"Discusses information literacy and its social justice aspects, through a selection of chapters addressing the values of intellectual freedom, social responsibility, and democracy in relation to the sociopolitical context of library work"--Provided by publisher.
This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 4th European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2016, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2016. The 52 full and 19 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 259 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: inclusive society and democracy; employability and workplace; various literacies; reading preference: print vs electronic; theoretical aspects; higher education; discipline based studies; research methods; children and youth; country based studies; academic libraries; librarians; and teaching methods and instruction.
Libraries, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Enabling Access and Promoting Inclusion examines the interrelationships between digital literacy, digital inclusion, and public policy, emphasizing the impacts of these policy decisions on the ability of individuals and communities to successfully participate in the information society. It is the first large-scale consideration of digital literacy and digital inclusion as policy problems and provides policy recommendations to promote digital literacy and digital inclusion. This book is intended to help librarians better understand and articulate their roles in promoting human rights and social justice, as well as to educate policymakers, government officials, professionals in other fields, and researchers in other disciplines about the contributions of libraries to human rights and social justice. It explores the intersections of information, human rights, and social justice from a range of perspectives and addresses the differing roles of library institutions (public, school, academic, and special libraries), library professionals, professional organizations, governments, and library patrons. Discussion focuses on the practical side of human rights and avoids most of the philosophical discussions of the term. Similarly, this book emphasizes the practical nature of social justice and the social and societal structures that foster equality. Related issues of digital literacy and digital inclusion are considered as essential to providing information in human rights and social justice contexts. Digital literacy, the ability to use the Internet to meet information, combines with access to the Internet in order to successfully apply the skills of digital literacy is discussed under the topic of digital inclusion. These topics are discussed through legal, policy, social, cultural, and economic lenses. Issues are examined both in terms of efforts to support equity in communities as a whole and the efforts intended to promote equity in specific disadvantaged or marginalized populations, such as the homeless, immigrants, people with disabilities, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Many examples of the issues discussed are drawn from the original research that the authors have conducted. The ideas and suggestions in this book should help members of the library community understand where their roles related to human rights and social justice originate, how they fit within the broader policy context, how to improve their related services and practices, and how to advocate for better support of these roles. The authors of this book have been involved in this research for many years and this breadth allows the book to offer comprehensive policy recommendations, solutions, and best practices for an area that is currently extremely fragmented. The writing is at a level to make it useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and policy makers.
Published in partnership with the International Association of School Librarianship, this work gathers together the latest and most important research on the topics of social justice and cultural competency in school libraries. Education systems today are expected to advance national goals related to fairness, equity, and social cohesion. Comprising articles written and collected in the journal of the International Association of School Librarianship and new articles written especially for this anthology, this book documents both empirical research and promising practices to help school librarians and teachers work together to promote social justice and develop learners' and educators' cultural competence. Both coeditors are experienced in working with authors from around the world and have participated in the development of effective and ethical standards and guidelines for school library practitioners. Brief real-life case studies of school librarians and teachers in action showcase efforts to improve the lives of marginalized or under-served students. School librarians inside and outside of the United States, school library educators and policymakers, and academic librarians building school librarianship collections will find this guide valuable.
In a rapidly changing world with myriad conflicting voices, the library's role as a place of safety and inclusion and as a repository of knowledge cannot be overstated. Librarians must serve as community leaders with a mission to educate and inform, ready to model the principles they support. The question for many is: how? Experienced librarians offer ideas and guidance in seeking new creative paths, working to support change in library organizations and reexamining principles that may be taken for granted. Theoretical foundations are discussed, along with practical ideas such as the creation a book groups for the intellectually disabled and partnership with social workers or advocates for employees with disabilities.
Although they may not have always been explicitly stated, library work has always had normative goals. Until recently, such goals have largely been abstract; they are things like knowledge creation, education, forwarding science, preserving history, supporting democracy, and safeguarding civilization. The modern spirit of social and cultural critique, however, has focused our attention on the concrete, material relationships that determine human potentiality and opportunity, and library workers are increasingly seeing the institution of the library, as well as library work, as embedded in a web of relations that extends beyond the library's traditional sphere of influence. In light of this critical consciousness, more and more library and information science professionals are coming to see themselves as change agents and front-line advocates of social justice issues. This book will serve as a guide for those library workers and related information professionals that disregard traditional ideas of "library neutrality" and static, idealized conceptions of Western culture. The book will work as an entry point for those just forming a consciousness oriented towards social justice work and will be also be of value to more experienced "transformative library workers" as an up-to-date supplement to their praxis. - Justifies the use of a variety of theoretical and practical resources for effecting positive change - Explores the role of the librarian as change agents
Social Justice Design and Implementation in Library and Information Science presents a range of case studies that have successfully implemented social justice as a designed strategy to generate community-wide changes and social impact. Each chapter in the collection presents innovative practices that are strategized as intentional, deliberate, systematic, outcome-based, and impact-driven. They demonstrate effective examples of social justice design and implementation in LIS to generate meaningful outcomes across local, regional, national, and international settings. Including reflections on challenges and opportunities in academic, public, school, and special libraries, museums, archives, and other information-related settings, the contributions present forward-looking strategies that transcend historical and outdated notions of neutral stance and passive bystanders. Showcasing the intersections of LIS concepts and interdisciplinary theories with traditional and non-traditional methods of research and practice, the volume demonstrates how to further the social justice principles of fairness, justice, equity/equality, and empowerment of all people, including those on the margins of society. Social Justice Design and Implementation in Library and Information Science will be of great interest to LIS educators, scholars, students, information professionals, library practitioners, and all those interested in integrating social justice and inclusion advocacy into their information-related efforts to develop impact-driven, externally focused, and community-relevant outcomes.
Education’s role should further social justice, prepare students to compete for higher social positions, train workers, and engage students so that they become active participants in a democratic society. However, as with many global systems, education has long ago fallen victim to the institutional ailments of systematic oppression and discrimination. In order to promote equity and social justice in education, it is paramount that educators and administrators acknowledge systematic challenges in education and the solutions. The Handbook of Research on Solutions for Equity and Social Justice in Education discusses how teachers and school administrators practice equity and inclusion in their schools. It provides examples of social justice and how it affects society, as well as specific case studies that aim at engendering equity and inclusion for minorities. It further discusses these issues in a global context. Covering topics such as agentic empowerment, social justice in dialogue, and teacher social justice advocacy, this major reference work is a critical resource for faculty and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, preservice teachers, teacher educators, school social workers and counselors, librarians, government officials, researchers, and academicians.
This edited collection explores critical literacy theory and provides practical guidance to how it can be taught and applied in libraries. Critical literacy asks fundamental questions about our understanding of knowledge. Unlike more conventional approaches to literacy and resource evaluation, with critical literacy there is no single ‘correct’ way to read and respond to a text or resource. A commitment to equity and social justice sets critical literacy apart from many other types of literacy and links it to wider societal debates, such as internationalization, community cohesion and responses to disability. The book provides a foundation of critical literacy theory, as applied to libraries; combines theory and practice to explore critical literacy in relation to different user groups, and offers practical ways to introduce critical literacy approaches in libraries. Contributed to by international experts from across library sectors, the book covers topics including: radical information literacy as an approach to critical literacy education critical literacy and mature students physical and digital disability access in libraries teaching critical literacy skills in a multicultural, multilingual school community teaching media literacy developing critical literacy skills in an online environment new media and critical literacy. Critical Literacy for Information Professionals also contains a series of practically-focussed case studies that describe tools or approaches that librarians have used to engage users in critical literacy. Drawing on examples from across library sectors including schools, public libraries, universities, workplaces and healthcare, these illustrate how critical literacy can be applied across a variety of library settings, including online and new media environments. Accessible to those with little knowledge of critical literacy, while also introducing debates and ideas to those with more experience of the field, this book will be essential reading for librarians, information professionals and managers in all sectors, students of library and information science, school and higher education teachers and researchers.
Going beyond the fake news problem, this book tackles the broader issue of teaching library users of all types how to become more critical consumers and sharers of information. As a public, school, or academic librarian or educator, you can help library users to become more conscious and responsible consumers of information. As you read, you'll gain a better understanding and appreciation of the core concepts involved in promoting critical information literacy, such as information ethics, media literacy, and civic education. You'll also learn the history of fake news and come away with practical ideas in mind for strategies to apply in your library. Chapters contributed by leading experts in public, academic, and school library services are written in plain, everyday language that librarians and library school students can easily understand and relate to their own experiences as information users, especially their experiences in social media and other online venues where sharing false information takes only a click.