Advancing IDEAs: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, 2022 November 1

The following  post is one in a regular series on issues of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility, compiled by Jay Weitz.

Disenfranchisement and disengagement in libraries

Even in 2022, librarianship remains a predominantly white profession with an often shameful history of discrimination. Two librarians at Ohio State University (OCLC Symbol: OSU) in Columbus have collaborated on a pair of ALA Editions Special Reports, Narratives of (Dis)Enfranchisement: Reckoning with the History of Libraries and the Black and African American Experience and Narratives of (Dis)Engagement: Exploring Black and African American Students’ Experiences in Libraries, both published in 2022. Social Sciences Librarian Tracey Overbey and Teaching and Learning Department head Amanda L. Folk sit for an interview about their work in “Making the connection: Amanda L. Folk and Tracey Overbey discuss libraries and the Black and African American experience.” Their first volume is intended “to provide an accessible overview of the historical intersections between libraries and races to help understand the present context.” In the second volume, they report on their study of the experiences of Black students in libraries and interactions with library workers. In addition to “making the profession less white,” they “hope that Black and African American colleagues see that their histories, experiences, and identities are being heard and valued.”

Saving library funding

In an August 2, 2022, election, voters in Jamestown Township, Michigan, rejected the renewal of an annual operating millage that would have funded the Patmos Library (OCLC Symbol: MIPAT). As reported in the Detroit Free Press on August 5, 2022, “A small group of conservative residents campaigned against the renewal because the library refused to remove all LGBTQ material.” Later that month, novelist Nora Roberts, who also publishes under the name J.D. Robb, donated $50,000 (apparently the limit allowed for GoFundMe donations) to the library. That was on top of thousands of considerably smaller donations from around the world that, as of mid-October, had more than replaced the defeated $245,000 millage. As grateful as they are, the Patmos Library Board reminds local voters “that what this library needs to remain open over the long term is to pass the 10-year levy renewal in November. We cannot run the Patmos Public Library for the next decade without stable taxpayer support.” A small portion of the donations will be used to campaign for the levy renewal in the November election. Less than $1000 had been available to fund the millage campaign in August. Best-selling author Roberts has been a longtime supporter of libraries, literacy, arts, and humanitarian efforts through her Nora Roberts Foundation.

Libraries and Veterans National Forum

In the United States, November 11, 2023, is Veterans Day. To better support and serve the military and veteran communities, librarians from the Texas A&M University Libraries (OCLC Symbol: TXA) created the Libraries and Veterans National Forum in collaboration with academic, public, school, state, and Veterans Administration librarians and with the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Recordings of most of the sessions from the September 2021 online Forum are freely available, as are the vast collection of resources that comprise the Forum’s Toolkit. The ever-growing Toolkit may be accessed from the perspectives of the type of library, type of resource, topic, and intended audience. Collection development policies, lesson plans, best practices documents, and ideas for honoring Veterans Day are just of few of the areas covered.

Censorship in Italy

Attempts to ban books and censor libraries are hardly limited to the United States. In “Mobilising for intellectual freedom: interview with the Observatory on Censorship of the Italian Library Association,” the team at the Associazione Italiana Biblioteche (AIB) Osservatorio sulla censura answers IFLA’s questions about access to information in Italy. Section 3.2 of the 2014 version of the organization’s “Code of Ethics” states, “It is the duty of librarians to promote, individually and in association, the autonomy and efficiency of library service, as a tool of democracy and freedom. Founded in 2018, the Observatory monitors cases of censorship in Italy, studies and reports on the issue, and has established the annual “Saved Books” or “Libri Salvati” commemoration, similar to ALA’s “Banned Books Week.” As members of the Observatory say in the interview, “Our slogan could be: involve people to make them think.”

Combating inequality

During the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland, in July 2022, the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Division presented “Libraries and inequality. The role of regional cooperation in building fair and sustainable societies.” A report on the session and the three papers is now available on the IFLA website. Former IFLA President Glòria Pérez-Salmerón of Spain spoke on “The role of regional cooperation in building fair and sustainable societies.“ Jeimy Hernández Toscano of Colombia, who is Manager of Reading, Writing, and Libraries at the Unesco Regional Center for Book Promotion in Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLALC), spoke on “Historical debt and social justice: changing libraries’ priorities and their place in the world.” Former ALA President Loída García-Febo of Puerto Rico spoke on “Library Power: UN Sustainable Development Goals and the promise of a better world.” All together, the session highlighted library cooperation in the region and its role in “progressive building of fair and sustainable Latin American societies.”

Inclusive shelving

In an excerpt from their 2021 book Library Programming for Adults with Developmental Disabilities, authors Barbara Klipper, retired youth services librarian from Ferguson Library (OCLC Symbol: FEM) in Stamford, Connecticut, and Carrie Scott Banks, head of Inclusive Services at Brooklyn Public Library (OCLC Symbol: BKL) in New York, call attention to an often overlooked barrier to accessibility. “Special reader collections are often marginalized, shelved in back areas or even behind closed doors, reinforcing the stigma of using them,” they write, reminding us that people with developmental disabilities have the same range of reading levels and interests as everyone else. Klipper and Banks put forth several ideas for promoting access to materials through how and where they are presented in the library, shelving and labeling advice, and other relevant tips.

“The Library’s Role in a Misinformation Age”

In honor of the tenth anniversary of the South Bowie Branch of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (OCLC Symbol: MDK) in Maryland, Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist and author Leonard Pitts, Jr., a resident of Bowie, delivered an address entitled “Think Again: The Library’s Role in a Misinformation Age.” On October 25, 2022, Pitts spoke about intellectual freedom, journalism, schools, and libraries.

OER and social justice

CJ Ivory and Angela Pashia, librarians at the University of West Georgia (OCLC Symbol: GWC) in Carrollton, have edited Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice, which is available — appropriately enough — in an . The volume moves beyond issues of affordability and into the realm of inequities built into both publishing and academia. As the editors state in the introduction, “The chapters in this volume cover a wide range of topics, from theoretical critiques to examples of OER development in practice to examinations of institutional support for OER development.” It includes a section on “Decolonizing Learning in the Global South” and another devoted to “Building and Decolonizing OER Platforms.” Librarians and teachers are encouraged to involve students in the creation of local open resources, thereby adding new perspectives to scholarship.

“Accessibility Assembly”

In order to further ALA’s commitment to accessibility and diversity, the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has collected a wide range of toolkits in its “Accessibility Assembly.” From “Accessible Communication Styles” to “Volunteers with Disabilities,” the collection offers materials on mental, physical, and sensory disabilities; library workers and users; assistive technologies and service animals; and professional recruitment.

“User” privacy

Questions of privacy and the definition of “user” have been raised by a book challenge at Colorado’s Gunnison County Libraries (OCLC Symbol: RQY). A local resident submitted a “Request for Reconsideration” regarding the graphic novel “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe. The library ended up retaining the book in its young adult collection, but an editor at the local Crested Butte News made a Colorado Open Records Act request that resulted in the resident’s personal data being revealed in the newspaper. The resident sued the library’s executive director for breaking the library’s privacy laws. The story goes on, and you can read about it in Jeffrey A. Roberts’ article “Newspaper editor appeals court ruling that shields the identities of people who want library books banned or reclassified” from the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and in Tayla Cardillo’s Intellectual Freedom Blog entry “Do People Who Fill Out ‘Request for Reconsideration’ Forms Have a Right to Privacy?“

“Democracy’s Library”

The nonprofit Internet Archive (OCLC Symbol: INARC) has created “Democracy’s Library,” an ongoing compilation of over 700 collections from more than fifty local, regional, and national government organizations from around the world. At present, they claim to have brought together over half a million documents and linked to the websites of more than 200 countries. The “Government Websites of the World” portion of the larger project intends “to preserve the current government websites of every country in the world to ensure perpetual access to online government information for an informed citizenry and democratic resilience.”