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In a study of the information behaviors of graduate students enrolled in an online Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program, it was determined that learners engage in threaded discussions not only for cognitive purposes but for affective reasons as well. The information sharing among students was particularly prolific during a session in which medical ailments and information were discussed. Data were collected from an asynchronous class in a graduate LIS program, and were examined through learner/context analysis and textual analysis. This study used syllabi, course construction, specific assignments and requirements, and other details that contribute to the totality of the learning environment. Specific attention was given to the threaded discussions assigned in the class. This data provided insight into the students' activities and learning during 15 weeks, and enhanced the overall context for the small world that develops within an online learning community. Students connected with their peers and instructor through copious exchanges of information during which a concerted and consistent effort was made to connect with one another by using personal names, engaging in humor and joke-telling, using emoticons, and expressing support and empathy.

Librarians and information professionals need to be reflective practitioners who can analyze, understand, and communicate in culturally competent ways about social justice. This study analyzes the output of student responses to the assignment to record a video social justice story in four graduate library and information science (LIS) courses. Qualitative analysis reveals patterns of "calling out injustice" and "calling in the audience" that reflect students' social justice storytelling and that demonstrate abilities to engage and provoke audiences. The findings show that social justice topics in LIS are amenable to a variety of narrative strategies. Future LIS research should look more deeply at what students learn through assignments like these and how this pedagogy should affect ongoing social justice storytelling by library professionals. Teaching LIS students to be social justice storytellers is an important way of continuing to push the field to "walk the talk" of diversity and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These numbers are up only slightly for African Americans, which made up 3.2% of LIS faculty according to the 2012 report. "Considering the Ethnoracial and Gender Diversity of Faculty in United States College and University Intellectual Communities." "The Virtuous Circle: Increasing Diversity in LIS Faculties to Create More Inclusive Library Services and Outreach.". [Extracted from the article]

This study analyzes a lengthy online discussion thread about racial microaggressions in a social media group for librarians to find out how library and information science (LIS) professionals define and discuss microaggressions through informal conversation. The findings reveal that there are multiple and conflicting understandings of microaggressions, along with significant gaps in knowledge regarding how microaggressions relate to larger systems of power and privilege. This research has implications for LIS educators and for the professional development of LIS practitioners, underscoring the further need to actively teach about microaggressions in the context of power and privilege in the LIS classroom and in continuing education settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are calls for new paradigms within the profession, there are also existing subgenres that fit this bill if they would be fully acknowledged. This essay argues that underrepresented and otherwise marginalized scholars have already produced significant work within social, cultural, and community‐oriented paradigms; social justice and advocacy; and, diversity, equity, and inclusion. This work has not been sufficiently valued or promoted. Furthermore, the surrounding structural conditions have resulted in the dismissal, violently reviewed and rejected, and erased work of underrepresented scholars, and the stigmatization and delegitimization of their work. These scholars are "outsiders‐within‐LIS." By identifying the outsiders‐within‐LIS through the frame of standpoint theories, the authors are suggesting that a new paradigm does not need to be created; rather, an existing paradigm needs to be recognized and reprioritized. This reprioritized paradigm of critical sociocultural work has and will continue to creatively enrich and expand the field and decolonize LIS curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of library and information science (LIS) has long struggled with issues of diversity and inclusion in the composition of information professionals, in educational content, and in connecting with many communities. Yet the field has also produced many innovative approaches to meeting unique community needs and incorporating issues of justice, rights, and equity into educational activities. Although these approaches rarely connect education and advocacy, connecting these two can both facilitate better sharing of best practices in these areas and enable the educational and professional efforts of the field to better complement one another. Building on the "virtuous circle" concept that a truly effective focus on inclusion in the field will require involvement of both educators and professionals, this article offers a series of cases from LIS education programs and information institutions focusing on intersecting issues of diversity, inclusion, rights, justice, and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about public talks and workshops in the spring of 2019, had the pleasure of talking to quite a few youth services librarians about equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and why it matters in librarianship. Topics discussed include librarian not really understanding how to promote diverse materials; how to promote diverse books to their predominantly white community; and library professionals should ideally be culturally competent when working with communities.

In a case study examining a library and information science graduate curriculum, 18 graduate students engaged in a comprehensive diversity audit of the School of Information Sciences curriculum. The diversity audit was a student-generated review of 108 syllabi and permitted students to engage in an action-learning project that benefited the school and allowed them, and the school's faculty, to see firsthand why diversity and cultural competence are important facets of library and information science curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that in fall 2021, Cooke and Valerie Byrd Fort from the South Carolina Center for Community Literacy introduced the virtual program the Augusta Baker Storytelling Experience: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programming for Children of All Ages (AB Kids). It mentions that the AB Kids team looks forward to offering more programs in the fall of 2022, focusing on a range of diversity-related issues.

Using a social justice framework, we discuss our experiences as faculty members of color working in Library and Information Science (LIS). We present our educational trajectories as well as our professional engagement with teaching, research, and service. This piece contributes to the growing literature on diversity in LIS by articulating African American and Latina perspectives of academia, which are underrepresented demographics in LIS and more generally in higher education in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]