Core Values Of Librarianship Research Articles

Re-imagining Librarianship: An Observation of Job Advertisements for Librarian Positions in the US

In the current artificial intelligence (AI) and post-pandemic era, libraries are compelled to accelerate digitalization and automation (Nugroho et al., 2023; Pressreader Team, 2023). Revisiting the core values of librarianship is critical to understanding the opportunities and challenges for libraries and librarians in this trend. Advertisements define, convey, and uphold ideologies by including specific ideas and excluding others (McIntosh & Cuklanz, 2014). Job advertisements for librarian positions, therefore, are designed to convey the values of librarianship in the United States. The study aims to identify the values by answering the following research questions: (1) How do libraries describe themselves in job advertisements? (2) How do libraries describe ideal librarians in job advertisements? Between February 15 and March 15, 2023, we collected job advertisements for librarian positions in the US on ALA JobLIST and Indeed. We will use a qualitative research design to analyze the data. The codes are generated from the core values of librarianship, including sustainability, service, intellectual freedom, literacy and learning, equity of access, privacy, democracy, and public good (American Library Association [ALA], 2024; Gorman, 2015). By investigating the values embedded in library job advertisements, we reflect on what core values of librarianship affirm professionalization in social transformation and whether new principles need to be added to the core values. The study also responds to the burnt-out among librarians by emphasizing the boundaries of librarianship. Additionally, it offers insights into Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) programs on how to prepare future librarians for the job market.

A scientometrics analysis of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA) literature in library and information science profession

Purpose Equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA) are the core values of librarianship. This study aims to examine the EDIA literature in the library and information science (LIS) profession, focusing on publishing trends, authorship patterns, thematic evolution, co-occurrence network, international collaboration network and three-factor analysis. Design/methodology/approach A scientometrics analysis was performed, and data were retrieved from the Web of Science database following a four-phase data extraction and filtration process. Data analysis was performed using specialized scientometrics tools. Findings Most of the published work comes from the developed world. The thematic evolution identified that the initial period (1971–2010) was dedicated to the diversity of library resources, services and users. The second phase (2011–2015) concentrated on accessibility and information literacy. The recent period (2016–2021) is linked with social inclusion, diversity and accessibility. Furthermore, the co-cluster citation and content analysis identified five major interconnected streams in the EDIA literature in LIS: disability and accessibility; diversity, inclusion and recruitment; social justice and libraries; libraries and immigrants; and libraries and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer community. Research limitations/implications Theoretical, practical and implications for policy makers and curriculum developers were added to create awareness and better observe EDIA in LIS field. Originality/value The identification of research streams is one of the most important findings of this study, which shows that some areas of EDIA are maturing and others are emerging in the profession.

Ethics, Values, and Intellectual Freedom in School Libraries

Two foundational documents from the American Library Association, the Code of Ethics and the Core Values of Librarianship, are meant to guide the actions of all U.S. librarians. However, their relevance to school librarians has not been studied to date. In this research, U.S. school librarians were surveyed to evaluate the significance of these documents. Generally, strong support was indicated for both. Respondents expressed less support for the ethical principles of intellectual freedom/censorship and privacy/confidentiality and for the core values of preservation, the public good, and democracy. Additional respondent comments suggest that some school librarians have difficulty applying these statements in their school settings.

Addressing Patron-Perpetrated Sexual Harassment: Opportunities for Intersectional Feminist and Critical Race Pedagogy and Praxis in the LIS Classroom

It is becoming increasingly clear that sexual harassment is a serious problem within libraries. In particular, patron-perpetrated sexual harassment is the sexual harassment of library staff by the very patrons they endeavor to support. In this paper we identify and apply intersectional feminist and critical race and whiteness theories that unearth the structural underpinnings that support patron-perpetrated sexual harassment. We do so both to make this issue visible as well as to offer theoretical frameworks that might be taken up by LIS educators to address this topic within their classrooms. A comprehensive and nuanced examination of gender, race, and their intersections in LIS is necessary to recognize, name, and resist acts of gender-based violence such as patron-perpetrated sexual harassment. We call for a slow interconnected pedagogical approach that connects theory to practice, supports the use of critical theory to rigorously interpret the core values of librarianship, and is supported by the voices and perspectives of those working in libraries.

Internet filters in Canadian libraries

Internet filters can be understood as any method that “[blocks] content [from] coming into and going out to the Internet” (PC Magazine, n.d., para. 1). Instantaneously, the word ‘blocks’ causes advocates of intellectual freedom to stand at attention. The American Library Association’s (ALA) Library Bill of Rights states: “a person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views” (as cited in Houghton-Jan, 2010, p. 40). More specific to the topic at hand: “the use of Internet filters to block constitutionally protected speech … compromises First Amendment freedoms and the core values of librarianship” (ALA, n.d., para. 1). This paper will investigate and discuss the function of and methodology behind internet filters, with specific attention to their application in Canada. Following a general overview, a discussion follows of what library professionals in public and school libraries should do to uphold and protect intellectual freedom.

Access Is Not Problem Solving: Disability Justice and Libraries

In this paper we advocate for an understanding of access that both responds to the pragmatic needs of the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (to guide professional practice and education) and helps librarians and library workers imagine how we might transform the systems, beliefs, and practices that make libraries and the profession inaccessible and inequitable. We are interested in expanding our shared understanding of access so that it includes a professional ethic of accessibility, justice, and collaboration. We bring to this argument a set of knowledges, experiences, beliefs, and politics that inform our understanding of what access is and what it could be. Specifically, our understanding of access and accessibility is shaped by our participation in disability justice activism, disability studies communities, and our personal experience. We suggest that thinking in solidarity with disability justice movements can be beneficial to all of us: librarians, library workers, and our communities of users; those of us with disabilities; those of us who are living without illnesses or disabilities; and those of us who move between disabled, ill and not.

Compliant Trust: The Public Good and Democracy in the ALA’s “Core Values of Librarianship”

This paper will consider the Core Values of The Public Good and Democracy as articulated in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004) and its affiliated documents in conjunction with the ways in which these two Core Values are deployed in library discourse around the Ferguson (Missouri) Public Library, particularly during the last four months of 2014. Both the ALA’s Core Values document and library discourse around Ferguson heavily rely upon liberalism in regard to power and conflict, subjectivity and equality, and capitalism. This reliance results in a vision of librarianship and an understanding of the Ferguson Public Library that are completely decoupled from political, economic, social, and historical contexts. This decontextualized discourse fits seamlessly within neoliberal ideology and is ultimately antidemocratic.

Tending the Garden of Learning: Lifelong Learning as Core Library Value

Lifelong Learning is enshrined in the professional practice of librarians through the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). As a Core Value, the term is extremely vague. What do we mean by lifelong learning, and why does the term have such a powerful hold on the imaginations of educators? This paper works to understand the term by looking at one of the earliest conflicts in American educational history and philosophy: the choice between student-centered schools and employment-centered schools. During the first decades of the twentieth century, America was struggling to define its national core values. Educational theory was seen as a key way to articulate and pass on these values. One pedagogical approach involved developing schools to educate individuals to become thinking and informed citizens; another administrative approach involved creating schools as vocational institutions to educate individuals to become skilled employees. After a brief debate, employment-centered schools emerged as the clear winner. Since that time American schools have been viewed almost exclusively through a vocational lens. The implications of this decision for libraries, schools, and learning are explored.

The Paradox of Privacy: Revisiting a Core Library Value in an Age of Big Data and Linked Data

Protecting user privacy and confidentiality is fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship, and such protection constitutes one of eleven values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). This paper addresses the concerns of protecting privacy in the library as they relate to library users who are defining, exploring, and negotiating their sexual identities with the help of the library’s information, programming, and physical facilities. In so doing, we enlist the aid of Garret Keizer, who, in Privacy (2012), articulates a fresh theory of the concept in light of American social life in the twenty-first century. Using Keizer’s theory, we examine these concerns within the context of the rise of big data systems and social media on the one hand, and linked data and new cataloging standards on the other. In so doing, we suggest that linked data technologies, with their ability to lead searchers through self-directed, open inquiry, are superior to big data technologies in the navigation of the paradox between openness and secrecy. In this way they offer a greater potential to support the needs of queer library users: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning (LGBTQ).

More than Acid-Free Folders: Extending the Concept of Preservation to Include the Stewardship of Unexplored Histories

Recognized among the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004), Preservation is traditionally used to describe the passive protection of cultural property to ensure that it survives in its original form for as long as possible. A renewed professional imperative to position information centers as locations for social justice work has also turned our attention to the need to preserve materials that support a diverse and pluralistic society. Social justice work underscores the evidential value of materials in our care, as collections are accessed for the purposes of furthering court cases, reparative justice, and redress, and also the importance of building reflexive collections that better represent the diversity of contemporary society. This paper revisits our understanding of preservation and addresses the importance of actively preserving cultural property as part of social justice work. Through a short discussion about the recovery of LGBTQ+ histories, information professionals are pushed to reconsider our concept of preservation as something more than placing records into acid-free folders or migrating data to stave off obsolescence, but as a duty to steward unexplored histories.

Valuing Professionalism: Discourse as Professional Practice

In the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004), Professionalism is listed as one of the Core Values, but its meaning is not settled. Framed alternately as an incomplete achievement of professional traits or a process of identity creation, the professional status of librarianship has been subject to debate since the field began to take its contemporary form in 1876. Understanding Professionalism as a discursive response to an urgent present can enable the field to locate the value of that status outside of the workplace hierarchies that professionalization inevitably produces.

Advocating for Librarianship: The Discourses of Advocacy and Service in the Professional Identities of Librarians

A dedication to service is often cited as a hallmark of a profession. Service is included as one of eleven Core Values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). For librarians, service includes helping people find information resources to meet their educational, recreational, and work needs. Reporting findings from a larger study into the professional identity of librarians, this paper explores the centrality of service, with specific attention to how librarians advocate for their services and, ultimately, for librarianship. Using a discourse analysis approach, this study examines the roles that Service as a Core Value and advocacy play in the construction of professional identity. Three different data sources were used: professional journals, e-mail discussion lists, and research interviews. The data were analyzed for the discourses librarians use when describing librarians, librarianship, and professionalism and their connection to advocacy. When librarians advocate for the services they offer, they are in fact advocating for the value of the profession. Discursively, speaking or writing about advocacy positioned librarians as active participants in their own identity formation. By making advocacy a central activity of the profession, librarians not only challenged others’ perception of librarianship, they challenged their own understanding as well.

Empowered to Name, Inspired to Act: Social Responsibility and Diversity as Calls to Action in the LIS Context

Social Responsibility and Diversity are two principal tenets of the field of library and information science (LIS) as defined by the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” but that often remain on the margins of LIS education, leading to limited student engagement with these concepts and limited faculty modeling of socially responsible interventions. In this paper we take up the need to increase the role of both in articulating the Core Values of Diversity and Social Responsibility in LIS education and argue that the field should broaden to place LIS students and faculty in dialog with contemporary social issues of social inequality and injustice whenever possible. The paper also examines two specific cases of socially responsible activism spearheaded by LIS faculty and how these experiences shape, and are shaped by, curricular commitments to addressing the Values of Social Responsibility and Diversity in LIS in the classroom and through research. The development of a social responsibility orientation and skillset along with literacies of diversity, the paper argues, leads to better-prepared practitioners and an LIS community that is more actively engaged with its environment. The impetus for students to act can be empowered by faculty modeling a commitment to Social Responsibility and Diversity in their own professional lives.

The Value of Intellectual Freedom in Twenty-First-Century China: Changes, Challenges, and Progress

The American Library Association’s (ALA) “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004) serves as an important vehicle in introducing and creating cross-cultural dialogues on values such as intellectual freedom with countries where there are starkly different political views and cultural ideas. This paper positions the Core Value of Intellectual Freedom within the historical context of China. How has the ALA fostered a culture of intellectual freedom in this country? Since the advent of the Cultural Revolution in China during the 1960s, censorship has been severely imposed on all levels of society. Libraries were burned, shut down, or forced to adapt to changes in beliefs and policies that promoted the ideas and values of Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of the Revolution. In contrast, decades after recovering from the Revolution in the twenty-first century, libraries in China are flourishing, with rich print and digital collections and special services in the face of varying degrees of governmental censorship. Using memoirs, travel papers, and essays written about China’s libraries, the paper traces and analyzes the historical development of China’s censorship policies in relation to Intellectual Freedom, and emphasizes how this Core Value still plays a vital role in the country today through international library cooperation and Sino-American partnership universities.

Renewing libraries: Organizational transformation for social change

This special issue of the Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change will identify and share evidence of successful organizational transformations in which librarians and libraries have demonstrated themselves to be adaptable and responsive to the particular threats and opportunities presented by the new technologies and services of the mass digitized age while maintaining the core values of librarianship. We present five accounts from library organizations based in Australia, Canada and the United States that have been attempting to transform themselves to better serve the diverse needs of the emerging knowledge society.

Reconnecting Information Literacy Policy with the Core Values of Librarianship

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared October of that year to be National Information Literacy Awareness Month and issued a proclamation stating that "an informed and educated citizenry is essential to the functioning of our modern democratic society." The Obama proclamation's emphasis on information literacy's role in education and democracy makes it akin to the 2005 Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. In both of these documents, information literacy is located at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use, and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational, and educational goals. These two documents are powerful and inspiring to many academic librarians because they are reminders of the broader social context and democratic initiatives within their work. Inspiring as these documents are, they can also be intimidating and overwhelming: how can we help create an informed and educated citizenry or help our students meet technological, economic, and social challenges, to redress disadvantage and to advance the well-being of all? This article is not an attempt to provide answers to these questions but a call to move these questions to the fore of our policy and pedagogical discussions. By revisiting seminal documents like the Alexandria Proclamation, the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, and the American Library Association's (ALA) Core Values of Librarianship, we argue that information literacy is full of possibilities to explore rather than problems to be solved. To this end, we summon discussions of Appreciative Inquiry and critical information literacy and foreground the ALA Core Values as ways to reengage with the possibilities and potentials within information literacy to meet larger social goals.