scholarly journals Suppressing communities: An analysis of LGBTQ+ censorship in libraries

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Taylor Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Classification Models ◽  
Community Culture ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Information Materials

Librarians serve as defenders of intellectual freedom and social responsibility, and this includes speaking out against censorship. Censorship of information, materials, and books occurs in the public, but censorship can also occur in libraries themselves. Those impacted the most by this censorship are marginalized communities, such as the LGBTQ+ community. The purpose of this paper is to explore how internal, external and institutional censorship affects the LGBTQ+ community and what librarians can do to uphold their defense against censorship. Internal, or self-censorship, occurs at the librarian level where LGBTQ+ materials may be hidden by librarians or library staff or simply not ordered due to pressure from the community the library serves. External censorship occurs at the community level where the community culture pushes for the censorship of LGBTQ+ materials. Lastly, institutional censorship occurs at the classification level where classification models such as the Dewey Decimal System or subject headings may not provide accurate representation for LGBTQ+ materials. In order to put an end to these forms of censorship, trained and certified librarians must act as agents of change, committing to their due diligence to provide information to all members of their communities.

scholarly journals Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice: Tensions Between Core Values in American Librarianship

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Emily J. M. Knox
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Hate Groups ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

AbstractOver the past few years, tensions between two core values in U.S. librarianship, intellectual freedom and social justice, have roiled the profession. This conflict was most recently seen in the insertion and subsequent removal of “hate groups” to the list of entities that cannot be denied access to library meeting rooms in the American Library Association’s Meeting Rooms Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights. This paper is intended to provide context for this conflict. It begins by situating its arguments within ethical philosophy, specifically the study of values or axiology. It then provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of the values of liberalism. Next, the paper discusses the values of truth and freedom from harm in librarianship. Finally, it suggests that a fuller understanding of the library’s place within the public sphere is a possible model for mitigating the tensions currently found in American librarianship. The paper is intended to provide a theoretical foundation for further research.

scholarly journals Hegemony in Effective Communication on the Modern Health Services During Pregnancy, Give Birth, and Postpartum in Baduy Communities

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Ratih Ariningrum ◽  
Vita Kartika ◽  
Rozana Ika Agustiya ◽  
Choirum Latifah
Keyword(s):  
Health Service ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Maternal Deaths ◽  
The Public ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Organic Intellectual

Kanekes Village, where Baduy people live, is the biggest contributor to maternal deaths in the District of Lebak. Baduy awareness to check pregnancy at midwives has begun to increase, but for childbirth and childbirth examination has not been carried out. That is because there is a culture in the Baduy community regarding childbirth itself, as well as their adherence to the rules that have been issued by traditional leaders. The research uses a qualitative approach with the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach. This study aims to examine the constraints and analyze the process of the formation of relationships between health workers, cadres, and heads of RT with the Baduy community in effective communication to improve modern health services during pregnancy, give birth, and postpartum in the Baduy community. The results showed that modern health services can be applied to the behavior of pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperal of the Baduy community if the agents of change (organic intellectual) can change the idea of the modern health service into an ideology, then popular belief is obtained, then hegemony is formed from the agents of change. The final stage is that the country must be able to accommodate this effort. The efforts of agents of change (organic intellectuals) from the idea of modern health services to the created hegemony are sought by effective communication. Implementation of effective communication is pursued by provding explanations that are easily understood by the public through simulations.

THOMAS COBBET'S DISCOURSE ON THE RAISING OF CHILDREN

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-279
Author(s):  
Herbert C. Miller ◽  
Mary T. Miller
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Child Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time

THREE HUNDRED years ago there appeared in New England a book on how to raise children—almost certainly the first of its kind to appear in this country. The fact that it was the forerunner of what in recent years has amounted to a spate of books and articles on the same subject is noteworthy enough. More interesting is the fact that it was written at all. Books on any phase of child life were rarities in those days. Individually, children 300 years ago were undoubtedly as important to their parents as they are today, but children collectively and their special problems had not loomed large in the public conscience. Here, perhaps, for the first time, the American an conscience is speaking out on the subject of children—through a minister whose parishioners approved what they heard from the pulpit and urged that it be set down in print. Because Thomas Cobbet deemed them worthy subjects, we can now catch a glimpse of children of early New England and compare their behavior and what Puritan New England thought about it with children and parents of today. The comparisons are made doubly interesting since our present culture is still heavily indebted to Puritan thought. Not much is known of Thomas Cobbet, the author.1 He was born in 11 Newbury, England in 1608. He attended Oxford but left on account of the plague. He was a nonconformist and chose to emigrate to avoid persecution. Cobbet arrived in Massachusetts in 1637 with Davenport, and was a colleague to Mr. Whiting of Lynn until 1656 when be became the pastor of the first church in Ipswich, where he remained until his death in 1685.

Islamic Governance: Strategies for Relevance

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei Chee Yung
Keyword(s):  
International Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core ◽  
Brunei Darussalam ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
The Government ◽  
Functional Relevance ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Do So

Even though Islam is the official religion of Brunei Darussalam, more efforts are still needed to bolster functionality and relevance of Islam to the country, and implement an Islamic system of governance. This paper sets out to devise strategies in order to do so, to be implemented by three main stakeholders: Government civil service, the public and the international community. Five specific strategies are devised: formulate a single common understanding of Islamic governance; ensure commitment from top management; train and develop competence; engage the public; and engage the international community. The first three strategies relate to the Government, the fourth to the public, and the fifth to the international community. And at the core, of course, is Tauḥīd, or strong Faith, which would act as a guide to help individuals, the main agents of change, make appropriate decisions in accordance to the teachings of Islam, implement the five strategies to strengthen functional relevance of Islam in Brunei, and be able to work towards achieving the Maqāṣid of the Sharī’ah.

Collective Voices Online

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Vittoria Bernardini
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser

The chapter investigates how women use the practice of speaking out in their activism to bring issues that are significant to them from the private sphere into the public sphere. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing how this was achieved in the case of the #MeToo movement, taken as the most prominent example of activism against sexual harassment in recent years. Using the conceptual tool of counter public sphere developed by Nancy Fraser, the chapter examines two relevant events from #MeToo: the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Aziz Ansari and the circulation of the so-called “Shitty Media Men” list.

Rocking the boat while staying in it: connecting ends and means in radical community work

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oonagh Mc Ardle
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Community Work ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Intimate Connection ◽  
Agents Of Change

Abstract At a time when the term ‘radical’ is predominantly associated with intolerance and violence, this article explicitly interrogates its meaning and application in community development praxis. Based on a qualitative inquiry, influenced by community development principles, community workers with rich experience at both micro- and macro-levels in Ireland were interviewed individually, then collectively to elicit their perspectives on the possibilities and challenges for radical community work in Ireland. While specifically located, its conclusions have relevance for community work and community development globally. Findings show that being a professional and a radical are not incompatible. Some radical community workers recognize their dual role in service of the state and their obligation to work with others to change it. Acknowledging that marginalized communities do not have the access to power available to more privileged communities necessitates strategies to maximize influence. At the same time, there is an intimate connection between the methods used to transform society and the nature of the subsequent society. As workers accountable to communities, funders and the profession itself, the strategies engaged with and tactics adopted warrant careful consideration. This article seeks to challenge the dichotomy of either conflict or consensus approaches as overly simplistic. Its suggests that some community workers can hold a radical agenda and conflictual ideology while pro-actively engaging with decision-makers who, although part of systems, which perpetuate inequality, can also be agents of change.

scholarly journals Can online exemplars trigger a spiral of silence? Examining the effects of exemplar opinions on perceptions of public opinion and speaking out

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1034-1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zerback ◽  
Nayla Fawzi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Spiral Of Silence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
The Public Sphere

In modern media environments, social media have fundamentally altered the way how individual opinions find their way into the public sphere. We link spiral of silence theory to exemplification research and investigate the effects of online opinions on peoples’ perceptions of public opinion and willingness to speak out. In an experiment, we can show that a relatively low number of online exemplars considerably influence perceived public support for the eviction of violent immigrants. Moreover, supporters of eviction were less willing to speak out on the issue online and offline when confronted with exemplars contradicting their opinion.

Privacy and Public Intellectual Freedom: Why Trained Library Staff Preserve and Protect Patron Confidentiality

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Miles Caudesch
Keyword(s):  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Basic Documentation ◽  
Library Staff

On the layman's level, this Commentary presents the essence of how and why library staff engage with the public while preserving patron privacy. Basic documentation, such as the Library Bill of Rights and the ALA's Intellectual Freedom Manual are referenced, along with an unsettling article about arson. After reading this Commentary, library staff should feel a renewed sense of loyalty to their profession, as well as an uncomfortable realization that every day, someone's life is held in the balance for educational good or for misapplied freedom: it is partially up to the librarian to help each person pursue excellence within the framework of free access to information.

scholarly journals My Intellectual Freedom Journey: Reclaiming a Moral Sanction for the Public Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
James LaRue
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Pursuit Of Happiness ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Sanction ◽  
Evaluative Process ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Clear Statement

Intellectual freedom—the idea that all people have the right to express themselves freely and access the expressions of others—is a core value of librarianship. But every value, every institution, must go through a kind of rediscovery with each generation. This “re-valuing” is necessary and right. Do our institutions serve us, or are we forced to serve them? Do we practice what we say we believe? An example of this re-evaluative process concerns the promise, the vision, of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But that clear statement of “self-evident truths” was on the one hand immediately contradicted by the explicit endorsement of slavery (3/5ths of a human being), and by the denial of a vote to women. Nonetheless, the underlying idea was so powerful and compelling that subsequent generations returned to it again and again, edging closer to the original vision.I believe that intellectual freedom is under such a review by librarians now. I believe, too, that the value remains an abiding and powerful call to service.In this article I will present three snapshots from my own intellectual freedom journey. Each has a context in time that may lend depth of understanding to today’s challenges. Perhaps, too, it will point the way to a new place for intellectual freedom in our work.

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