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dc.contributor.authorDudley, Michael
dc.contributor.authorWright, John
dc.date.accessioned2023-04-24T21:40:24Z
dc.date.available2023-04-24T21:40:24Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.identifier.citationDudley, Michael and John Wright. "The Role of Multidimensional Library Neutrality in Advancing Social Justice: Adapting Theoretical Foundations from Political Science and Urban Planning." The Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy 7 no. 3, (Fall 2022).en_US
dc.identifier.issn2474-7459
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10680/2068
dc.description.abstractThere is an ongoing, polarizing debate in the library profession and scholarship regarding the perceived incompatibility between library neutrality (embedded in the profession through the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights), and social justice goals. This article asserts that the growing antipathy on the part of some library practitioners and scholars towards neutrality and intellectual freedom is owed at least in part to the profession and scholarship having never articulated an adequate definition of what is meant by neutrality. As a result, the profession lacks a theoretical framework situating the library and library staff as political actors within a multicultural and largely urban society. We argue that such a framework may be drawn from the literatures of political science and urban planning. By positioning libraries and library workers within the context of liberal-democratic institutions – as is the case for urban planners in their theoretical literature – LIS theory can find more durable foundations for its core values. Stressing planning’s commitments to the participation of multiple publics, to dialogue, mediation and to consensus-building through liberal institutions, we develop a multidimensional understanding of neutrality premised on values, stakeholders, processes and goals which we then apply to these planning modes. Finally, we propose a model of “Communicative Librarianship” as best exemplifying these four dimensions of neutrality and their attendant democratic commitments.en_US
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessen_US
dc.subjectIntellectual freedom, library neutrality, city planning, political scienceen_US
dc.titleThe Role of Multidimensional Library Neutrality in Advancing Social Justice: Adapting Theoretical Foundations from Political Science and Urban Planningen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.5860/jifp.v7i3.7840en_US


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