Integrating Critical Race Theory into Library and Information Science

Abstract: This paper identifies the trend of LIS education and practice in the Asia-Oceania region in four areas, namely LIS research, LIS education, library technologies, and library services. A bibliometric analysis was carried out based on the publications indexed by Scopus, ranging from 1979 to 2021. India, China, Iran, and Australia rank the highest for number of publications within the four focus areas and areas of bibliometrics, research productivity, text mining, and big data are frequently being studied recently. Within the past five years, the LIS education sector has been concerned with the quality of LIS education programs and integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in the education delivery. Meanwhile, library technology adoption and services are seeing a positive move toward enhancing the user experience via the latest technology enhancements, such as green technology initiatives, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality apps. Although several studies have reported on the trends in LIS fields, scarcely any research has been carried out in the area of LIS education and practices as a whole, particularly focusing on Asia and Oceania. This study elucidates the most recent trends of LIS education and practices, including all recent innovations and explorations within the specific areas analyzed in the study.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: The Neglected Social Psychology of Institutional Racism

The mission of the library and information service is to ensure that the knowledge base of health care is available and accessible to all providers, purchasers and consumers, and to promote and encourage its effective use. Access should be free at the point of use. Library services should be a national and regional responsibility. The close association with Postgraduate and Continuing Medical and Dental Education should continue. Clear terms of reference for library and information services should guarantee access to these services for all National Health Service (NHS) staff. There should be greater emphasis on quality aspects of information. Information Management and Technology (IM & T) strategy should take full account of the needs of library and information services so that the NHS investment in information networks can be fully realized. Good practice in library and information services should be identified, promoted and disseminated. National Health Service Management Executive (NHS-ME) initiatives which affect the library services of the NHS should be co-ordinated. A working party of users and librarians, working within the Functions and Manpower Review implementation process, should define a structure for the management and provision of NHS library services which gives the most value for money.

Racial inequalities in health: Framing future research

The relationship between infrastructure and higher education (HE) has been well studied from the perspective of information technology (IT), education policy, and pedagogy (Williamson, 2018). Learning infrastructure is highly localized, yet the opacity and variability of LIS education makes it difficult to understand the variety and breadth of challenges that unarticulated operating principles pose to students, particularly during the Covid pandemic. In this panel, we ask: what critical infrastructure is necessary to support LIS education and LIS students during times of crisis, when flaws in the infrastructure are revealed through failure points? This panel will take us on a journey through current research by Bettivia, Davis, Pollock, and Williams. Work by Bettivia and Davis examines the assumption that digital natives know how to learn in digital environments, an assumption that proscribes investment in holistic programs of student onboarding that undergird student experiences in HE. Pollock and Davis then ask us to consider why we persist with our current infrastructure when so many of its features represent known barriers to access for historically excluded populations. Williams continues interrogating infrastructural tensions in public library service provision during times of crisis, addressing ways of navigating those tensions and coping through that process. Davis examines the use of academic library resources and services by undergraduates of the global majority and the subsequent impact of the pandemic. Each of the following presentations weaves a larger narrative which takes up the central questions: why are these the infrastructures, and should these remain the operating principles? Dr. Bettivia, who focuses on transnational political and governance concerns in technological infrastructures with a focus on digital cultural heritage, and Dr. Davis, who researches issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion in LIS, examine their E-Learning Guide, that provides concrete guidance for students designed to mitigate trepidation and anxiety caused by e-learning during the pandemic. Students need their own tools to feel a sense of agency in e-learning environments. Because many students have spent the vast majority of their learning years in face-to-face environments with a ‘sage on the stage’, guidance on the mechanics of how to learn in online environments can improve student self-sufficiency and feelings of success and well-being. The E-Learning project rejected the implicit assumption that university students inherently understand digital classrooms simply because of their previous learning experiences and access to digital gadgets, instead aiming to render visible specific skills needed to maintain learning agency in online classes. Dr. Pollock, whose work examines innovation, change, and equity in academic and other research-oriented communities, and Dr. Davis, discuss their ongoing study of first-generation students’ paths to graduate education, and how considering the experiences of students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education can broaden our understanding of academia’s current infrastructure, help us identify how structural features taken for granted may serve as barriers to those who lack prior knowledge of academia’s ‘hidden curriculum,’ and invite us to question how these structures can be reimagined. Pollock and Davis’ research with first-generation students pursuing graduate degrees during the COVID-19 pandemic examines these innovative students’ information seeking and responses to the crisis, and also reveals how institutional responses to the pandemic both increased and alleviated student challenges related to belonging, access, and work/life balance. Dr. Williams, whose research considers public libraries, crisis management, and collaboration between libraries and social work, discusses the tension between public libraries as essential services and the lack of essential support they receive. She examines how it is possible to challenge these infrastructures and find ways to cope while navigating increasingly challenging work environments and expanded responsibilities that include crisis response and management. Her scholarship identifies how we can learn from social work skills (crisis intervention, wellbeing, resilience, and communication skills). Dr. Williams discusses leveraging these approaches in LIS education and how these skills call attention to the tensions in labor, coping, and professional development for students and professionals alike. Addressing these tensions explicitly and exploring ways to mitigate them supports the development of professionals who have the skills and confidence to unearth them. Dr. Davis, discusses a study about African American undergraduates and their use of academic library resources and services. Dr. Davis explores the extent to which African American undergraduates are using academic libraries, the resources and services that they are using, and the impact of COVID-19 on their use of the library (Connell, Wallis, & Comeaux, 2021). Preliminary findings show that students use the physical space in the library, but COVID-19 increased their use of resources and services online. Additionally, students have to adjust to a “new normal” because libraries were closed, opened for reduced hours, and operated under new safety protocols. While students were able to adjust, they found that not having the physical space eliminated regular study space, abilities to work with friends, use technology, and escape distractions.

Inclusive library services for deaf people: an overview from the social model perspective.

The frequent police killings during the COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning among Americans from all backgrounds and propelled the Black Lives Matter movement into a global force. This manuscript addresses major issues to aid practitioners in the effective treatment of African Americans via the lens of Critical Race Theory and the Bioecological Model. We place the impacts of racism on Black families in historical context and outline the sources of Black family resilience. We critique structural racism embedded in all aspects of psychology and allied fields. We provide an overview of racial socialization and related issues affecting the parenting decisions in Black families, as well as a detailed overview of impacts of structural racism on couple dynamics. Recommendations are made for engaging racial issues in therapy, providing emotional support and validation to couples and families experiencing discrimination and racial trauma, and using Black cultural strengths as therapeutic resources.

This article combines a review of dental studies on race with sociological insights into systemic racism to advance a counter-narrative on the root causes of racial oral health inequities. Taking racism as a form of oppression that cuts across institutional, cultural, and behavioral dimensions of social life, we ask: How pervasive are racial inequities in the occurrence of adverse oral health outcomes? What is the direction and magnitude of racial inequities in oral health? Does the inequitable distribution of negative outcomes persist over time? How can sociological frameworks on systemic racism inform initiatives to effectively reduce racial oral health inequities? The first three questions are addressed by reviewing dental studies conducted in the past few years around the globe. The fourth question is addressed by framing racial oral health inequities around sociological scholarship on racism as a systemic feature of contemporary societies. The paper concludes with a set of practical recommendations on how to eliminate racial oral health inequities, which include engaging with a strong anti-racist narrative and actively dismantling the race discrimination system. Amid the few attempts at moving the field towards improved racial justice, this paper should be followed by research on interventions against racial oral health inequities, including the conditions under which they succeed.

LIS education has historically come under fire for what some perceive as a disconnect between what is taught in the classroom and what the job really entails. This study is part of a larger research study that used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design to investigate liaison librarians’ perceptions of their academic preparation to take on the liaison role, specifically whether and how their LIS program curriculum prepared them for this role. This qualitative strand of the study relied on in-depth semi-structured interviews of survey participants to explore two research questions: What are the perceptions of academic liaison librarians regarding the degree to which their programs prepared them for their current role? And which factors influenced these perceptions? This research identified the main reasons hindering the effectiveness of LIS education for preparing librarians for the liaison role to be a range of complex issues that LIS programs and educators should consider, such as changing career plans among students who did not initially plan to become liaison librarians, students not taking certain courses due to scheduling or course timing issues, and the abstract nature of some course content which obscures connections to real-world practice. Participants also identified courses in collection development, reference, instruction, and research methods as those that should take center stage when preparing liaison librarians. These results have the potential to inform various aspects of LIS program curriculum planning and design and provide course-selection guidance for LIS students considering a career in academic libraries.

To compete today, librarians need to not only provide old services in new ways but also to provide new services. Repositioning Reference: New Methods and New Services for a New Age re-imagines reference services in libraries and information organizations and the role of reference librarians, taking into account rapid developments in technology and information-specific services in non-library sectors. It traces the history of technology adoption for reference services, describes competitive pressures facing reference services, identifies untapped opportunities for reference services and librarians, details innovative and creative solutions for energizing the profession and engaging library user communities, and prescribes means to evaluating technologies for reference services. This book: • Includes current and unique examples of innovative reference services to serve as inspiration and launching points for readers. • Offers contemporary management theory and practice from outside of the field of LIS to offer readers a guide for initiating, leading, and managing change in their organizations. • Outlines the processes of environmental scanning and SWOT analysis, which are important practices for keeping abreast of changes in the field and positioning an organization to make the most of their opportunities and to minimize threats. Repositioning Reference may be used as a textbook by LIS educators whose courses and learning experiences prepare aspiring librarians to lead the reference revolution and by practicing librarians in diverse settings who want to be change agents.

Racial disparities in the prevalence of periodontal disease are consistent and persistent. The epidemiology of periodontal disease demonstrates racial inequities: non-Hispanic Black (14.7%), Mexican American (13.4%), and other Hispanic adults (7.8%) experience a higher prevalence of severe periodontal disease than non-Hispanic White adults (5.9%). Epidemiologic and clinical research on periodontal health suffers from the same problem that has plagued the health equity movement, an over emphasis on describing racial inequities coupled with few interventions that reduce racial health inequity. Over the decades that racial inequities in periodontal disease have been observed, many have argued that systemic racism is the fundamental driver of racial health inequity. This paper interrogates the roles of systemic racism, dental education, clinical treatment, and patient behavior in periodontal disease. We describe how, together, these mechanisms contribute to racial disparities in periodontal outcomes. However, it is insufficient for oral health equity scientists to only describe and discuss the negative effects of systemic racism. The imperative is to create antiracist strategies designed to eliminate systemic racism. Health equity scientists must also specify how dental systems operate in a racist manner and create effective clinical strategies designed to reduce racial disparities in periodontal disease.

Teaching the History and Organization of Libraries: The Coronavirus Pandemic as an Opportunity to Study Public Library Reopenings

This chapter is on library and information science education for the 21st century users. It aims at x-raying the nature of LIS program as practiced in Nigeria so as to ascertain the extent to which the graduates will remain relevant in practice. This is based on the fact that the present-day library and information users are getting technologically advanced, and graduates of LIS education are also expected to be technologically visible to the users. The following subheadings were considered: library schools in Nigeria and their programmes, need for restructuring LIS programme, new programmes/courses to be incorporated in LIS education, and challenges of restructuring LIS education programmes. Library and information science professionals are not only having to adapt to change in library services but they also require in-depth and structured education and training programmes that are in line with the current technological demands. This will help the professionals to provide the needed manpower for the nation's information occupation engagements and effective user assistance.

Libraries as public organizations that provide information services to the general public by prioritizing user satisfaction are required to adapt to the times. This has an impact on the orientation of the library to improve the quality of library services. The urgency of a library that is not only a place to store information, but also creates and shares technology-based information is an opportunity to innovate in organizing information. The Malang City Public Library and Regional Archives Service innovates through collaboration with PT Gramedia and PT Digidio Nusantara to provide technology-based information services in the form of digital libraries. This research aims first; knowing how to manage digital library services, second; knowing how to apply digital library services to improve library services at the Malang City Public Library and Regional Archives Office. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method with a case study approach. The research data was obtained through observation, interviews, and documentation using triangulation data analysis. The result of this study is that digital library services at the Malang City Public Library and Regional Archives Service are managed in accordance with library management procedures in general, including planning activities that are then determined by strategic work plans, funding and budgeting activities stipulated in the Budget Needs Plan (RKA), development of digital collections that are tailored to user needs through user studies and collaboration with publishers, human resource management and monitoring and evaluation on a regular basis every year. This management activity is the basis for the implementation of effective and efficient digital library services through service development, socialization, and service accessibility in improving library services at the Malang City Public Library and Regional Archives Office.

Racial discrimination persists as a feature of American life. In his 1881 essay, “The Color Line,” Frederick Douglass describes the enduring strain of racial prejudice which he characterized as a “moral disorder” that “creates the conditions necessary to its own existence and fortifies itself by refusing all contradiction” (p. 567). W.E.B. Du Bois decried this moral disorder in The Souls of Black Folk where he famously asserted “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line" (n.p.). Despite the progress achieved through successive American racial justice movements (Abolitionism, Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement), the problematics of the color-line remain a defining feature of the American experience. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement in the summer of 2020 triggered mass outrage across the the world over the accretion of racially motivated acts of police brutality directed against individuals of African descent. Regardless of movements for social change, the U.S. has maintained an institutionalized and systemic structure of racial inequality – a society characterized by structural racism. Structural systemic racism is “a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity” (Aspen Institute, n.p.). Structural racism is maintained through institutions. Libraries, as educational and cultural institutions, have been implicated in their role in maintaining structural racism in American society (ALA 2020). In the aftermath of the Floyd protests, the United Nations (U.N.) investigated police brutality and issued a report describing global human rights violations directed against people of African descent; they found systemic racism flourishing in a culture of denial (Office of High Commissioner, United Nations Human Rights 2021). They made several recommendations to create transformative change: (1) ceasing denial of racism, (2) confronting past racist legacies, (3) dismantling systemically racist structures, and (4) attaining reparatory justice. Library and Information Science associations have preemptively taken the first step recommended by the U.N., ceasing denial, and have issued various public statements admitting to their role in perpetuating racism (ALA 2020, PLA 2020); further actions leading to reparatory justice appear not to have been rigorously pursued. At the personal and individual library level, more sustained work has been done. Within this context, a project to capture how LIS has promoted racial justice was conceived. Antiracist Library and Information Science: Racial Justice and Community (2023), a volume of critical, scholarly and reflective perspectives on the theory, practice and progress made towards the actualization of antiracism, edited by Kimberly Black and Bharat Mehra was published (Emerald Publishing). The volume consists of twenty chapters describing the theoretical foundations of antiracism in LIS, a discussion of the manifestations of racism in LIS and communities and strategies for actualizing an antiracist LIS. Contributors to the volume consist of noted and emerging LIS educators and scholars, librarians, and students who have a stake in the enterprise of racial justice. The editors and contributors to this volume would like to convene a public conversation about antiracism in LIS through a panel presentation and discussion. The goal of this panel is to discuss the ideas presented in the book: Confrontation of past legacies – discussion of theoretical and philosophical foundations of antiracism in LIS Cessation of denial – discussion of the manifestations of racism in libraries, LIS associations and the profession itself Dismantling structures/pursuit of racial justice – conversation about strategies for achieving antiracism in LIS The panel will consist of brief talks by authors about their chapters and breakout sessions designed to explore issues and develop solutions related to anti-racism in LIS. The 90-minute session is organized as follows: Introduction Discussion of Selected Chapters Nicole A. Cooke & Lucy Santos Green - “Shutting Down the Tent Revival: The Call for Inclusive Leadership in LIS” LaVerne Gray – “Unearthing Racism in the Soil: Developing Collective Anti-racist Consciousness in a Library and Information Science Classroom” Mónica Colón-Aguirre – “Publishing While Latina: My Journey as an LIS Scholar in Search of the Academic Stool’s Third Leg” Anders Tobiason – “Engaging Antiracist Conversations: Foregrounding Twitter Feeds in Library Guides as a Way to Critically Promote Discussions of Racial Justice” Jennifer Elisa Chapman – “Slave Cases and Ingrained Racism in Legal Information Infrastructures” Shalonda Capers – “With Head and Heart: Exploring Autoethnographic Antiracist Research in Pediatric Cancer Communities” Baheya S. Jaber – “Immigrants in Alabama: Community-engaged Scholarship as a Lens for Racial Justice” Bharat Mehra [co-authors Laurie Bonnici and Steven L. MacCall not on panel] – “Collegiality as a Weapon to Maintain Status Quo in a White-privileged and Entrenched LIS Academy" Breakout Discussion Sessions Debrief/Conclusion By the conclusion of the panel, participants should walk away with a clearer understanding of how systemic racism is manifested in LIS as well effective strategies to support and enact antiracist practices in LIS.