Building a Critical Culture: How Critical Librarianship Falls Short in the Workplace

Fuente: ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ferretti, Jennifer A.
Format: Recurso educativo Open Access
Language:en
Published: 2020
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author Ferretti, Jennifer A.
author_facet Ferretti, Jennifer A.
Ferretti, Jennifer A.
collection Education Resources Information Center
contents Building a Critical Culture: How Critical Librarianship Falls Short in the Workplace Ferretti, Jennifer A. Library Science Library Instruction Equal Education Librarians Minority Groups Work Environment Information Literacy Teacher Student Relationship Power Structure Racial Bias Critical librarianship, or critlib, has made its way into the mainstream of library and information science through conferences, scholarly publications, social media, and other outlets. Over the past 10 years critical library instruction specifically has continued to be a much presented and published topic. Classes and other groups that come through our libraries are opportunities for us to teach, learn, and empower. The care and critical perspectives we bring into the classroom are necessary, but are we also fostering this type of environment in the workplace? Are we doing enough to turn the critical lens on ourselves? As a woman of color in a predominantly white profession, it is difficult to not feel as though critical librarianship is performative. There is a time and place to refer to theory and another to engage in practice. Throughout this article I will illustrate that while critical pedagogy in librarianship has changed the way we teach information literacy and think of the teacher/student relationship, it's been slower to change power relations between library colleagues. We ask our students to critically examine a resource and to see what is being left out of the conversation. It's time to not only ask the same of us and the profession but also for us to take action.
format Recurso educativo Open Access
id eric_EJ1256626
institution ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
language en
publishDate 2020
record_format eric
spellingShingle Building a Critical Culture: How Critical Librarianship Falls Short in the Workplace
Ferretti, Jennifer A.
Library Science
Library Instruction
Equal Education
Librarians
Minority Groups
Work Environment
Information Literacy
Teacher Student Relationship
Power Structure
Racial Bias
Building a Critical Culture: How Critical Librarianship Falls Short in the Workplace Ferretti, Jennifer A. Library Science Library Instruction Equal Education Librarians Minority Groups Work Environment Information Literacy Teacher Student Relationship Power Structure Racial Bias Critical librarianship, or critlib, has made its way into the mainstream of library and information science through conferences, scholarly publications, social media, and other outlets. Over the past 10 years critical library instruction specifically has continued to be a much presented and published topic. Classes and other groups that come through our libraries are opportunities for us to teach, learn, and empower. The care and critical perspectives we bring into the classroom are necessary, but are we also fostering this type of environment in the workplace? Are we doing enough to turn the critical lens on ourselves? As a woman of color in a predominantly white profession, it is difficult to not feel as though critical librarianship is performative. There is a time and place to refer to theory and another to engage in practice. Throughout this article I will illustrate that while critical pedagogy in librarianship has changed the way we teach information literacy and think of the teacher/student relationship, it's been slower to change power relations between library colleagues. We ask our students to critically examine a resource and to see what is being left out of the conversation. It's time to not only ask the same of us and the profession but also for us to take action.
title Building a Critical Culture: How Critical Librarianship Falls Short in the Workplace
topic Library Science
Library Instruction
Equal Education
Librarians
Minority Groups
Work Environment
Information Literacy
Teacher Student Relationship
Power Structure
Racial Bias
url https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1256626