Social Justice Leaders

• Sanford Berman: Radical Librarian

Throughout his career as a librarian and now into his retirement, Sanford Berman has been a life long advocate of social justice causes. He has campaigned tirelessly for subject headings to be changed, for additional cross references in catalogs, for fines to be discontinued along with a host of other causes. Trying to comb through all the writings by and about Berman is nearly impossible as for the last 30 plus years Berman has been incredibly prolific. He publishes, frequently in journals both in and out of the library science field, gives several talks each year, is a member of dozens of organizations and associations and writes dozens of letters to friends, supporters, peers and dozens of others in the library world in hopes of making the changes that he has worked for so many years.

One of his most well known causes is his decades long conflict with the Library of Congress and the LC Subject Headings. Like many librarians, Berman has realized that most of the LC subject headings are archaic, offensive to some and usually difficult for the average user to understand. What Berman has done that no other librarians had before thought to do was to not only challenge LC but then to CREATE his own subject headings, independently of LC. While many have called this heresy, others have realized that Berman had made an extremely important step in the future of librarianship and social justice. He gave activist librarians a chance to express their views and an outlet, (proposed changes to the LCSH) for their work.

But the wonderful thing about Sanford Berman is that he did not contain his activism to cataloguing and problems associated with cataloguing. In his later years, he has moved on to campaigning against using fines in the public library as a source of revenue. In many different venues, Berman has argued that fines, especially for children, prohibit low income children from using the library. Since about 20% of children in the United States live at or below the poverty line, (this number is much higher among minorities) juvenile fines potentially prohibit more than 20% of the children in the U.S. from using the library. Berman argues that while fines may be useful for instilling responsibility among children and helping ensure return of materials, fines that are put in place, solely for the purpose of raising money for the library is a despicable practice that must be eliminated immediately so that children from all socio-economic levels have equal access to the library.

One page could never do justice to a social justice crusader like Sanford Berman, however, the short outline of his social justice work and these descriptions of two of his most important works hopes to introduce the reader to the wonderful Sanford Berman and inspire them to read and research and learn more about one of the most important people in the library and information science of the late 20th century.

To view a comprehensive list of Sanford Berman's writings and more, see his website at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/ala/9701040a/berman/sanford.htm

• Mary Lee Bundy

According to Paul Wasserman, the first dean of the Library School at the University of Maryland, Mary Lee Bundy was “powerfully committed to...social responsibility” (Wasserman 1995). This commitment to social justice was evident even in one of her earliest works. At the end of one of her early publications “Analysis of Voter Reaction to a Proposal to Form a Library District in LaSalle and Bureau Counties, Illinois” she notes that [librarians] will…become more sure of our own identity as we learn more about the people whose needs we serve and as we become a more integral and necessary part of society” (Bundy 1960). This last point, in particular, summarizes much of Mary Lee Bundy’s life and work.
Before receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1960, Mary Lee Bundy earned a B.E. from SUNY Potsdam and an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Denver. She was a member of the original faculty hired when the University of Maryland opened its School of Library and Information Service in 1965. According to Wasserman, Bundy was hired at the University of Maryland through a special program funded by both the University and the State of Maryland. This allowed her to teach and conduct research on librarianship and the state (Wasserman 1995). While at the University of Maryland, Bundy established the Urban Information Specialist Program. In the school’s bulletin, this program is described as an “experimental professional program…to prepare information specialists to work with the informationally deprived in various settings, but particularly in the inner
city and with the undergraduates in the University” (University of Maryland 1972). The program was funded by the U.S. Office (now Department) of Education and also helped recruit African-Americans to library science. The participants were described as “individuals who had an interest in translating social commitment into professional action.” A report on the program, published at the end of the 1970-71 school year, provides information that is both dated and incredibly radical.
Bundy also established the Urban Information Interpreters. This non-profit group provided information to the socially disadvantaged. One of its major publications was the National Prison Directory which lists prison reform organizations and resources. The Urban Interpreters also published A Bureaucracy Kit and Helping the People Take Control.
Throughout her long career Mary Lee Bundy published many articles and books on librarianship and social justice. Even the titles of her books such as Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1973, Alternatives to Traditional Library Services: A Case Book, and Challenges to the System show where she stood on various issues. Wasserman noted that “the effect of Mary Lee Bundy as our conscience, constantly reminding us of our responsibility led me and her other colleagues kicking and screaming all the way, to engage upon pioneering efforts” (Wasserman 1995).
Mary Lee Bundy’s work is significant because we are still discussing the same issues in librarianship that she wrote abut almost thirty years ago. In an article titled “Crisis in Library Education” she notes that the urban information specialist project addresses:
The library profession’s need to define and fulfill an important service function in the public arena; its failure to make itself relevant to other than middle-class interests in the culture; and its inability to contribute to the alleviation of the sever social, economic and other inequalities which exist in the culture and which continue to deprive black Americans particularly of even minimal life opportunities (Bundy 1971).
Although she was specifically addressing racism in America, Bundy’s words ring true for all social justice issues.
Mary Lee Bundy died on August 8, 1987.

References
Bundy, Mary Lee. “An Analysis of Voter Reaction to A Proposal to Form a Library District in LaSalle and Bureau Counties, Illinois.” Springfield, Ill.: Illinois State Library, 1960.

Bundy, Mary Lee. “Crisis in Library Education.” Library Journal (March 1, 1971): 797-800.

University of Maryland. “School of Library and Information Services Bulletin, 1972-1973.”

Wasserman, Paul. “Interview with Paul Wasserman Regarding the Early History of CLIS,” Interview by Esther Herman, January 11, 1995. htt://www.clis.umd.edu/faculty/wasserman/pwinterview.html (17 Nov. 2002).


Selected Works by Mary Lee Bundy

1965. Mary Lee Bundy and Ruth Aronson, eds. Social and Political Aspects of Librarianship: Student Contributions to Library Science. Albany, N.Y.: School of Library Science,State University of New York at Albany.

1971. “The Urban Information Specialist Program: First Year – A Report Prepared for the Library Profession.” College Park, Md.: School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland.

1972. A Bureaucracy Kit. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters.

1972. Challenges to the System. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters.

1975. National Prison Directory. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters.

1977. Alternatives to Tradition Library Services: A Case Book. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters.

1977. National Prison Directory: Organizational Profiles of Prison Reform Groups in the United States: Special Issue. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters

1980. Helping the People Take Control: the Public Library’s Mission in a Democracy. College Park, Md.: Urban Information Interpreters.

1987. Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick Stielow, eds. Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1973. New York: Greenwood Press.

• Ernesto Cortés, Jr.

Southwest regional director of the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), overseeing twenty-three community-based organizations stretching from New Orleans to Des Moines to Los Angeles.

Cortés has dedicated his life to public service and the common good by working to make government more responsive to the poor and politically disenfranchised. He has contributed to the political empowerment of low-income and disadvantaged people as a grass-roots community activist, labor organizer, founder of Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) and Southwest Regional Director of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a non-profit organization that networks community-based organizations committed to revitalizing local democracies.
The purpose is to help ordinary people develop the competence, confidence and leadership to participate in the affairs of their local governments.

Equitable public school funding, school restructuring to improve student learning, indigent health care, job training and economic development for higher-wage jobs are all issues for which Cortés has provided leadership. He has become a widely imitated international model of leadership to solve social problems through local self-help.

Cortés' initial ventures in community organizing came when he was a young man in the 1960s. Educated at Texas A&M, he later dropped out of a graduate program in economics at the University of Texas at Austin to help organize Mexican-American workers in Texas, his home state. He earned a reputation as a revolutionary but found that he made little progress when he went up against companies that hired strikebreakers. He quickly learned that there are two kinds of power: organized money and organized people. And in 1974, Cortés returned to his roots in San Antonio and began his revolutionary journey which continues today.

For more information about him, refer to http://www.tresser.com/cortes.htm
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/101/cortes.html

• Jeffrey T. Huber: LIS Scholar and Advocate for the HIV/AIDS Patient Community

A social justice leader is, in my opinion, identifiable not solely from their domain of research, or area of expertise. Rather, they are defined by a combination of that work/activity along with a genuine concern, empathy, and understanding for the individuals and communities negatively impacted by the social problems of our times. Dr. Jeffrey T. Huber, an associate professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University, exemplifies such a leader. He earned his Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, his M.L.S. from the University of Kentucky, and a B.S. from the State University of New York prior to that. Over the years, he has become an internationally renowned health informatics scholar, and undoubtedly the LIS field’s most recognizable figure in HIV/AIDS research, publishing numerous books and articles
pertaining to information issues surrounding the epidemic. My professional work has not yet brought me into contact/communication with Dr. Huber. Aside from his scholarly accomplishments, I know very little about him either professionally or personally. The remainder of this annotation is based mostly on close readings of his publications.

Dr. Huber’s efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic span the entire LIS spectrum, from the technical to the social. He has led initiatives to review and evaluate electronic HIV/AIDS information resources, giving a voice to segments of the patient population (i.e. women being one example) whose situation requires better representation online and on the Internet. He has published what is perhaps the most thorough analysis of HIV/AIDS patient information needs (i.e. the categorizations he developed range from needs for drug and wellness information to needs for information on HIV/AIDS disclosure and death and dying), capturing the unique and wide-ranging demands that infection places upon individuals. Similarly, he has also reported on the information needs of service providers fighting the epidemic at the community level, through their work in grassroots movements and AIDS service
organizations (ASOs).

What has perhaps been Dr. Huber’s most widely regarded contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS was the creation of a controlled vocabulary meant specifically for the body of knowledge surrounding the epidemic. It was developed in response to a need voiced by ASOs across the United States – a need for a system of organization and access to the ever growing and evolving data, information, and knowledge spawned by the epidemic (Huber & Gillaspy, 1998). Huber recognized that existing classification schema (i.e. LCSH, MeSH, Sears, etc.) did not sufficiently represent the complexities and intricacies of the disease, or its interdisciplinary nature. The strength of his system, one developed exclusively for the HIV/AIDS domain, is that it includes terminology commonly used among those individuals impacted by the epidemic, but not reflected in other existing schemas (for example, in
community settings, the term “shooting gallery” is commonly used to refer to locations where injection drug users congregate. This term is part of the controlled vocabulary.) (Huber & Gillaspy, 1998). What Huber has thus succeeded in creating is a tool that facilitates and supports information retrieval and use by all the players within the HIV/AIDS domain – patients, doctors, researchers, service providers, even at-risk groups. And as he explains to his readers, he offers this tool “…in the hope that the timely provision of accurate information will lighten the burden of all those affected by the epidemic and the terrible toll it exacts from patients, caregivers, families, friends, and society” (Huber, 1996).

References and Further Readings:

Huber, J. T. & Gillaspy, M.L. (1998). Social constructs and disease: Implications for a controlled vocabulary for HIV/AIDS. Library Trends, 47(2), 190-208.

Huber, J.T. (1996). HIV/AIDS community information services: Experiences in serving both at-risk and HIV-infected populations.

Huber, J. T. & Gillaspy, M.L. (1996). HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS-related terminology: A means of organizing the body of knowledge. New York: Haworth Press, Inc.

• Jonathan Kozol

Jonathan Kozol is an advocate for education equality in America. Through his many writings about experiences with underprivileged communities and his own teaching history, Kozol brings education issues to a wider audience by not writing in a very scholarly language. His writing stems from the people and is written for the people.

Kozol graduated from Harvard in 1958 and immediately attended Oxford University for 1 year. Upon leaving Oxford, Kozol took a drastic Hemingway-esque turn when he decided to live in the poorest part of Paris and attempt to write a novel. In 1963, he returned to the Boston area undecided about his next step, yet with the idea of becoming an English professor. During this time, he saw an ad for summer tutors for young children. Kozol found that he loved being a teacher and working with children and decided to become a teacher.

His teaching experiences in Boston led to his first book in 1967, Death at an Early Age. Much of the book relates to the desegregation debates taking shape while Kozol taught and civil rights issues occurring in the South during the mid 1960's. The book also discusses the "repressive teaching methods Kozol's colleagues used, techniques he believed were designed to reinforce a system that would keep the children separate and unequal,"(Contemporary Authors). The book also provided guidance for teachers who choose to remain in inner city schools instead of moving to easier suburban positions.

His next book, Free Schools, is essentially a manual for how a community may build its own school. He outlines how to raise funds, hire teachers, and deal with administrative issues. Mainly an idealistic piece, the book stems from his own experiences with attempting to construct an alternative school to the repressive an unsatisfactory Boston Public School System.

Published in 1985, Illiterate America, is his most scholarly book, discussing the problems of adult illiteracy in America. By relating his encounters with real-life underprivileged adults, Kozol effectively dramatizes the need for a more concentrated effort to promote adult education. By discussing illiteracy as an institutional problem, Kozol illustrates the humanity of poor Americans and how the government deliberately keeps certain individuals on the lower rungs of society. To counter the adult illiteracy, Kozol offers his own suggestions such as employing literates within a community to teach non-literates, morning coffees where a group discusses issues in a newspaper or magazine, and reaching out to foot-walkers within a community to serve as gate-keepers to literacy. To help children, Kozol argues for more one-on-one attention in schools, reading to children at an
early age and a renewed appreciation for oral history. Such interest in stories and community history will foster an appreciation for future reading.

In 1991, Kozol published his most acclaimed novel Savage Inequalities. A book Publisher's Weekly urged President Bush to read, Kozol visits school throughout the country and eloquently describes how educational funding is severely unbalanced. His main argument is that while one school spends its allotted funding on new computers, another will fix leaky roofs or install plumbing. This novel is less about Kozol's own thoughts and more about letting the examples and experiences speak for themselves. In this sense, Kozol achieves more credibility by going to the actual problem areas and reporting back factual information.

His most recent work Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope, Crown, 2000. chronicles six years of a children's educational experiences in the South Bronx. By focusing on the life and leadership in the home, peer groups, religious institutions, and community programs, Kozol displays more hope about the future of education and the importance of a child's community.

Jonathan Kozol is first and foremost a writer. His love of teaching and passion to aid disadvantaged children is only recognized due to his writing skill. His achievements and notoriety exemplify the need for our most talented and passionate communicators to devote their skills to a worthy cause and report back to the masses what they cannot or will not experience themselves.

Complete listing of writings:

-- Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools, Houghton, 1967, revised edition, New American Library, 1985.
-- Free Schools, Houghton, 1972, revised edition published as Alternative Schools: A Guide for Educators and Parents, Continuum, 1982.
-- The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home, Houghton, 1975, revised edition, Touchstone, 1990.
-- Children of the Revolution, Delacorte, 1978.
-- Prisoners of Silence: Breaking the Bonds of Adult Illiteracy in the United States, Continuum, 1979.
-- On Being a Teacher, Continuum, 1981.
-- Illiterate America, Anchor/Doubleday, 1985.
-- Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America, Crown (New York City), 1988.
-- Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, Crown, 1991.
-- Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation, Crown, 1995.
-- Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope, Crown, 2000.
OTHER
-- (Author of foreword) Wendy E. Mouradian, editor, Children Our Future: Ethics, Health Policy, Medical/Dental Care for Children (April 3-4, 1998 proceedings in Seattle, Washington), Washington State Department of Health (Seattle), 1998.
-- (With Deborah Heier) Will Standards Save Public Education? Beacon (Boston), 2000.

Contributor of essays to the New York Times Book Review and Los Angeles Times, 1970-2001, and to other periodicals, including Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, Harvard Educational Review, Psychology Today, Saturday Review of Literature, Time, English Record, The Nation, Newsweek, New Yorker, Harper's, and Washington Post; contributor of guest editorials to Saturday Evening Post and Look; contributor of fiction to Prairie Schoonerand Esquire. Book critic, Life, New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, 1970-93.

• Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Kathleen de la Peña McCook is a professor of library and information science at the University of South Florida. She teaches, speaks and writes about libraries building communities, poverty and library services, adult lifelong learning and literacy; theories of reading, libraries as cultural heritage institutions, and public librarianship. Her research in these areas is demonstrated by a length bibliography and speaking engagements which can be found at http://nosferatu.cas.usf.edu/lis/faculty/kpmresume.htm. Her involvement with and service to her community is equally impressive. She has served on the board of directors for the Rural Social Services Partnership, on the advisory board for the Redlands Christian Migrant Association Charter School, and worked with the Ruskin Civic Association. McCook is currently chair of the South County Coalition for Community Concerns. For a description
and history of the South County Coalition for Community Concerns please visit: http://www.cas.usf.edu/lis/mccook/scccc.htm.

In 2002, McCook was named the Latino Librarian of the Year. This award (the Arnulfo Trejo Award) is given by REFORMA the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. She was nominated by REFORMA de Florida "who praised her contributions to the Latino community of Florida, in particular her efforts with migrant workers, as well as her efforts to recruit students from underrepresented groups" (http://www.cas.usf.edu/lis/mccook/award/2002.html).

I was initial drawn to the work of McCook through her book A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building (ALA Editions, 2000). I read this book when working on my master's thesis and was quite taken by her argument that librarians had an active role to play in their communities. She continues the work started with this book at the website http://www.cas.usf.edu/lis/a-librarian-at-every-table/index.html and through a regular column, "Community Building" in Reference and User Services Quarterly.

• Debbie Reese

• Loriene Roy

Dr. Loriene Roy is currently an Associate Professor at the recently renamed School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her M.L.S. from the University of Arizona in 1980 and her Ph.D. from UIUC in 1987, where she worked as a research associate at the Library Research Center. Dr. Roy is a pioneer in Native American librarianship, having worked with reservations and tribal colleges, aiding their access to library services, as well as building awareness of the social justice issues faced by Native Americans.

Dr. Roy has many teaching and research interests, including library education, history of public libraries, collection management, public library services to children, reference services, measurement and evaluation of library services. Since 1999, her main focus has been on services for Native Americans throughout the United States. She has been an advocate for promoting reading on or near reservations with her ‘If I can read, I can do anything’ program. The overall goal of this program is to “increase literacy skills while preserving Native American identity through a transferable model of a school-year-long reading promotion program” but to see a full listing of the goals and objectives, visit http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/%7Eifican/goals_objectives/goals_index.html
Virtual Libraries for Tribal Colleges is another project of Dr. Roy. The Northwest Indian College Oksale Virtual Library can be accessed at http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/%7Evlibrary/index.html
It includes pathfinders on topics such as emergent literacy and the impact of technology on indigenous peoples as well as links to related sources in information literacy and library instruction.

She has received numerous awards, including the first Joe and Bettie Branson Ward Excellence Award for Research, Teaching, or Demonstration Activities that Contribute to Changes of Positive Value to Society. The award honors and recognizes her contributions to advancing library development for indigenous populations. Dr. Roy refers to herself as Ojibwe or Anishinabe and was raised nearby the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota. She is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, enrolled on the White Earth Reservation in western Minnesota. Dr. Roy came to speak on campus last spring for a discussion sponsored by the ALA Student Chapter and she also spoke at my LIS 390 class about her career as well as her work with library services to Native Americans.

References and Further Readings:

Dr. Loriene Roy’s website http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~loriene/index.html

Roy, L. “Oksale: building a culturally responsive virtual library of education resources for a tribal college” Education Libraries v. 25 no. 2 (Winter 2002) p. 26-8

Roy, L. “To support and model Native American library services”. Texas Library Journal v. 76 no. 1 (Spring 2000) p. 32-5

Roy, L. “Recovering native identity: developing readers' advisory services for non-reservation Native Americans.” Collection Building v. 12 no. 3-4 (1993) p. 73-7

** The above information is contributed by the students of LIS 450SJ course.

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