In the present age of neo-censorship—which journalist Rohan Jayasekera describes as “a kind of control on opinion that moves beyond the traditional model” (that of the state, the law, and the secret police) to now include “big business, courtrooms, schools, newsrooms [that] block ideas out of habit, or prejudice, or fear”—the contemporary answer to Juvenal’s … Continue reading Librarianship as Resistance
The nonprofit ProLiteracy, one of ALA’s longtime partners, makes the connection between reading and health care agency. It points out that women with low literacy skills are at higher risk of “financial, health, and partner vulnerabilities throughout their lives,” potentially limiting their independence. That cyclical relationship—limited education and reading ability leading to limited economic opportunity … Continue reading Calling a Thing a Thing
There is a long history of denying reading skills or access to particular groups, including incarcerated people, unpaid and low-wage workers, enslaved and colonized communities, and women. Ken Bigger, a new senior fellow in ALA’s Center for the Future of Libraries, connects literacy to civic fluency in his research. Bigger raises this point: The prison … Continue reading Fugitive Literacies
Opening the program had been a last resort. After learning that many outlets for adult reading instruction had gradually disappeared in the neighborhoods where need was greatest—and that none were in libraries—my colleagues and I took matters into our own hands. We transformed an underused library space into a modest but thriving literacy center that … Continue reading Literacy as Liberation
In this fourth and final column introducing ALA’s newly implemented five-year strategic plan, I want to mine the connection between creating institutional belonging and facilitating the change management critical to organizational sustainability and impact. The first of these begets the second. In addition to the overarching goals of the new Pivot (or change management) Strategy, … Continue reading The Table and the Folding Chair
This is a critical area of focus for the American Library Association (ALA) and for the LIS community at large. This past year exposed digital access barriers such as expensive and low-quality broadband, the ongoing paucity of technology in the lowest-income households, and the overlap of limited reading skills and limited digital literacy. Left unchecked, … Continue reading Belonging as Technology
Lately, however, we have faced mounting external pressures against those core ideals. To name just a few: barriers placed on equitable access, a persistent lack of diversity and equitable mobility in the US workforce, proliferating attacks against intellectual freedom with increased challenges to LGBTQIA and antiracist content, the pandemic’s disruption to education and employment, and … Continue reading Membership as a Movement
I visualize nkyinkyim’s lines moving one direction, then the opposite whenever I hear the word “pivot,” by now one of the most overused (and misused) terms bandied about since the start of the pandemic. For the LIS sector, where our mission is more important than ever despite changes in external conditions and internal resources, business … Continue reading The Pivot and the Path
I was almost through with a first draft when a nagging truth asserted itself, insisting I speak to it: that the challenges, uncertainties, and indeed, opportunities we have faced during and emerging from the pandemic have taken their toll on us, in the form of worry, fatigue, and stress. And yes, though I firmly and … Continue reading A Little Light to See By
My friend is a well-respected educational consultant and author of half a dozen books. In a phone call shortly after she returned home, I was delighted to learn that, though she was still weak and had limited mobility, she was finishing a book she had been working on before her illness. “I’m writing for a … Continue reading To Survive, We Must Transform
Usually the calls were about the kids who frequented the library—which ones had graduated, who was off to college or the military, and sometimes, sadly, who had been shot or killed, or gone to jail. One call still haunts me: A teenage boy I knew well was facing serious time in a juvenile detention center. … Continue reading A Hurting Thing
Those words seem especially prescient now as we look across the country at the libraries that have struggled most during this period of widespread library defunding and service reductions. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the issue, there has long been an unmistakable correlation between communities that navigate high rates of poverty and those that … Continue reading Revolutions Where We Stand
