Assignment X – The Hyperlinked Citizen
By epistolary_acumen
I know I am not the only one feeling unmoored right now. Delinked, if you will. In the wake of the second, and this one decisive, election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United State of America, I am watching in stunned isolation as autocratic architects work through him to dismantle our already fragile democracy.
It was just supposed to be a movie 😭
In this state of shock, I struggle to perform basic tasks in my already overloaded life. My son is in his second year of college, and my daughter is a junior in high school. Despite the fact that they are both on the precipice of adulthood, I am still a constant presence and support in their lives. The grief I feel for their stolen futures is crippling. As a single mom without any family of my own, I often feel helpless when trying to help them navigate the tumult.
Add all this to a full-time job and my sixth year of full-time education, and I am burned out. BUUUUUT, there are still two semesters to go in this degree, and I plan to get my tuition and loan interest worth out of it!
The burnout is real though, and I was struggling with how the topic I want to develop was connected to the readings for this class. I want to explore the role of public libraries in fostering civic literacy and participation, particularly in this time of declining civic engagement and increasing political polarization. Mattern recognizes the library as a “civic landmark” and has a critical place in the social infrastructure of its community (2014). I see this as an invitation for our historically apolitical institutions to serve as spaces for civic dialogue, offering classes and programs that encourage critical thinking and informed participation.
This idea of library as classroom is nothing new. In my own library, we offer workshops for teens and adults, and we offer regular English-language literacy and citizenship classes.
Stephens celebrates the commitment of libraries to education and recognizes the evidence of libraries as centers of learning (2016). He further acknowledges that libraries have kept pace with technological progress and overcome funding barriers to provide state of the art applications and knowledge for students of all ages. Mattern echoes these observations and details the evolving physical infrastructure of libraries with modular designs that allow multipurpose use for patrons and community groups (2014). Both authors speak to the efforts of libraries in disaster situations and in connecting people with social services, but a dedicated campaign for civic education and information literacy is missing.
Public libraries are uniquely positioned to educate local populations on the inner workings of their own local governments. As the Administrative Secretary for Library and Community Services, one of my critical duties is to serve as the recording secretary for the Library and Community Services Commission, a board of commissioners appointed by the city council. Even here, our representatives often fail to understand their roles and respect their responsibilities. We have struggled over the years since the pandemic to maintain a full complement of commissioners which leads to struggles with convening a quorum for every meeting. When we are convened, my carefully prepared agendas and addenda are often followed poorly and official actions can be hampered by a lack of procedural knowledge.
So, when our advocates in leadership struggle to understand the inner workings of even our local government, what more can we expect from our average citizens who find their governments to be overwhelming and inaccessible? I think that, by not taking an active role in educating their local community about how their government works, public libraries are failing in their responsibility as a resident-supported service.
Nancy Kranich, now a teaching professor at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, served as the president of the American Library Association from 2000-2001 (Nancy Carol Kranich, n.d.). In her term as president of the ALA, Kranich oversaw a theme of “Libraries: The Cornerstone of Democracy” (2024). In this role, Kranich collected a series of essays from library professionals from around the world on the topic of Libraries and Democracy (2000). These essays interrogate the application of equity versus equality (Schement, 2000), the responsibilities of librarians in “America’s Cultural Civil War” (McCabe, 2000), and how organization of data is critical to information transparency (Schuman, 2000). The emergence of the internet is a prominent character in this book of essays, and even in 2000, Kranich recognizes that the internet provides a deluge of information that overwhelms even the skilled navigator of media (Kranich, 2000).
This idea can start small. While I dream of a vast curriculum of public policy and governmental frameworks, I know that I’m part of a niche audience! Instead, I hope to develop a regular series of classes that draws consciously engaged participants who will transform and purify our local electoral community. I am also a hopeless realist who is jaded after almost thirty years of voting and bearing witness to this crumbling democracy. Maybe hopeless isn’t entirely accurate. What I think is possible is a system of linking civic participation and library patronage. Libraries can partner with both elected and appointed city officials to deliver a curriculum that reflects the system of government that controls their physical and social environments. In providing political education, libraries can empower their best advocates. The Hyperlinked Citizen.
References
Kranich, N. C. (2000). Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstone of Liberty. ALA Editions. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=3001592
Mattern, S. (2014). Library as Infrastructure. Places Journal. https://doi.org/10.22269/140609
McCabe, R. B. (2000). Civic Librarianship. In N. C. Kranich (Ed.), Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstone of Liberty. ALA Editions. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=3001592
Schement, J. R. (2000). Imagining Fairness Equality and Equity of Access in Search of Democracy. In N. C. Kranich (Ed.), Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstone of Liberty. ALA Editions. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=3001592
Schuman, P. G. (2000). Advocating for America’s Right to Know. In N. C. Kranich (Ed.), Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstone of Liberty. ALA Editions. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=3001592
Stephens, M. (2016). The Heart of Librarianship. American Library Association.
2 thoughts on “Assignment X – The Hyperlinked Citizen”
This is a powerful post. I hear you; it’s very hard to feel optimistic about anything when I watch what’s happening to our country–and which millions of people voted for! I’m also taking INFO 254: Information Literacy and Learning, and there’s a definite lack of guidance and frameworks for information literacy in the public library when I compare it to academic libraries and the ACRL. It does happen, but I don’t need to tell you how painstaking and slow it is, or how some who most need to learn it will also be least likely to come into the library to get it. I have to imagine that there are many people (potential hyperlinked citizens!) who want to learn and want to do better, and those are the ones to focus on; otherwise, what’s the point?
Thank you though, for your fortitude and your public service. Those meetings sound frustrating, but it also sounds like you know your most important work will be reaching out to the public and inviting them to participate anyway.
Thank you so much! I think a lot of those millions are going to have their lives devastated by this administration. They will need somewhere to turn, and I am hoping against hope that we can capture them and offer them a non-judgemental introduction to information literacy.