Library and Academic Institution Movements & the Law

Law librarians are utilizing their skills as legal information innovators and educators to bridge the justice gap by providing citizens with the resources and services necessary to engage in civics through meaningful access to justice.

Social Justice, Privilege, Equity, Inclusion. These terms are all terms that each of us as MLIS students have heard with some level of frequency. Libraries are commonly thought to be champions for …

Yep, I’m still harping on that theme of the stark lack of diversity in librarianship. For a profession that claims Diversity as  a core value and declares that “We value our nation…

A profile of an institution at the heart of our democracy

It didn’t take long for Todd Lockwood to realize that a hierarchical book classification system would not work for the Brautigan Library. He was, after all, following through on Richard Braut…

The program assists institutions of higher education serving Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian students to become self-sufficient by providing funds to improve and strengthen their academic quality, institutional, management, and fiscal stability.

Amplifying Blackness in the Borderlands is a new program that will allow students to create projects that explore what it means to be Black in Tucson and the Southwest.

Over the past several years, public, state, academic, and law libraries have increasingly sought to serve people in prison through a variety of services. Now, with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ithaka S+R is undertaking a planning project that will set the stage for future partnerships to develop and pilot wrap-around library services to meet the information needs of people who are currently incarcerated.

From The Chicago Tribune: Last week, city and Chicago Public Library officials declared Chicago a sanctuary city for those stories, by establishing “Book Sanctuaries” across the city’s 77 distinct community areas and 81 library branches. That entails a commitment to expand local access to banned or challenged books through library programming. [Clip] Chicago Public Library […]

Diversity is a cornerstone of the library profession and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has recently announced a renewed emp…

During the Summer and Fall of 2022, threats directed to public and school libraries and library workers escalated, including the forced temporary closure of five public library systems due to bomb and shooting threats. On September 27, the executive board of the American Library Association (ALA) transmitted a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray expressing concerns about the threats directed to public and school libraries and library workers.

ACRL announces the publication of Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice, edited by CJ Ivory and Angela Pashia, which explores the opportunities and challenges of moving the discussion about open educational resources (OER) beyond affordability to address structural inequities fo

ALA is the first organization to launch a nationwide public-facing anticensorship campaign with Unite Against Book Bans.

CHICAGO — The Public Library Association (PLA) Strategic Plan 2022—2026 is now available on the PLA website, following its unanimous approval by the PLA Board of Directors in June 2022. Informed by member surveys, member and partner interviews, and PLA leadership and staff engagements, the PLA strategic plan centers Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (EDISJ) and expands PLA’s role as a platform for innovation and amplifier for sharing public library community impacts. The PLA Board of Directors began the process of updating the strategic plan in 2021.

Forty years after Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 to raise awareness about censorship, the issue has taken on new importance for booksellers across the country, who increasingly find themselves on the front lines, alongside librarians, in defending people’s freedom to read.

As AALL and RIPS committee work ramps up again this fall, the RIPS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force is off and running.  Not familiar with the Task Force?  Let me get you up to …

This collection of resources is designed to be of use both to new collection development librarians as well as those … "Collection Development Resources on the Web"

The enemy of well-intentioned DEI initiatives is backlash — and not just from people from privileged groups. Backlash from all directions is often due to DEI initiatives being framed as solutions to individual problems to be fixed rather than to correct for systemic issues at play in an organization. To reframe the conversation the author recommends five steps to implement in your DEI strategy: 1) Collect data to diagnose specific inequities in your organization, 2) communicate about initiatives using a systems-focused framing, 3) as change-making efforts begin, appeal to “fairness,” 4) clearly lay out expectations for change alongside resources and support, 5) sustain momentum by affirming effort and celebrating wins.

Libraries do a lot of the heavy lifting for society. They not only circulate books, but also provide crucial Internet access for job seekers and students

Law schools should be free to individualize admission criteria, argue two law school deans, a chancellor, and a law professor. They call on the ABA to repeal the requirement that applicants for J.D. programs submit standardized test scores for admission.

AALL Spectrum - AALL Spectrum / July/August 2022 / Volume 26, Number 6

By Mikayla Redden I hadn’t been in graduate school more than a month when I noticed something alarming about the Library of Congress (LoC) classification system—the alphanumeric system we, in acade…

The 2022 Urban Libraries Unite Trauma Study addresses a crisis of trauma in urban public libraries.

Diversity initiatives are designed to help workers from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve equitable opportunities and outcomes in organizations. However, these programs are often ineffective. To bett...

The intent of this report is to provide meaningful data and analysis to the Canadian Association of Research Libraries for the purposes of informing future decisions on issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in the workplace. The data we provide and the insights we derive from the data are based on proven statistical methods to determine significant associations between certain identities and workplace opportunities, in terms of hiring and advancement and other talent management processes. Unfortunately, the data does not tell us why a particular trend is happening or not happening. We can only use our experience and expertise combined with relevant research to provide insights, to the best of our ability, on what the potential reasons might be for one trend or another. Based on these potentialities, we also provide recommendations for next steps to address the key findings presented by the data.

As discussed in my forthcoming book Classified, contrary to popular belief, racial and ethnic classification in the US is not...