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This interview features a conversation between a library and information science educator (Cooke) and three archival and special collections professionals with varying levels of experience in the field (Warren, Brown, and Jackson). Among the goals of this frank conversation is to highlight the lived experiences of practicing archivists and educators and discuss why it is becoming increasingly important to talk about empathy, diversity, equity, and inclusion in greater context. As part of that context, we must discuss the need to continuously infuse these values into graduate education, professional development, research, writing, and peer mentoring. Espousing and implementing an ethics of care is an ongoing and necessary process and commitment—to ourselves, to the information professions, and to our communities.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a follow up to “Libraries on the Frontlines: Neutrality and Social Justice,” which was published here in 2017. It addresses institutional responses to protests and uprising in the spring and summer of 2020 after the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, all of which occurred in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The article expands the previous call for libraries to take a stand for Black lives.Design/methodology/approachThe authors describe the events of 2020 (a global pandemic, multiple murders of unarmed Black people and the consequent global protests) and responses from within library and information science (LIS), from the perspectives as women of color faculty and library professionals.FindingsThe authors comment on how libraries are responding to current events, as well as the possibilities for panethnic solidarity. The authors also consider specifically how libraries and other institutions are responding to the racial uprisings through statements on social media and call for concrete action to ensure that their organizations and information practices are actively antiracist. In so doing, the authors update the claims and expand the appeals they made in 2017,that Black Lives Matter and that librarianship must not remain neutral.Originality/valueThis paper addresses recent institutional and governmental reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial uprisings of spring and summer 2020. It is original, current and timely as it interrogates ongoing events in a LIS context.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine libraries’ responsibility to engage with and support communities of color as they challenge systemic racism, engage in the political process, and exercise their right to free speech. Many libraries have ignored the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, citing the need to maintain neutrality. Despite extensive scholarship questioning the validity of this concept, the framing of library neutrality as nonpartisanship continues. This paper examines librarianship’s engagement with, and disengagement from black communities through the lens of the BLM movement. It also explores the implications of education, engagement, and activism for people of color and libraries today. Design/methodology/approach The authors have engaged the topic from a critical race perspective as a practice in exercising voice – telling stories, presenting counterstories, and practicing advocacy (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Findings The assertion that libraries have been socially and politically neutral organizations is ahistorical. When libraries decide not to address issues relevant to people of color, they are not embodying neutrality; they are actively electing not to support the information and service needs of a service population. In order for libraries to live up to their core values, they must engage actively with communities, especially when those communities are in crisis. Originality/value As a service field, librarianship has an ethos, values, and history that parallel those of many other service fields. This paper has implications for developing understanding of questions about equitable service provision.

As online education expands, research should identify how students interact and learn online. Because of the technological, proximal and asynchronous uniqueness of online education, learners face challenges not native to face-to-face education. As such, online students may seek alternate relationships and methods of interacting, forming their own “Small Worlds.” Online students have their own “view of social reality, and ways in which they satisfy their intellectual, social, and physical needs” (Chatman, 1991, p. 438). Small Worlds allow people “to share a similar cultural and intellectual space” (Huotari & Chatman, 2001, p. 352), and members “share a repertoire of resources and sensibilities communally developed over time” (Wenger, 1998, p. 2). Chatman’s theory of Small Worlds is a spatial and social lens through which to examine information behavior; in this instance the online learning environment is a virtual space that fosters and shapes the information behaviors of its participants. The purpose of this study was to investigate the information use behaviors of graduate students in an online learning community, and to elucidate the information interactions and exchanges that occur within course threaded discussions. Additionally, this study intended to determine if and how graduate students in Library and Information Science programs created community in the online classroom, and how, if at all, the presence of community influenced information use behaviors. With respect to the learning online, the literature clearly addresses distance education, Internet communities, communities of practice, and the development of community in traditional on campus classrooms. Some of this research begins to encompass various aspects of human information behavior as applied to the online setting. However, the literature does not marry these components and does not examine nor address the specific information needs and dynamics that occur in an online graduate classroom. The goal of this research was to provide a detailed analysis of the nature and dynamics of information behaviors in an asynchronous graduate online classroom, to identify factors that shape these behaviors, and to determine their relationship to the process of knowledge construction.