Words That Start With E: Why Librarians Should Fight Climate Change and Climate Change Denial

Authors

  • Jennifer McDevitt University of Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/pathfinder8

Keywords:

climate change, social responsibility, disinformation, sustainability, collective action

Abstract

Ecology, economy, equity. Exemplars, educators, enablers. Librarianship centres around the values of
community-building, access to information, and advocating for the public good, and so librarians are
poised to be leaders when it comes to environmentally-friendly and sustainable practices and policies.
Our commitment to intellectual freedom demands that we ensure facts about climate change reach the
public, while social responsibility asks that we consider the harm that can be done by the spread of
disinformation like climate change denial—the kind of harm that has led to the devastating, irreversible
circumstances we’re in today. To ensure there will continue to be a community for libraries to serve,
librarians must allow sustainability to underpin all their choices, especially with regard to educating the
public, devaluing disinformation, and advocating for concrete collective action.

Cover page for the special edition conference proceedings of the 2020 Forum for Information Professionals.

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Published

2020-03-27

How to Cite

McDevitt, J. (2020). Words That Start With E: Why Librarians Should Fight Climate Change and Climate Change Denial. Pathfinder: A Canadian Journal for Information Science Students and Early Career Professionals, 1(1), 10–16. https://doi.org/10.29173/pathfinder8

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2020): Proceedings of the 2020 Forum for Information Professionals: There and Back Again: Resilience and Libraries

Section

FIP Extended Abstracts

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Jennifer McDevitt

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