Results by title

Contributors: Albert Flores, Joan C. Callahan, Jill Powell, Kenneth Kipnis, Al Gini, Howard Cohen, Martin Gunderson, Joseph A. Edelheit, Michael Pritchard, Vincent J. Samar, Sohair ElBaz, William Pardue, and the editors.

Cultural humility is emerging as a preferred approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within librarianship. At a time when library workers are critically examining their professional practices, cultural humility offers a potentially transformative framework of compassionate accountability; it asks us to recognize the limits to our knowledge, reckon with our ongoing fallibility, educate ourselves about the power imbalances in our organizations, and commit to making change. This Special Report introduces the concept and outlines its core tenets. As relevant to those currently studying librarianship as it is to long-time professionals, and applicable across multiple settings including archives and museums, from this book readers will 

• learn why cultural humility offers an ideal approach for navigating the spontaneous interpersonal interactions in libraries, whether between patrons and staff or amongst staff members themselves;
• understand how it intersects with cultural competence models and critical race theory;
• see the ways in which cultural humility’s awareness of and commitment to challenging inequitable structures of power can act as a powerful catalyst for community engagement;
• come to recognize how a culturally humble approach supports DEI work by acknowledging the need for mindfulness in day-to-day interactions;
• reflect upon cultural humility’s limitations and the criticisms that some have leveled against it; and
• take away concrete tools for undertaking and continuing such work with patience and hope.

The scope and reach of information, driven by the explosive growth of information technologies and content types, has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years. The consequences of these changes to records and information management (RIM) professionals are profound, necessitating not only specialized knowledge but added responsibilities. RIM professionals require a professional ethics to guide them in their daily practice and to form a basis for developing and implementing organizational policies, and Mooradian’s new book provides a rigorous outline of such an ethics. Taking an authoritative principles/rules based approach to the subject, this book comprehensively addresses

• the structure of ethics, outlining principles, moral rules, judgements, and exceptions;
• ethical reasoning, from meaning and logic to dilemmas and decision methods;
• the ethical core of RIM, discussing key topics such as organizational context, the positive value of accountability, conflicts of interest, and confidentiality;
• important ethical concerns like copyright and intellectual property, whistleblowing, information leaks, disclosure, and privacy; and
• the relationship between RIM ethics and information governance.

• how Indigenous adages can be tools for reflection and guidance in developing cultural humility;
• the experiences of two Black librarians who are using cultural humility to change the profession;
• new perspectives on core concepts of customer service;
• rethinking policies and practices in libraries both large and small;
• using cultural humility in approaching collection development and creating resource guides;
• what cultural humility can look like for a tribal librarian working in a tribal college library; and
• reflecting on cultural humility itself and where it is going.

Risqué Business serves up the breastaurant industry, where food service, sex appeal, identity, and gender politics mix.

Risqué Business explores the rise and ongoing cultural reckoning of “breastaurants”: sports bar–style restaurants like Hooters and Twin Peaks, which have long relied on the sexualized presentation of female servers to attract a mostly straight, male clientele. Ty Matejowsky, professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida, is uniquely positioned in America’s foundational, breastaurant-saturated landscape. From this vantage, he offers a well-balanced account that draws on pop culture, media analysis, and contemporary gender politics. He delivers a smart, layered analysis of how breastaurants commodify youth and femininity, uphold retrograde masculinity, and serve as symbolic battlegrounds in today's highly charged political environments including America's deeply polarized Red State/Blue State divide.

With case studies, cultural critique, and a critical lens on labor and sexuality, Matejowsky reveals how these restaurants are more than just risqué marketing gimmicks. They reflect deeper anxieties about gender, identity, and the uneasy fusion of sex and service in American consumer culture. Risqué Business is a high-spirited study of an industry that thrives at the intersection of appetite and identity.

Intellectual freedom is a core value of librarianship, but fighting to keep controversial materials on the shelves can sometimes feel like a lonely battle. And not all censorship controversies involve the public objecting to a book in the collection—libraries are venues for displays and meetings, and sometimes library staff themselves are tempted to preemptively censor a work. Those facing censorship challenges can find support and inspiration in this book, which compiles dozens of stories from library front lines. Edifying and enlightening, this collection

• Tells the stories of librarians who withstood difficult circumstances to champion intellectual freedom
• Touches on prickly issues such as age-appropriateness, some librarians' temptation to preemptively censor, sensitive cultural expressions, and criminality in the library
• Presents case studies of defenses that were unsuccessful, so librarians facing similar challenges can learn from these defeats

There are fewer situations more stressful in a librarian's professional life than being personally confronted with a demand to remove a book from the shelves or not knowing how to respond to other kinds of censorship challenges. Reading this book will help fortify and inform those in the fray.