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The author of this chapter will explain how libraries define safe space through policies, procedures, and professional codes of ethics. The chapter will generate a history of the concept of libraries as safe space, will explain how libraries attempt to create safe spaces in physical and online environments, and will show how library practices both help and harm patrons in need of safe space.

This chapter provides a review of the literature that illustrates how libraries provide safe space – or not – for their patrons. The author will deconstruct the ALA Code of Ethics and Bill of Rights to demonstrate how libraries remain heteronormative institutions that do not recognize the existence of diverse patrons or employees, and how this phenomenon manifests in libraries.

Libraries, either through their physical construction or through policies and procedures, have become spaces for illegal activities and discrimination. Populations who would be most likely to use libraries often report barriers to access.

Libraries should revisit their policies and procedures, as well as assess their physical and online spaces, to determine whether or not they truly provide safe space for their patrons. While libraries can become safer spaces, they should clearly communicate what types of safety they actually provide.

This chapter offers a critique of libraries as safe spaces, which will challenge popular opinions of libraries, and compel the profession to improve.

This chapter addresses the current state of librarian participation in the global lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) Wikipedia engagement efforts and proposes an extended librarian advocacy to advance LGBTQ+ rights and concerns. The author provides a brief history of global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement, librarian involvement in Wikipedia, and librarian participation in global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia initiatives. In the process, the author examines the underrepresentation and invisibility of librarians in global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement efforts and Wikipedia initiatives in general, as well as the barriers that librarians face in becoming active Wikipedian librarians. Based on a review of the literature, the analysis of data gathered from Wikipedia, and the author’s own experiences as an LGBTQ+ Wikipedian librarian, the author recommends strategies for librarians to advocate for and include global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement in their professional practice.

In 2015, the UN General Assembly introduced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2014, in anticipation of the SDGs, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) released the Lyon Declaration, asserting that the right to access information, and the skills to use it, is essential for development. Simply put, there can be no sustainable development without access to information. So, as the world looks toward sustainable development in the information age, what role should libraries play in meeting communities’ needs? Sustainable development, whether on a local or global scale, requires that people have access to information in order to improve their abilities to make informed choices about their lives, livelihoods, and communities. Sustainable development is important for all communities, everywhere, and access to information is just one way libraries can contribute to development initiatives. Libraries, especially public libraries, provide not only traditional access to information but also engaged services and programs that are community centered. This chapter will explore the ways in which the profession at large is plugging into the SDGs, with a particular focus on the work that IFLA is doing to connect libraries to development. It will highlight a specific form of community development – Asset-Based Community Development, which focuses on using the strengths and capacities that already exist in communities of all sizes and economic statuses – as a theoretical and practical model to help librarians understand and leverage their own assets as they collaborate with their communities on building individual and community capacity. It will argue that an asset-based approach to integrating our services into the larger trend of sustainable community development can provide us with both direction for day-to-day engagement with our communities and an important way to reimagine our value.

With a focus on Canada, but framed by similar and shared concerns emerging in the United States, this chapter examines the current status of what constitutes and defines academic freedom for academic librarians and the rights and the protections individual, professional academic librarians have with respect to the freedom of speech and expression of their views in speech and writing within and outside of their institutions. It reviews the historical background of academic freedom and librarianship in Canada, academic freedom language in collective agreements, rights legislation in Canada versus the United States as it pertains to academic librarianship, and rights statements supported by Canadian associations in the library field and associations representing members in postsecondary institutions. The implications of academic librarians using the new communication technologies and social media platforms, such as blogs and networking sites, with respect to academic freedom are examined, as well as, an overview of recent attacks on the academic freedom of academic librarians in the United States and Canada. Included in this analysis are the results of a survey of Canadian academic librarians, which examined attitudes about academic freedom, the external and internal factors which have an impact on academic freedom, and the professional use of new communication technologies and social media platforms.

University libraries are not only crossroads of scholarly communities but are also now connecting business proprietors to places, institutions, and resources that support business growth. Therefore, through creating new formal and informal partnerships, university libraries can create friendly environments where external users like small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can work together to access and use research and innovation (R&I) information for the sustenance and growth of their business ventures. Vibrant and reengineered university library partnership programs can go a long way in engaging national, regional, and international business growth activities.

This chapter reports on a study carried out on Ugandan university libraries and how they can serve SMEs with their university’s research output. The purpose of the study was to investigate the need for restructuring university library partnerships in order to serve SMEs better through their R&I information services. The study used an exploratory research design and used questionnaires and interviews to collect data. This chapter reports on available formal and informal innovative university libraries’ partnerships with different organizational levels of SMEs; the communication and organizational structures between university libraries and SMEs; shared visions, missions, standards, and policies of Ugandan university libraries and SMEs; and the roles and collaborations with professional library bodies such as the Consortium of Ugandan University Libraries (CUUL), Uganda Library and Information Association (ULIA), and the International Association of Technological University Libraries (IATUL), among others.