This next year is going to be full of opportunities. Before I get into it, I wanted to sketch out some ideas and keep them here for a quick reference.
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Libraries provide access to information and to activities around information (searching, evaluating, using, etc.). This is one of our central values. It is disturbing to see a large segment of the country invested in a "post-truth" culture that effectively undermines the value of information. Disagreements are no longer based on interpretations of the objective data. Each side in a wide range of arguments distrusts the other side's sources as well as their methods of evaluating data.
The degree of consensus within the scientific community on things like climate change (>97% of scientists who study climate) means nothing if the expertise of the scientific community itself is not valued. Scientific support for ideas such as separate genetic origins for gender and biological sex or the value of diversity don't stand up to knee-jerk "common sense" (otherwise known as "what we believe because we've always believed it"). I'm showing my own biases here, but my central point is still intact: Information means very little when anything we don't like is immediately dismissed as "Fake News." Federal funding is on the chopping block. Facts are subject to individual prejudice. Critical thought is undervalued. Inclusiveness is a leftist plot. "Black Lives Matter" is radical propaganda. What is to become of public libraries--champions of information literacy, diversity, and community--in this environment? At the end of a chain of admittedly paranoid logic, as government entities, we would either be used for State propaganda or dissolved. I have no answers. I'm willing to keep pushing the boulder up the hill, to do the right thing as best I can on a daily basis, but these days are getting darker fast. |
AuthorJeffrey Babbitt, MLIS, is a graduate of the School of Library and Information Science at Wayne State University who is pursuing a career as a librarian in Michigan. Subject Headings
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June 2021
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