Andrew W.
Moderator Pick
We need to do a better job of looking at media studies in LIS Education
This is a very timely conversation being the same month as the insurrection at the Capitol, but this is something I’ve been thinking about since I was an undergraduate journalism student a few decades ago. In my own experience, the biggest shortcoming of both my Journalism education and MLS education was that neither spent much time looking at the socio-economic aspects of information. While we covered small presses for a week in collection management, and a bit about intellectual freedom, we need to go deeper at looking at information from a critical lens. I think schools do this now in literacy instruction, but I believe it should extend also to reference (what are authoritative sources?), databases and collection management (who runs journals and bundles?) and even foundations (what types of information needs to we prioritize and who gets ignored?). We have already broached the discussion beyond the idea of librarian as neutral, and now need to continue the discussion throughout the curriculum. I think this really imperative now as we will need more reflective librarians who can create libraries that can address social issues and information needs, and also who may have to fight more censorship cases in local courts if the Supreme Court reverses precedent such as the “Miller test” that moved grounds for censorship from community to national standards. We should also take a critical lens when examining issues like intellectual property and embrace new ones like study of propaganda and disinformation.
On a more personal note closer to the stated question, I think librarians and LIS educators alike need to continue to read widely as both information professionals and citizens. We should strive to challenge our bubbles by reading in different disciplines, different politics, different nations. We also should help our users to see that reality is complex and avoid simplified discussions that posit that there are only two “opposing sides” of an argument. Politics should not be a horse race where no compromise is possible even though our media often treats it that way. Academic librarians have adopted the Learning Commons, but all libraries need to strive to do a better job of being an information commons, where civic engagement can take place.
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Comments (7)
Andrew, I agree that MLIS programs need to find a way to incorporate more studies of media, media literacy and media literacy education into their instruction. The subject is so vast, I would love to see entire courses just focusing on this. I was in library school recently and this subject was not featured nearly enough. I have a significant personal interest in this area and had been doing my own background reading in it to learn more. Fortunately one of my professors, in whose class this subject was given more attention, also had an interest in it and she gave me some recommendations of leading voices in the field, conferences, associations, etc., where I could go to learn more. That is how I learned about NAMLE. She also directed me to the work of an incredible scholar and professor of digital and media literacy education, Renee Hobbs (who, coincidentally, has just written a book about teaching propaganda, and another on teaching media literacy skills!). Professor Hobbs regularly offers free webinars through the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island. I watch as many of her webinars as I can--I always learn a lot.
Kate, to your question about training for library staff, is it possible that library leadership could allow some time in the work day for staff to watch webinars (could be done individually, doesn't need to be everyone watching together) on these topics? Since the pandemic I have personally found so many excellent webinars on media and media literacy topics that are high quality and free. I guess it ultimately comes down to priorities--but if library management identifies this as a high priority for all staff, there are budget-friendly solutions to get this information and training to staff.
Thanks for your comment, Alexandra. To be honest I haven't yet checked out Renee Hobbs' newest book, but will add it to my list. It's great that you continued reading on this. I'm responding as I listen to the second impeachment and am thinking about how urgent this situation is in our country, and how critical it is for librarians and LIS educators to be in interdisciplinary discussion to help refashion our curriculum, and for libraries to critically approach their collections.
Andrew - I agree with your idea, but I am equally if not more concerned about all the people who already work in a library. I am in a small, mostly rural state, and most librarians don't have an MLIS. How do we train them when their systems don't have money to send everyone to an annual convention? I'm not saying there aren't alternatives, but a top-down approach has to go way, way down.
Hi Kate. I agree with Alexandra's post that a state library commission or state association could offer in-service training, and that libraries should allow employees to attend this. However, I think you identified a much more serious problem, which is that some communities run
Hi Andrew:
Thanks for joining our conversation. I am intrigued by this statement: ... we will need more reflective librarians who can create libraries that can address social issues and information needs. How would you teach librarians to be more reflective? What are the steps needed to create libraries that can address social issues and information needs?
I'm also now nervous about future legal challenges to censorship rules.
Thanks. I was recently with a colleague about how the ALA Code of Ethics, for example, still reflects the viewpoint of a traditional print library where we only had to defend user's intellectual freedom when it came to challenges of books we bought or periodicals or databases we subscribed to. We are now in a very different situation now as librarians and archivists are digitizing and publishing original content. I think librarians and archivists in this world are now in effect publishers or curators and need to have a richer set of ethics and skills that can help them to evaluate and frame digital libraries, digital archives, digital humanities content. It calls for other skills, which might include adding references or interpretive content and other forms of curation. These are new skills for librarians that few are teaching as much as we focus on the information architecture, metadata, or other technical skills. Part of the self-reflection also relates to what items we decide to digitize or not. I think we could see this closer to a book publisher's acquisitions editor. Should an item be published online or not? Such work IMHO calls for critical intelligence and reflective practitioners.
Effective continuing professional development could be one answer.