Our Patrons Aren’t the Problem: Discourses of Safety Amidst a Toxic Drug Supply Crisis
In Brief The toxic drug supply crisis has had profound impacts on workers in Canadian public libraries. While library workers struggle with changing job duties,... Read More
No Soft Cops, No Saviours: Abolitionist Notes Against Social Work in Libraries
In this article, I look at the idea of hiring social workers into public libraries through the lens of abolitionist librarianship. Often presented as an obvious answer to make libraries more inclusive, there is little evidence within the published literature that this model is more effective than others. I argue that rather than expanding care and support for patrons, this model replicates dynamics of soft carcerality and saviourism within our organizations. Using principles of police abolition as my theoretical grounding, I offer alternative models and fields that we can instead draw on as we work toward more inclusive and liberatory public libraries.
Moving Beyond Willpower: A New Direction for Media Literacy Instruction
In brief Academic librarians and others often engage with media literacy instruction by promoting fact-checking strategies, such as lateral reading or Mike Caulfield’s SIFT. Evidence... Read More
How do we write about this?: Reflections on scholarship about immigrants, data literacy, surveillance, and academic freedom in 2025
In brief How do you write about immigrants, surveillance, and data literacy at a time when the political landscape around you is constantly shifting, immigrants... Read More
Another Way of Knowing: Resisting Eugenic Propaganda Through Community Archiving
In Brief: How do information workers resist the creation of archival “deathworlds”? With rising eugenicist rhetoric in the United States, sites of cultural memory face... Read More
Fear and Burnout At the Interface of Librarianship and Māori Knowledge in Aotearoa New Zealand
By Kathryn Oxborrow Vambe In Brief: This article presents some findings from a study of non-Māori librarian engagement with Māori knowledge. I asked non-Māori librarians... Read More
Making Sense of GenAI Amidst AI Hype and AI Personalization
By Sarah Morris In Brief: Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy frameworks emphasize the importance of understanding Generative AI (GenAI) technologies. But our collective and individual understanding... Read More
Operationalizing Minimal Computing Values Through Shared Computing-Platform Development: A Case Study of DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher
In Brief: This article explores how minimal computing principles guided the parallel web development of two related but distinct publishing platforms, DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher. ... Read More
Seeking Approval, Confronting Objectivity: Neutrality in the Library of Congress Subject Headings Approval Process
In Brief: This study examines the concept of neutrality in Library of Congress Subject Headings and the subject approval process by analyzing proposed headings that... Read More
Memorial for Fobazi Ettarh
It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of trailblazer and fire-starter Fobazi Ettarh. Her loss will be felt by... Read More