Social Justice in the Library

 

One of the topics discussed this week focused on social justice and activism. This spurred another discussion: should social justice be promoted in the library? My opinion on this controversial topic (yes, because everything is controversial!) is YES. However, in my current position as a public school librarian, or any public school, promoting social justice must be done appropriately and strategically. Our politically-charged society tends to anger very easily over social justice issues; therefore, bringing up such a matter in a public school library could be frowned upon, depending on the community it serves. So, out of curiosity, I started researching some of the things libraries can do to promote social justice. A great link/resource I found was through the Massachusetts Library System:

What Your Library Can Do - Social Justice and Libraries - LibGuides at Massachusetts Library System, Inc. (masslibsystem.org)

I have already incorporated some of these ideas in my school library, to my surprise. This includes:

-Building inclusive collections
-Designing diversity, equity, and inclusion displays
-Examining policies using a social justice lens
-Learning about social justice issues
-Providing meeting space for DEI (we have a cultural awareness club)
-Purchasing materials on DEI topics from alternative publishers (most of which are for the professional library)
-Teaching media literacy and using DEI topics in information literacy training (I use such topics in my lessons when teaching research skills)

Could I do more? Of course. There is always more to do, but this is a start!

The website also provides a wealth of other resources, which I will be investigating very soon.

I believe that we can continue to improve our library to make it more inclusive, but I need to make sure that we abide by our school policies. I would not want to lose my job doing what is right. See the irony in this?!