Unfortunately, Yes. It is Happening.

By Lisa Bogart

Last December, at the end of a New Jersey Library Association College and University Section (NJLA-CUS) meeting, Gary Marks, who is the president of the association and a librarian at William Paterson University, asked the small group if we knew of anyone interested in serving on a new task force. Called the Rapid Response Team, it is a joint effort between primarily k-12 librarians who belong to the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL) and NJLA-CUS.  The purpose is to provide a support team around libraries and librarians who are going through book challenges and bans.

I immediately volunteered.  Why? Having already witnessed a highly publicized book challenge at the public library in my hometown, I saw the damage, expense, and stress these situations caused. I had already learned of a life-long friendship lost due to an attempt at challenging a book, along with reading about a local school librarian who lost her job.  And, there has been a great deal of attention paid to nationally recognized librarian Martha Hickson and the North Hunterdon-Voorhees (NHV) High School district.

The book challengers in my hometown started as a group of four people, with only one resident carrying through the book challenge to its conclusion.  This person’s children are all adults and don’t live in town. The library and its board had to incur lawyer’s fees, reschedule and change meeting sites, developed an entire public relations campaign including printed lawn and hand signs.  A very time consuming and costly effort with only one person ultimately behind the challenge. The challenged titles remained on the shelves!!

I was immediately in the deep end of the pool as soon as I volunteered and was accepted as a Rapid Response Team member.  While a formal complaint had yet to be made, a rather vicious effort had already begun to remove Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan’s Let’s Talk About It from the NHV library’s shelves.  The book is a highly recommended title aimed at teens, with very frank discussions about sexuality, an adolescence’s rapidly changing body, and the different types of sex people have.

And, for the third time in as many years, the winner of the 2022 American Library Association’s Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity, Martha Hickson, was in the middle of this divisive challenge.

After sending out information about the challenge and the date of the next NHV Board of education meeting, I was introduced to some of the other librarians involved in supporting the right to read, and more importantly, protecting students’ first amendment rights. And then I went to the NHV Board of Education meeting in January.

Wow! The support for the book and for librarian Martha Hickson, far outweighed the naysayers.  Audience members were given three minutes to state their position.  And, many audience members took advantage of the comments’ period, with the Board of Ed extending the time to about 9:30 pm.

I heard a lot from both sides of the issue. For me, the bottom line is that I would much rather have a teen learn about their sexuality and body changes through a source that has already been vetted by the librarian and comes with many recommendations. Kids will go and find this information out anyway, wherever they can.  And frankly, the internet is likely to be the first place they explore.  Of course, “ALL” of the information on the internet is 100% correct and informative…NOT.

I needed to add my two cents to the discussion.  I jumped in with both of my feet and used an analogy about going to the grocery store.  When I shop at my local supermarket, there are items on the shelves and in the coolers that I wouldn’t dream of buying for any number of reasons.  But there are also plenty of items that I do want to include in my daily diet and am happy to be able to acquire them there. It’s very similar to a library: borrow and read what you like and leave the rest.

Next efforts were focused on getting State Senators Andy Zwicker and Teresa Ruiz’s bill, the “Freedom to Read Act” enough traction to pass both houses of the New Jersey Legislature. The bill is intended to establish requirements for reading materials in both public and school libraries.  The bill is also meant to protect librarians from harassment.

Unfortunately, the bill is still languishing despite efforts to move it to the State House floor and begin the voting procedures. I am hopeful yet that this bill will become law, allowing New Jersey to uphold students’ freedom and right to read.  And just as importantly, to provide protections to the librarians, such as Martha Hickson, who suffer personal verbal abuse, harassment and even bullying.

Because of my small efforts, and I think even more so my passion about protecting the freedom to read, I was invited to join a Social Justice Symposium panel on February 27 on the subject of Historical Trends in Book Banning.  I focused primarily on the efforts of the Rapid Response Team and that as librarians, we can be fierce, vocal and knowledgeable in keeping books on the shelves.  The Symposium is hosted by Hudson County Community College, but its speakers and audience is diverse and are literally from all over the country.  We had about 450 people join us for the panel discussion.

Efforts to keep books on library shelves in New Jersey are ongoing.  On February 13, the informal challenge to Let’s Talk About It, became formal.  And on Tuesday, May 7^th, the NHV Board of Education will hear comments about the formal book challenge.  I plan on being there!

Efforts are continuing to draw additional support for the “Freedom to Read” bill.  I am having trouble understanding why this important piece of legislation is languishing.  And, then I start looking at some of the political make-up of our state legislators.  Nearly always a strong blue state (Democratic), there still are some pockets of mildly and far right representatives in Trenton.  And, that is where the issue lays tangled up.

Keeping up the good fight!!

Lisa Bogart is the Director of NHC Library at Hudson County Community College. She can be reached at lbogart@hccc.edu.

EdPuzzle is a downloadable app in Canvas (as well as many other LMSs) and is free. Also, they have a great training program on how to use EdPuzzle, and its features work well for creating asynchronous video sessions on information literacy for students. YouTube was recommended by our Office of Information Technology and eLearning departments because of its ability to caption videos and auto-translate the captions into multiple languages. It also works seamlessly with EdPuzzle. A win/win for us.

We used EdPuzzle and YouTube with PowerPoint to create a series of short videos, rather than a single, longer version. This was done both to keep our student’s attention and because making edits or other changes was easier after the program launched.

Some PowerPoint features that streamlined the process include the ability to add screen recordings with the click of a button to mimic in-person sessions and to demonstrate how to log onto databases from off-campus or how to run a search using the library databases. You can record audio for each slide individually; this way if there is a change, you only have to change the one slide, not the whole video. After the presentation is created with the design, text, audio, and any screen recordings, all that is needed is to record the slideshow and save as a video.

The final step is downloading the video to YouTube while auto-syncing the closed-captions. After that is done, it is recommended that your edit the closed-captions for accuracy. Once that is complete then it is just a matter of selecting which languages you want the captions translated into. We also added a note for students that the translations are autogenerated so we cannot guarantee accuracy.

In summary, EdPuzzle works seamlessly with YouTube and Canvas (as well as other LMSs). You can add the YouTube video by copying/pasting the link. To ensure students watch the entire video, there is an option to disable the video skip function. Within the video, you can add extra comments or notes as well as multiple-choice and open-ended questions to create an assessment. EdPuzzle will track and analyze the results. If you download the EdPuzzle app into your college’s LMS then you can easily add these videos as an assignment and track student progress.

Springshare was used to create the pre-assessment to keep track of the answers and grades for each pre-assessment. This pre-assessment was easily uploaded into our LMS as a requirement before starting the videos.

The biggest issue was the learning curve of EdPuzzle and developing a process to work with all of the moving parts. Also, since things change often, we wanted to ensure that any changes or edits to the videos could easily be done without having to recreate the entire project.

Once the process was developed, implementation became more efficient. This included making edits and updates, creating asynchronous information literacy sessions with closed-captions and translations, and developing a logical assessment tool.

Improvement does not always need significant budget dollars. You just need to be a little creative.

Click the following link to learn more about Camden County College Library: https://libguides.camdencc.edu/CCCLibrary

Lori Lenox, MLIS, is the Information Literacy Librarian at Camden County College. She can be reached at llenox@camdencc.edu.

By Drew Wallace, Justin Savage, and Catherine Baird

If you identify as a librarian practitioner-researcher, you may be selecting research topics based on your practice as a library professional. In order to deepen your research practice, consider incorporating elements of reflection in your work. For example, if your research is tackling a problem you are seeing in your work, such as understanding student information literacy practices, you may begin by describing the problem you see.

Tobelynn Birch recommends several reflective questions (see step one/page 17) to help with reflection during this stage of the research process:

• “How will researching this problem improve my practice? My library's practice? The profession?
• What do I feel about this problem? What are my motives for doing this study?
• Are there ethical, moral, or political issues that should be explored?”

By examining your research problem from these personal starting points, you can expand your research practice. You can continue to use reflection throughout the research process (see Tobelynn’s other slides), in particular, when selecting a research methodology. It was nearly 10 years ago that Halpern, Eaker, Jackson, and Bouqin wrote #DitchtheSurvey, Expanding Methodological Diversity in LIS Research, yet we still see many library researchers relying heavily on survey research. Part of your reflection process includes matching your research question with the best methodology. Will interviews or focus groups be a better way to help you answer your research questions? What about ethnography, a case study, or a quasi-experimental study?

Scholarship as Critical Conversation

As an LIS scholar, you may discover that the epistemic distance between yourself as practitioner-researcher and your object of inquiry is much less than in other disciplines. Library classrooms, service desks, and archives function as sites of exploration, observation, knowledge production, and application through which we closely engage with our research interests. While LIS scholars have generally adopted the social scientist’s toolkit and mode of inquiry, there are limitations to this approach that can undermine both our practical goals and the perceived legitimacy of our scholarship. For example, conceptualizing an LIS research project often involves “walking the epistemic tightrope” on which too much distance from our object of inquiry can obscure our view of it, whereas too little distance may call into question our objectivity.

What if, rather than merely imitating the social sciences (which in turn seek to imitate the natural sciences), we embraced these apparent contradictions in LIS scholarship along with our distinct positionality as practitioner-researchers? The ACRL Framework offers a compelling starting point for exploring new modes of inquiry through the concept of “Scholarship as Conversation.” Two recent articles in the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies invert the metaphor to demonstrate, in a very literal sense, how scholarship is grounded in conversation and how conversation can become scholarship. These texts highlight the ways in which unlearning some of our deepest assumptions about what something is- LIS research as a positivist application of social science techniques- can help us discover new ways of understanding and engaging with our research interests.

In Process and Relationship, Cowan and Van Leeuwen record a telephone conversation about their research practices as they walk towards one another from opposite sides of campus. Throughout their journey, themes such as “research as collage” emerged in their conversation through the embodied experience of simply noticing the changes in scenery. In Thinking Categorically, Greenshields and Zvyagintseva invoke feminist research methods to structure their conversation about the role and status of LIS scholarship in the neoliberal academy and highlight the scholarly value of their subjective identities and experiences (i.e. gendered, racialized, etc.) in contrast to positivist notions of scholarly objectivity. Both articles employ a clever didactic approach, demonstrating the value of conversation as a scholarly practice while simultaneously using the transcript itself as a medium for communicating this value.

Critical Metascience and LIS Research

Like many others, the field of library and information science is built on a foundation of rigorous, practitioner-focused research. But what if the very tools and practices we use to evaluate this research need reevaluation themselves? This is the driving force behind the concept of critical metascience, essentially a reflection on the scholarly conversation itself.

Critical metascience takes a step back to analyze the methodologies and assumptions underlying scientific research. It explores issues like the replication crisis, a phenomenon that describes how many published findings have not been successfully reproduced by other researchers in major fields like psychology and biomedicine, for example. Critical metascience challenges the traditional notion of scientific progress and calls for a more critical approach to research evaluation.

In many ways, the critical metascience approach can inform LIS research. By understanding the limitations of research, we can better equip students to critically evaluate information. By investigating our own assumptions, LIS researchers can design studies that are more robust and replicable. As research practices continue to evolve, libraries and librarians can assume a leading role in data management and open science initiatives. Critical metascience isn't about dismantling research, but about strengthening it. By embracing this approach, LIS professionals can play a key role in ensuring the integrity and advancement of research across all disciplines.

For those interested in learning more about critical metascience, Mark Rubin's website provides a starting point with a curated list of articles exploring critical perspectives on research practices, open science, and replication.

Also, check out episode 168 of the Everything Hertz, the Retraction Watch blog, and, if you have a spare 3.5 hours, the Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement Symposium from the Center for Open Science. 

Reflection and dialogue can contribute to your identity development as a researcher and have an important impact on your work. As colleagues, we often lean on each other for these experiences and invite you to do the same. If you find yourself without such a colleague, feel free to connect with one of us!

Drew Wallace is a Research and Instruction Librarian at Montclair State University. He can be reached at wallaced@montclair.edu. 

Justin Savage is the Research and Reference Librarian at Montclair State University. He can be reached at savagej@montclair.edu.

Catherine Baird is the Online and Outreach Services Librarian at Montclair State University. She can be reached at bairdc@montclair.edu.