Resource Sharing and Social Justice: An MLIS Student Intern’s Perspective of the 2018 Great Lakes Resource Sharing Conference

Abstract

This paper presents a library student intern’s experience at the Great Lakes Resource Sharing Conference 2018 (GLRSC) in Perrysburg, Ohio on June 7–8. GLRSC is a regional conference aimed at training resource sharing (RS) professionals and creating a collaborative environment for peers to discuss new ideas, best practices, and partnership opportunities, among other related topics. This paper focuses on GLRSC 2018 presenters who emphasized the inherent value of librarianship, and RS specifically, as a tool for social justice. George Needham’s discussion of the intense and unique value of RS to shape our community’s information access is presented, as well as Anna Bendo and Stephen Kaufman’s session about affordable learning options for students of higher education. The inherent relationship between RS and intellectual freedom is also discussed. These concepts of unconditional information access resonate with Myers due to her interest in outreach librarianship and commitment to her position serving marginalized patrons in her community who have severely limited access to the public library’s resources and materials.