Competency O: Introduction
O. (For students entering from Spring 2015 onwards) Understand global perspectives on effective information practices that are supportive of cultural, economic, educational, or social well-being.
In a time where the majority of the world’s population and economies are connected across the globe, one cannot simply look to their immediate surroundings for answers or perspective. Furthermore, effective information practices can vary greatly depending on the place and culture, as how information professionals interact with patrons is often dictated by social norms. What information is valued and how it may be stored can be affected in a similar manner. but regardless of these factors, information institutions and professionals must endeavor to act with these asperations in mind:
Cultural Well-Being: practices that are supportive of cultural representation and understanding regardless of the individual or location.
Economic Well-Being: enacting respectful policies and programming that acknowledge and provide for peoples of varied socio-economic backgrounds.
Educational Well-Being: ensure equal access to educational resources and encourage communities to become educated about each other, even if separated by distance or language barriers.
Social Well-Being: cultivate opportunities for peoples of all backgrounds, and facilitate the beneficial interactions between individuals regardless of social station.
This paper is the somber analysis of the disaster that befell Rikuzentakata, Japan, and it’s local libraries. Analyzing the event, the immediate aftermath, and the recovery, the assignment was both a stark lesson in disaster planning and mitigation, as well as how the cultural principles of collective effort and historical respect can be powerful motivators in working against seemingly overwhelming odds.
This blog post details some of the opportunities and pitfalls that come with considering world-building from a global perspective. Either due to it’s recent emergence or just because of it’s current demographic, world-building information communities are largely male with a Euro-centric perspective. Because of this, there are reoccurring problematic behaviors, such as race-coding fantasy or alien races to resemble real-world people, or the misogynistic attitudes and themes that are often found in “darker” fantasy or science fiction worlds. Expanding the world-building information communities to include people across the globe provides several major opportunities. The first is that people are more likely to challenge the behaviors mentioned above because they do consider them to be normal. The second is that it can naturally increase cultural representation within world-building as people create using their own stories and histories for reference. Lastly, it can enrich the end results of world-building by seeding ideas into the world’s collective imagination that are not Euro-centric or “Tolkein-based” by nature.
Application and Conclusion
As part of both a library system and several different information communities, I think that cultivating an appreciation for the thoughts and principles of those around the globe should be a mandatory part of education. Not only does it enrich one’s own perspective, but it also challenges one’s preconceived notions about the world. Considering the interconnectedness of information and communication systems throughout the world, integrating global awareness into information practices is not only an admirable, but also responsible course of action.