As our schools and communities grapple with fostering a broader recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity diversity, school librarians play crucial roles in building a welcoming environment and providing access to inclusive resources and services. Social stigma of non-mainstream experiences in schools, particularly among LGBTQ+ students, is reinforced by a lack of accurate information … Continue reading Accepting Queer Realities
The call represented a trend unfolding in public facilities across the country: individuals who arm themselves with video cameras, proclaim themselves First Amendment auditors, and enter police precincts, post offices, libraries, and other spaces under the auspices of the First Amendment right to free speech in order to record staff violations. The Connecticut caller was … Continue reading Free Speech—or Free-for-All?
“All hell broke loose when just the title of the grant [‘Minority Student Experiences with Racial Microaggressions in the Academic Library’] was discovered,” Cooke said at “Defeating Bullies and Trolls in the Library: Developing Strategies to Protect our Rights and Personhood,” a workshop held at Skokie (Ill.) Public Library on March 8. A harassment campaign … Continue reading Target: Librarians
“All hell broke loose when just the title of the grant was discovered” she said. In the weeks that followed the report’s release, Cooke’s email address and phone number were disseminated by hate groups and their online followers, leading to harassing phone calls and emails. When she asked for her contact information to be removed … Continue reading Defeating Bullies and Trolls
I tell them that I believe that digital citizenship falls naturally under the domain of librarians, as we place high value on using and creating information ethically. In schools, we have a curriculum that teaches students the concepts of citizenship, community, and social justice through varied disciplines. And in the school library, these ideals come together. … Continue reading Shaping Digital Citizens
Nicole Cooke, assistant professor and MS/LIS program director at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Information Sciences, opened the session by detailing how she became a target after the right-wing publication Campus Reform published a story about her research project, “Minority Student Experiences with Racial Microaggressions in the Academic Library,” which received a 2017 … Continue reading Bullying, Trolling, and Doxxing, Oh My!
Junior high school can be a socially rough time for students. New hormones, new social mores, and a new academic environment—it’s a lot to navigate. That’s why April Lesher, librarian at Mesa, Arizona’s Highland Junior High School, has worked hard to make the school library not just a bullying-free zone but a place where every … Continue reading Finding Friends, Learning Leadership
Velásquez sat down with American Libraries before giving the Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture at Midwinter and discussed her upcoming projects and how she feels now about social media. Her new memoir—her fourth book—will be released in spring 2017. She calls it “my dream book” and says it is more personal than the inspirational tomes she’s … Continue reading How One Person Can Change the World
Before study hall was over, the principal was dealing with the perpetrators. “We handled it all immediately,” Watson tells American Libraries. “That’s a key role of what librarians can do in schools to be a force against bullying. If the students know you’re there, and that you’re an advocate for them, they’ll come to you.” … Continue reading How Libraries Help Kids Stand Up to Bullying
