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Purpose – We examine the reading lists for required foundational library and information science (LIS) courses at the top 20 American Library Association-accredited LIS programs in North America; explore the extent to which critical race theory (CRT) and other critical literatures, methods, and approaches were engaged; and discuss the implications of the findings for LIS education.

Methodological Approach – We conducted quantitative and qualitative content analyses of foundational required readings for the top 20 Master of Library Science/Master of Library and Information Science programs (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report). The sampling process was twofold. The initial sampling included development of the foundational course sample, and the secondary sampling included development of the sample of required readings.

Findings – The vast majority of the required foundational courses examined provided students with little to no exposure to CRT or critical theory.

Originality/Value – CRT and its related concepts provide a structural framework for preparing LIS students and graduates to recognize and address racism, to understand “how power and privilege shape LIS institutions and professional practice” (Cooke, Sweeney, & Noble, 2016, p. 107), and to embrace social justice as an LIS value. Incorporating CRT into existing courses is the first step in pushing the profession in this direction.

To present and explore the need for alternative narratives to be included in library and information science (LIS) curricula.

This chapter examines LIS and its curricula through the Storytelling Project (STP) framework. STP theorizes that there are four types of stories: stock, concealed, resistance, and emerging/transforming stories.

Each of these story types exists in LIS, but in unequal proportion. LIS curriculum should include more stories of resistance and more emerging/transforming stories. These stories should also facilitate the emergence of the “new storytellers,” faculty members and instructors in LIS graduate programs who are working diligently to incorporate new stories into the classroom by creating learning environments that accommodate and encourage discussions of race, privilege, social justice, and other necessary and difficult issues.

The STP story typology forms a counter-storytelling matrix that can allow LIS educators an opportunity to diversify their content and teaching styles, ultimately enriching their students, their programs, and the profession.

This chapter expands LIS pedagogy by infusing elements of diversity, social justice, and theory from the related field of education.

Purpose – This chapter argues that more opportunities for diversity-related content should be purposefully included in library and information science (LIS) graduate curricula.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with LIS graduates and current LIS graduate students. The data were analyzed for patterns and themes, and a narrative developed that expounds on the experiences and insights of practicing LIS professionals.

Findings – The data emphasize that more work needs to be done to incorporate, de-tokenize, and normalize meaningful conversations about diversity and social justice and incorporate them across LIS curricula. Reframing and re-centering the curriculum to foster critical, inclusive, and culturally competent professional engagement is greatly needed in LIS programs and in the profession at large.

Originality/Value – This chapter details and analyzes a set of original interviews in which both current and aspiring librarians discuss their experiences with diversity and social justice content in their graduate programs.

This chapter historicizes the social construction of racism in Brazilian society and its relation to the development of the library and information science (LIS) field. It is a theoretical-reflective research built on the scientific literature of the field of LIS and related areas that aims at reflecting on social justice in Brazilian libraries and creating strategies to confront institutional racism. The authors develop five main points to understand Brazilian racism: the myth of racial democracy, structural and institutionalized racism, the whitening ideology, whiteness, and the epistemicide of black knowledge. The authors then discuss racism and the promotion of white supremacy in library teaching and professional action in libraries. Black US American and Black Brazilian Librarianship movements show that the activism and political action of black librarians advance the development of informational counter-narratives. Finally, the authors recommend three strategies for social, racial, and informational justice in the LIS field: including ethnic-racial studies in basic university courses curricula; building diverse, inclusive collections that account for ethnic-racial themes and authors; and considering “Pretuguese” keywords while indexing, in order to counter exclusion and promote epistemic repair. The authors conclude by advocating for these strategies to steer LIS professional and educational spheres toward contributing to forward an anti-racist society.

This chapter, inspired by the authors’ experiences with racism and sexism in higher education leadership and frontier Protestantism, will interrogate the leadership models found in library and information science (LIS) through the lens of Judeo-Christian religious social structures and terminology, along with an examination of transitional and transformational leadership frameworks, to suggest a more productive and less abusive leadership model, equitable and inclusive to those who are not white men.

This chapter analyzes the link between the digital divide, infrastructure regulation, and disaster planning and relief through a case study of the flood in San Jose, California triggered by the Anderson dam’s overtopping in February 2017 and an examination of communication failures during the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. This chapter theorizes that regulatory decisions construct social and disaster vulnerability. Rooted in the Whole Community approach to disaster planning and relief espoused by the United Nations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this chapter calls for leadership to end the digital divide. It highlights the imperative of understanding community information needs and argues for linking strategies to close the digital divide with infrastructure and emergency planning. As the Internet’s integration into society increases, the digital divide diminishes access to societal resources including disaster aid, and exacerbates wildfire, flood, pandemic, and other risks. To mitigate climate change, climate-induced disaster, protect access to social services and the economy, and safeguard democracy, it argues for digital inclusion strategies as a centerpiece of community-centered infrastructure regulation and disaster relief.

Academic librarians have often been hesitant to foreground real-time engagement with social justice in our public facing library guides. The guides, more often than not, serve merely to provide access points to “academic” materials and traditional news sources. Perhaps there is a different path. This chapter suggests that engagement with Twitter can point patrons toward the real conversations happening outside (and sometimes inside) academia that are missed when we rely on traditional sources. The critical engagement with social justice issues such as race and technology, or migrant justice, is happening right in front of our eyes on Twitter. This chapter discusses how adding Twitter feeds to library guides can engage libraries (and our students) in critical conversations around racism and the foregrounding of traditionally marginalized voices. A problem with traditional library guides is that they center the voice and opinion of the librarian curating the guide. Adding in Twitter feeds can complicate this. Adding Twitter feeds from traditionally marginalized voices centers those voices in real time as opposed to centering the voice and authority of the, often white, librarian initially creating the guide. This centering occurs because while the librarian initially chooses which feeds to feature, the feeds are continuously updating in real time. This chapter reflects on why this centering of non-white voices is important, how it engages the counterpublic discourse on Twitter, and how doing so can push us all to be a little more critical, a little more subversive, in our work.

This chapter introduces the construct of “white pricks” defined as vaccines of moral awakenings to inoculate against racialized trauma in a white-centered majority in library and information science (LIS) education and challenge its hegemonic power, privilege, and oppressions. In keeping with the theme of the book, one male “voice” of color from the margins of a predominantly white-female majority provides a strategic approach to operationalize social justice toward antiracist praxis and decenter white privilege in a professional association’s leadership networks of LIS educators. The narrative also highlights ways to integrate the American Library Association’s ninth principle recently included in its Code of Ethics beyond “lip-service” via social justice actions to change imbalanced power dynamics and discard systemic enactment of dysfunctional behaviors, practices, and policies.