University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Access Is not problem solving: Disability justice and libraries

Kumbier,Alana; Starkey, Julia

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89855

Description

Title
Access Is not problem solving: Disability justice and libraries
Author(s)
  • Kumbier,Alana
  • Starkey, Julia
Issue Date
2016
Keyword(s)
  • Librarianship--Core Values
  • Librarianship--Theory and Practice
  • Library Profession
Abstract
In this paper we advocate for an understanding of access that both responds to the pragmatic needs of the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (to guide professional practice and education) and helps librarians and library workers imagine how we might transform the systems, beliefs, and practices that make libraries and the profession inaccessible and inequitable. We are interested in expanding our shared understanding of access so that it includes a professional ethic of accessibility, justice, and collaboration. We bring to this argument a set of knowledges, experiences, beliefs, and politics that inform our understanding of what access is and what it could be. Specifically, our understanding of access and accessibility is shaped by our participation in disability justice activism, disability studies communities, and our personal experience. We suggest that thinking in solidarity with disability justice movements can be beneficial to all of us: librarians, library workers, and our communities of users; those of us with disabilities; those of us who are living without illnesses or disabilities; and those of us who move between disabled, ill and not.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89855
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2016.0004
Copyright and License Information
Copyright (2016) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 64 (3) Winter 2016: Valuing Librarianship: Core Values in Theory and Practice PRIMARY
Library Trends 64 (3) Winter 2016: Valuing Librarianship: Core Values in Theory and Practice edited by Selinda A. Berg and Heidi LM Jacobs, University of Windsor.