INFO 558: Social Justice in Information Services

This course considers the ethical issues that arise in serving diverse user groups and their members, including but not limited to, children, women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, the poor, ethnic groups, and Indigenous peoples. Differing information needs and ways of knowing are considered. The role of library and information professionals in promoting and supporting the rights of such groups to access and control information is emphasized. The course explores the ways in which groups of persons may be knowers and what information rights this knowledge might give them, within groups defined by their ethnic or cultural origin, e,g., indigenous peoples, ethnic and racial groups. In addition, libraries and other information services can be designed so as to foster the development and preservation of group knowledge and respect for group information rights.