, the researcher posits a model of critical librarianship, acknowledging that current practices reinforce existing structures of inequity and privilege. A methodological investigation is then made into the link between library and community through use of secondary data analysis, concluding that strong library systems positively associate with community cohesion on …

Scope Of Open Education: A New Framework For Research, Virginia Elizabeth Clinton-Lisell, Jasmine Roberts-Crews, Lindsey Gwozdz

Library Faculty Publications

The field of open education and research on the topic has notably expanded since the introduction of the term 20 years ago. Given these developments, a framework to structure research inquiry is necessary to ground and organize findings in open education. We propose the SCOPE framework for open education research: social justice, cost, outcomes, perceptions, and engagement. In this article, we explain how this framework emphasizes the need for social justice at the forefront of open education research. In addition, we incorporate existing theories in social justice, motivation, cognition, pedagogy, and engagement into each of the components to propose theoretical …

Wikipedia Pages For Underrepresented Archivists: Creating Representation Through An Saa Foundation Grant-Funded Documentation Project, Stephanie Collier, April Anderson-Zorn

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

In spring 2019, university archivist April Anderson-Zorn and special formats cataloger Eric Willey, both at Illinois State University (ISU), submitted a grant request to the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Foundation. The team requested funds to hire an ISU graduate student to create content for Wikipedia pages for underrepresented archivists. The grant aimed to fill a content gap on the site by including the biographies of female, Black, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented archivists to highlight their accomplishments in the profession. With the help of graduate student Stephanie Collier, the project surpassed its original goal of fifteen pages, with over forty …

Engaging Antiracist Conversations: Foregrounding Twitter Feeds In Library Guides As A Way To Critically Promote Discussions Of Racial Justice, Anders Tobiason

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Academic librarians have often been hesitant to foreground real-time engagement with social justice in our public facing library guides. The guides, more often than not, serve merely to provide access points to “academic” materials and traditional news sources. Perhaps there is a different path. This chapter suggests that engagement with Twitter can point patrons toward the real conversations happening outside (and sometimes inside) academia that are missed when we rely on traditional sources. The critical engagement with social justice issues such as race and technology, or migrant justice, is happening right in front of our eyes on Twitter. This chapter …

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 …

Allies, Cobelligerents, And The Political Realities Of Pursuing Social Justice Librarianship In Conservative Republican Communities, Bill Crowley

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Of late, public and school librarians have repeatedly encountered the unwillingness of many conservative communities and/or schools to support socially just collections and services. This article seeks to broaden the discussion of the factors involved. It does so for several reasons. The first is the reality that achieving a number of socially just library services in conservative communities will require the development of local coalitions. By their very nature coalitions often require compromise. This leads to the second reason, a recognition of the political limitations resulting from progressive demands for a total commitment to progressive ends to secure recognition as …

Culturally Responsive Librarians: Shifting Perspectives Toward Racial Empathy, Elizabeth A. Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Libraries are charged with being inclusive spaces for all patrons. Library (library and information science [LIS]) preparation programs, by extension, must prepare the next generation of librarians to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population. It is imperative that today’s librarians are equipped to infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) theory with best practice when establishing policy and procedure for the library environment, staff, and programing. With little research and no established protocol in LIS education, it is unclear how pre-service librarians are trained in DEI to meet the needs of all users. This exploratory study used a participatory …

Are Library And Information Science Educators Teaching Accessibility? Content Analysis Of Syllabi, Kevin J. Mallary, Rea N. Simons, Clayton A. Copeland, Jackie Nikiema, Evan J. Dorman

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Library and information science (LIS) graduates are expected to serve patrons from diverse backgrounds, including disabled patrons. While serving patrons with disabilities is a core value of librarianship, graduates often feel unprepared to serve disabled patrons, suggesting that programs inadequately train students to design accessible services. This study’s authors analyzed hundreds of course descriptions and 73 syllabi from 20 North American LIS programs to determine how often accessibility and disability topics are covered and how educators teach accessibility. Findings indicate that accessibility and disability topics are mostly covered in electives, meaning students may never develop accessibility competencies during their programs. …

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

Library Faculty and Staff 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.

Toward A Transdisciplinary Model Of Social Justice In Academic Librarianship: Promoting Critical Awareness Within Advocates And Privileged Allies, Judith L. Brink Drescher

Theses & Dissertations

Academic libraries are largely comprised of White, middle-aged females, and as part of the overall diversity crisis within higher education, grapple with issues of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism. This mixed-methods study uses an original theoretical framework of critical transcendence, based on the philosophies of Carl Jung and Paulo Freire, to examine what triggers and/or preconditions lead some academic librarians to reflect upon and interrogate their worldview to become actively engaged as advocates and social justice allies (SJAs). An online survey was conducted that obtained data from a sample of 113 academic librarians regarding their interest and commitment toward …

Amplifying Antiracism Resources Through Intra-University Collaboration, Leta Hendricks, Gene R. Springs

Collaborative Librarianship

In summer 2020, The Ohio State University Libraries was asked by The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) to partner in collaboration with them to provide expanded access to antiracism book content in support of continuing education, reading groups, and professional development across the university. The Libraries’ African American and African Studies Librarian worked with ODI’s Director for Strategic Diversity Planning, Training, and Assessment to identify antiracism book titles of interest that were recommended for purchase or expanded access to the Collections Strategist. Topical research guides were created to supplement the reading lists, and collections practices were …

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.

Serving The Entire Community: How The Multnomah County Library Ensures A Welcoming, Safe Space For All, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the spring of 2020, the Multnomah County Library (Oregon) faced a host of issues impacting libraries across the nation: How to serve the community during a historic pandemic that saw schools and libraries close for an extended period? And how to respond to a racial and social justice awakening that requires systemic change?

Like many libraries across the nation, MCL librarians have been quick to meet their community’s needs. Following the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, for example, the library licensed more e-books and digital audiobooks about white supremacy and racial justice and …

The Los Seis De Boulder Sculpture Project: A Case Study Of Socially Engaged Archivist/Artist Collaboration At The University Of Colorado Boulder, Megan K. Friedel, Jasmine Baetz

Journal of Western Archives

As academic institutions and archivists around the nation grapple with the question of how to address existing monuments to racist histories at their institutions, how can archivists support the creation of new monuments on college and university campuses that reflect suppressed or oppressed histories of people of color? This case study explores the Los Seis de Boulder Sculpture Project, a socially engaged art project at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), in which archivists in the CU Boulder Libraries' Archives supported and collaborated with a student artist and community members to create a public monument commemorating the deaths of …

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 …

Library Response To Black Liberation Collective: A Review Of Student Calls For Change And Implications For Anti-Racist Initiatives In Academic Libraries, Lumarie Guth, Amy Bocko, Micha Broadnax

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

This article examines seven case studies concerning college libraries addressing demands collated by the Black Liberation Collective in 2015. Six years out from the publication of the lists, we evaluate statements issued by the libraries and posted on their websites, the promises that have been made to address inequities, and the ensuing actions the libraries have taken to create a welcoming, inclusive community. In solidarity with the protests’ student activists at universities across the United States and Canada organized into the Black Liberation Collective and held the first #StudentBlackoutOut day of protests on university campuses on November 15 followed by …

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.