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Never has the value of our academic libraries been more essential than in the age of Trump.
Never have our academic librarians been more essential to the core educational, discovery, and service mission of our institutions as during the current political climate.
Never has it been more important that those of us outside of the library, and especially for those of us in higher ed technology, to do whatever we can to support our academic libraries and our academic librarians.
This all became clear and urgent to me after reading Barbara Fister's piece, The Media Has Always Been the Opposition Party.
It makes sense that an academic librarian is standing up for values of a free press and free speech, as the profession and the discipline of academic librarians is built around a core set of values.
I’ve long thought that those of us in the higher education technology world can learn a great deal from our librarian colleagues in their insistence of articulating, and then doggedly following, a set of clearly stated principles.
The values espoused by academic librarians that seem particularly critical to guide all of our actions and behaviors in higher ed during the Trump presidency can be found in the Association of College & Research Libraries statement on Intellectual Freedom Principles. There is a wonderful pdf of these principles that is suitable for tacking up to an office door.
The 3 principles from the ACRL that I think are most relevant to all of us in higher education in the Trump era include:
- The privacy of library users is and must be inviolable.
- In the interests of research and learning, it is essential that collections contain materials representing a variety of perspectives on subjects that may be considered controversial.
- A service philosophy should be promoted that affords equal access to information for all in the academic community with no discrimination on the basis of race, values, gender, sexual orientation, cultural or ethnic background, physical or learning disability, economic status, religious beliefs, or views.
As a higher ed technology guy (and an ex-professor), I feel that I'm on pretty firm ground in saying that the moral center of gravity in higher education resides in our academic libraries.
In the weeks and months to come we in higher education will be called upon to make a set of principled stands. We would do well to learn from our academic library colleagues how they have stood up to unreasonable government requests and the pressures of popular opinion. We would do well to understand how academic librarians have put values at the center of all their policies and actions.
Those of us who work at the intersection of technology and education would particularly benefit from any opportunities that we might have to learn from our academic library colleagues. This is a time when we can clearly articulate a set of values in academic IT, and then enact policies that align to those values.
If we are to follow our colleagues in the library, then those values will go beyond a narrow conception of the role of higher ed IT, and encompass the larger societal values that are so well captured in the ACRL Statement of Principles.
How can those of us higher ed IT and digital education most effectively learn from, and provide support for, our academic library colleagues?
How can we all follow the example of our academic libraries, and put our values at the center of all of our work?
