The Sixteenth International Conference on Books, Publishing & Libraries

Abstract

Public libraries are institutions of informal education. Librarians, as educators of informal education, are advocates of literacy in both formal and informal educational settings. However advocacy is just one layer of librarian epistemology in libraries. In public library settings, in particular, librarian epistemologies are interactive and intertextual. That is to say; that from a social practice perspective, such epistemologies are social, cultural, literary, digital, as well as educative. These epistemologies (as in ways of knowing in a certain place and time) are common across the public library sector, but unique and specific to public libraries located in specific places at specific times. For librarians who serve libraries in low-income communities, such epistemologies are indeed intertextual and intersect in various ways. In these communities, social practices inside library walls are informed by social literacies beyond library walls thus suggesting an understanding that begs a few questions: what are the epistemologies of public librarians? What counts as literacy for the librarian? What counts as social? literary? cultural? One overarching question can be: what makes a librarian socially literate in the community in which he/she serves? Drawing on Bartlett & Holland’s (2002) concept of “figured worlds,” the question of librarians’ “literacy identities in relation to social structures and cultural worlds” begs exploration towards an answer (p. 12).