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While not a brand new phenomenon, online social networking sites continue to be exceedingly popular and seem to be where students spend much of their time. Not only are participants blogging, texting, chatting, sharing files, gaming, and existing virtually online, they also are forming communities and new cultures and exhibiting new informational needs. While this may be intimidating, librarians, particularly those in public services, need to be aware of these sites and be open-minded to the possibility of offering traditional library services via these new online mechanisms. The sites reviewed in this column have been selected as quality examples of social networking sites that have great potential for use within libraries, enabling library professionals to better collaborate with one another and reach out to patrons. Specifically, the reviews address sites offering conferencing and general networking opportunities. [For part II, see EJ877364 .]

With the vastness of the Internet ever increasing, it is likely that busy, time-deprived librarians may not stumble upon valuable sites that may actually facilitate their organizational efforts and eventually save them time and energy, especially energy exerted prioritizing tasks and working in groups or other collaborative projects. This column reviews sites that have been selected as premier examples of online calendars, scheduling tools, and project management tools that will enable librarians to better manage and share their daily professional tasks and successfully collaborate with colleagues. (Contains 7 online resources.)

This essay aims to take an introspective look into soft censorship’s complexities and demonstrate how conforming to the ideals of soft censorship makes libraries perpetrators of implicit bias. It begins by defining the concept of book banning before delving into its long and complicated history, which dates back to 212 BCE. By initially looking back at the chronology of book banning, the authors aimed to make a case for how the practice of book banning has continuously been a concerted effort to whitewash and sugarcoat history and to continue dismantling our public educational institutions. The essay dives into disseminating implicit bias through soft censorship in libraries and information sciences. The authors justify how soft censorship directly undermines the intellectual freedoms of library users and readers and demonstrate how, by engaging in soft censorship, libraries are not only perpetrators of implicit bias but are also catalysts of inequity within their institutions. The essay then gives readers a step-by-step guide on resisting censorship in their respective roles. After that, it urges readers to take action and concludes with an important message emphasizing the need for a cultural approach to combat censorship. By doing so, we can begin dismantling the inequities plaguing the library and information science field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though distance education has a long and diverse history, dating back to 1840, in the last ten-to-fifteen years it has been completely transformed by the emergence of Web-based technology. This technology has had an enormous impact on all aspects of distance education (or distance learning as it is increasingly called). In addition to palpable changes in the teaching and learning processes, library and other support services are also being challenged by change. This paper will provide a brief account and analysis of the impact of Web technology on distance education, as well as its impact on the role of library services for distance learners. (Contains 28 notes.)

The opportunity to expand pedagogy is an especially good thing for library educators, particularly when library professionals do not have formal training as teachers and instructors. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our students to grow intellectually and share growth and new knowledge with others. We should be promoting and practicing critical self-reflection and thinking critically about and even critiquing the information we consume and the sources from which it originates. This is an ongoing and iterative process that requires that we consistently read and remain abreast of new and interdisciplinary ideas that can challenge and inform our practice. This perspective essay details my personal journey of critical self-reflection, or conocimiento, that facilitated the strengthening and deepening of my critical library instruction and pedagogy. [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]