Library Internship - 3/29/24
Simon Elichko (they/them)
Social Sciences & Data Librarian
Director of the FBI from 1924-1972. Best known for COINTELPRO surveillance of thousands of US citizens, particularly POCs and activists.
Poet, activist, professor, publisher. Author of Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Sister Outsider, The Cancer Journals, and many other books.
what do they have in common?
{ they both worked in libraries }
Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.
(Source: Velasquez et al, Issues in Ethics)
"A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal."
A non-profit purpose
Acknowledging the many valid and vital critiques of libraries (vocational awe is particularly relevant here), the non-profit mission of libraries remains distinct from that of many other organizations that shape our access to information (e.g. large-scale search and social media platforms).
"People’s expectations of privacy are affected by legislation, media coverage of related events, community participation in digital platforms, the interfaces and policies of these platforms, and awareness of the flows of their data, among other factors. The library can play a role in shaping these expectations and educating people on what is possible to demand."
How Did We Get Here? A Zine About Privacy at the Library – Data Privacy Project
An educational mission
Since 2021, we've seen a large number of books being challenged in US public libraries and schools.
Although book challenges and bans are nothing new, the past few years represent a significant increase in the number of challenges and titles impacted.
Books about POC and/or LGBTQ+ folks are being disproportionately impacted by this wave of book challenges.
Book challenges are not a new phenomenon – ALA reported nearly 1,000 book challenges in 1981 – but recent efforts are more coordinated:
Advocacy groups are working to nationalize book challenges, this time with the help of conservative TV and talk shows, that for the past few decades have been mostly local events. (Washington Post)
There has been an increase in state-level legislation impacting libraries, which can amplify the effect of local book challenges. In 2023, state legislatures passed 22 laws identified by EveryLibrary as potentially posing challenges to library operations and services:
The bills reflect several recurring themes...provisions related to legal definitions of obscenity and harmful to minors; changes to collection development and collection review/challenge policies; requiring age verifications; creating new liabilities for material distribution; and withholding of funds. (EveryLibrary)
States have also passed laws restricting reading and speech in educational settings, including public higher education – again, particularly targeting content related to race, gender, and sexuality. (See PEN America.)
"Half of challenged books return to schools." Hannah Natanson, Washington Post (Dec. 2023)
Schoolbook challenges have risen to unprecedented levels over the past three years. To understand what and who is driving objections to K-12 texts, Washington Post K-12 Education reporter Hannah Natanson filed records requests with 150 school districts nationwide, seeking copies of every book challenge they received in the 2021-2022 school year.
What did you think about the article?
What was surprising?
What's missing from this article?
"An Open Letter to the Eleven Adults Responsible for the Majority of Book Bans in Schools," Melanie Winklosky, McSweeney's (Dec 2023).
The majority of book complaints come from a minuscule number of hyperactive adults. Just 11 people were responsible for filing 60 percent of the 2021-2022 challenges."
This article goes into detail about some of the organized campaigns and how they've operated.
* Heads up - the article includes direct quotes with homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, including images depicting this rhetoric in handwriting. (To get a text-only view, use Reader View in Firefox or Safari, or Reader View extension in Chrome.)
Consider also the most restricted reading environments in the US: prisons and jails.
PEN America's 2019 report Literature Locked Up provides an extensive look at the problem and advocates instead for following ALA Prisoners' Right to Read.
The Marshall Project created this database identifying over 50,000 books that have been banned in state prisons.
Learn more about prison libraries + librarianship:
Freedom Reads • Information censorship in the carceral system (Prism Reports) • Prison Banned Books Week • Law libraries that serve incarcerated people (Am. Assoc. Law Libraries) • Jail and Prison Services (Brooklyn Public Library)
See 2022 People of the Year: The Defenders in Publishers Weekly
Digital Public Library of America founded The Banned Book Club in 2023 "to provide anyone who is in a library that has banned a book access to the digital version for free."
Started by Brooklyn Public Library in 2022, Books Unbanned lets 13-21 year-olds apply for an e-card granting free online access to banned books. Since 2023, Boston, LA County, San Diego, and Seattle Libraries have joined this effort.
Learn more from BPL's podcast series Borrowed and Banned, or read this article in Library Journal.
(Hit a paywall? You can access Library Journal from Tripod.)
(This builds on your collection development session with Amy McColl back in February.)
How generative AI tools work - interactive explainer from Financial Times
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness
Simone Browne (2015)
Duke University Press
Obfuscation
Helen Nissenbaum & Finn Brunton, 2015. MIT Press.
Race After Technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code Ruha Benjamin, 2019.
Polity Press.
Increasing your privacy and digital literacy
2. Protect your browsing history
Visualize and blocks tracking websites
• Privacy Badger (free from Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• Firefox (browser, alternative to Chrome)
• Blacklight (find out which trackers are enabled on a website)
3. Learn as you go
Browser extension that helps make sense of the privacy policy and other terms and conditions on YouTube, Twitter, etc.
1. Start small
Easy adjustments to help share (or not!) your data more intentionally: Data Detox Kit (Tactical Tech & Firefox)
• Try a module: Control Your Smartphone Data, Escape the Defaults, or another
caveat! Privacy-protecting extensions and settings can cause websites to behave oddly at times.
so: If you have trouble with a website, disable Privacy Badger or Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection.
• Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checker
• The Markup (investigates big tech + how platforms operate)
Deepen your understanding of how
the web works:
• Digital Library Federation Privacy Literacy
(crossing the US border, organizing movements, shopping online)
Explore information security scenarios to learn how the stakes and considerations vary for individuals with different identities, contexts, and needs—and what steps they/you can take.
• A First Look at Digital Security (Access Now)
(meet a student, a journalist, a civil rights organizer, and an activist)
Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. (2010 [1987]). What is Ethics? A definition of ethics in terms of standards such as rights and fairness. Issues in Ethics, 1:1. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/
"The FBI Figures Things Out (from "Keeping Tabs"). Backstory [podcast].
"Audre Lorde, activist, librarian, lesbian and warrior poet." New York Amsterdam News.
a very brief introduction to
government documents librarianship
if time permits, let's take a look at some docments on muckrock!
See "A State-by-State Guide to the Coalitions and Campaigns Fighting Legislation Criminalizing Librarians" in School Library Journal
Definitely a thing that librarians like to create:
Click the link for SameDiff.
Select Browse Files:
Go to Moodle for the Library Internship.
Scroll down to this week.
Download, but don't open or look at these files:
• 1939 ALA Code of Ethics
• 2021 ALA Code of Ethics
Discuss your SameDiff results
with your partner/group:
Now let's take a few minutes to (directly) read both
versions of the ALA Code of Ethics.