the ideal opportunity to produce the content.


“The outputs consist of a series of materials, including ten videos, a comprehensive literature review, as well as infographics, discussing key aspects of advocacy and professional ethics in librarianship. We discuss advocacy from the point of view of the tools of rheto- ric, as well as theories of ethics, leading thinkers in library ethics, and key ethical issues in librarianship, such as privacy, freedom of expression. All materials are made available free on a Creative Commons license, so I’m hoping it will be engaged with by as many people as possible to support their work.” For David, the idea is that advocacy should not be an afterthought – but rather a core part of how information professionals go about their job. There are occasions when it takes a less formal appearance, but to be truly effective advo- cates need to consider their advocacy and the results they are hoping to achieve. Part of that advocacy is about having a clearer understanding of why libraries exist and what purpose they serve. In many ways, libraries can be seen as victims of their own success – books and reading are universally positive, but they barely scratch the surface of why a library exists. David says: “Libraries are essential bulwarks for key rights that cit- izens should expect to be supported by a liberal democracy. Equity of access to information, freedom of expression, pri- vacy, all are crucial elements of library ethics and values. These are, at their core, some of the fundamental issues we advocate for libraries on.


October-November 2023


David McMenemy. Photo: SLIC © Alan Richardson Pix-AR.co.uk


“These are all very deep issues that the profession needs to engage with more, both in terms of how often we do so collec- tively, but also with how many people in the profession are given the opportunity. For instance, most of the workforce do so if they are lucky enough to attend library school, but there’s no guarantee of this. More importantly those who have not followed a formal qualification in librarian- ship may not ever get the chance. The materials for REVEAL provide this oppor- tunity for anyone and everyone.” David says that there should be nuance in the arguments being made for libraries, adding: “I see some attempts at advocacy on these vital issues that are profoundly unse- rious, and that lack of seriousness and deep engagement with very important human rights makes us look trivial, in my view.” He goes on to point out that: “I saw an article earlier this year where the message was ‘Libraries don’t censor!’ Well, it might sound good as a soundbite, but it’s also not correct. Sometimes libraries do censor, as part of their selection criteria, or to satisfy conventional mores.


“Asheim’s seminal article from 1953 (dis-


cussed in the REVEAL literature review) highlighted that this is a very important area to be mindful of, the cross-over from selector to censor. It’s very complex, and it is done no justice at all by soundbites that might curry favour on social media for five minutes, but actually devalue that very important societal role of the librarians as selectors for their communities. As I said earlier, it looks unserious to the outsider, when in actuality it is profoundly serious.” David adds that “understanding the core ethical arguments for the human rights we claim to support seems to me to be a funda- mental jumping off point for our advocacy,” before welcoming CILIP’s recent guidance, Managing Safe and Inclusive Public Li- brary Services. “CILIP’s Safe and Inclusive... is a very important and timely publication, and the work for REVEAL complements it well, I think. The REVEAL materials provide some of the deeper elements of the argu- ments that support the recommendations in Safe and Inclusive..., and also include some useful techniques that can be added to the techniques suggested in the publi- cation.


INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 35


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