2022 Acquisitions Institute Keynote
Dr. Andrea Jamison
Balancing Acts: Censorship, Equity, and Freedom
Safeguarding libraries against censorship during a time where politically charged book challenges aim to suppress the ideas of marginalized communities is paramount. Libraries are considered a “cradle” of democracy. To maintain our commitment to equitable library services, librarians must interrogate the role that policies play in the selection, reconsideration, and removal of library materials. This keynote presentation is a call to action and will encourage librarians to actively fight against censorship and diversity inequities through the development of policies that espouse core library values. Dr. Jamison will also discuss the historical role of libraries in fighting against censorship and injustice along with an urgency to continue serving as an institution of change.
Andrea Jamison
Dr. Andrea Jamison is an Assistant Professor of Librarianship at Illinois State University. Professor Jamison has more than 17 years of experience working in the field of education and libraries. She speaks internationally on library inclusivity, intellectual freedom, and the interplay of race, power, and privilege in children’s books. Her research involves examining equity issues in library services and the role that libraries play in either perpetuating or mitigating systems of inequity. Professor Jamison has conducted content analyses on hundreds of collection development policies to determine how policies address diversity and how they align with ALA’s Bill of Rights. She has written articles on these topics for Knowledge Quest, American Libraries Magazine, The Library Assessment Conference, and ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom Blog. Currently, she is under contract to write a book for Beta Phi Mu’s International Honor Society’s Scholars Series on leverage equity in libraries.
Professor Jamison received her Master of Teaching from Concordia University and her Master of Library Science and Ph.D. in Information Studies from Dominican University School of Library and Information Science in River Forest, Illinois. Currently, she is the immediate past chair for ALA’s Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable, which promotes multiculturalism in librarianship, and a library ambassador for Lee and Low Books. She also chaired the 2018 working group that revised ALA’s Library Bill of Rights for Diverse Library Collections.