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Digital inclusion refers to the conditions and degrees of access to information and communication technologies (ICT) among individuals and communities. This includes the variable determinants and outcomes associated with ICT connectivity, as well as efforts to mitigate digital exclusion. With the proliferation of ICT in the past 30 years, digital inclusion (and related concepts like the digital divide and digital literacy) has been a major focus of policymaking and public service efforts, with libraries serving as leaders in offering free public ICT and digital skills training. Digital inclusion research has commonly relied upon sociodemographic variables to survey determinants of digital inequality, with digital inequalities often characterized as reproductions and expansions of extant structural and social inequalities. The overlap and mutuality of digital inequalities is a consistent theme in digital inclusion studies, echoing the major points of intersectional theory, which seeks to understand inequality and discrimination as a complex multiaxial experience. In performing content analysis across the library-focused library and information science (LIS) literature, this thesis plans to use an intersectional framework to observe the relationship between presently surveyed digital in/exclusion and structural inequalities, and to provide an account of the myriad ways libraries engage with digital inclusion.

Abstract: Governments that have legalized gambling bring in billions of dollars in revenue from this risky, harmful product, and direct a small fraction of that revenue to gambling research intended to help mitigate those harms. Most of this research is published as grey literature. I ask the following questions in three chapters: Does gambling grey literature cover topics that best help minimize harm? Is gambling grey literature reused? And is gambling grey literature rigorous?Chapter One is a systematic mapping review of 1,189 research reports from Canada and three similar countries, and reveals that governments rarely investigate the effective public health policy measures that might jeopardize gambling revenues, unless legislated to do so. Chapter Two is a citation analysis of recent gambling review articles. Despite the large body of gambling grey literature, it is underrepresented in reviews compared to other domains, and search methods fall short of best practices. Chapter Three explores gambling grey literature’s rigour through in-depth interviews with gambling researchers. We learn that gambling’s grey literature is of comparable quality to its academic publications, but also that standards of its academic publications are relatively low.In sum, gambling researchers face several barriers to producing and accessing research that will effectively prevent gambling harm and promote public health. The thesis concludes with individual- and system-level suggestions for how to improve the gambling research environment and produce higher quality research to guide ethical gambling regulation.