Understanding of the Objective

 

     Advancing information equity and justice means recognizing that access to information is shaped by far more than whether a book, website, database, program, or archival record technically exists. Information must also be discoverable, understandable, trustworthy, affordable, appropriately described, and available in formats that reflect different abilities, languages, technologies, schedules, and levels of confidence for the community it serves. Libraries and information institutions are not neutral spaces because every decision about what is collected, preserved, described, restricted, promoted, digitized, or omitted influences which knowledge, experiences and truths remain hidden.

 

     This objective asks the information professionals to examine the systems surrounding information, including the historical, cultural, economic, technological, and institutional forces that determine who has access and who is excluded from said information. As a future public librarian and community archivist, I understand my role as someone who combines services, advocacy, and reflection. I need to be prepared to identify systemic information inequalities, promote the ethical values and standards of the profession, support policies that protect equitable access, and continue learning from users, colleagues, and my communities. Valuing intellectual freedom, privacy, cultural responsiveness, preservation, transparency, and social responsibility cannot remain abstract ideals in this profession. They must be incorporated into everyday decisions about collections, programs, technology, physical spaces, metadata, historical interpretation, and communication. Information equity also requires recognizing that equal treatment does not always produce equitable outcomes. Providing the same service to everyone might still disadvantage patrons who encounter language barriers, disabilities, limited transportation, financial restrictions, digital divides, or a history of exclusion from institutions. For that reason, I believe librarians must look beyond whether a service is technically available to everyone and ask whether all members of the community can realistically find, understand, trust, and use it. 

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Evidence

     My graduate coursework, professional background, volunteer service, and community projects demonstrate my development across all four parts of this objective. In Responsive Librarianship in Action: Rise and Return, I identified systemic barriers faced by mothers attempting to return to technology careers after caregiving interruptions in their work. These barriers included ageism, sexism, assumptions about professional commitment, gaps in current technical training, reduced professional networks, and inflexible educational or employment structures. Rather than viewing these challenges as individual failures, I examined them as connected systems that restrict access to professional information, mentorship, and opportunity. I proposed a library-based program offering flexible training, networking, mentorship, and supportive resources, demonstrating how libraries can respond to information inequality through targeted services. My IST 605 Reference Librarian Scenario: Dearing Family and Piedmont History allowed me to examine similar inequalities within historical research. While researching Sidney Dearing and his family, the first Black homeowners in Piedmont, I encountered missing records, expensive databases, inaccessible archival materials, incomplete catalog descriptions, biased historical publications, and institutions that had traditionally centered affluent white residents while excluding histories of racism and resistance. The project required me to define a complex information need, analyze information-seeking behavior, evaluate fifteen different source types, identify missing viewpoints, and collaborate with librarians, archivists, descendants, and community researchers. I then carried this work into SidneyDearing.com, where I organized newspapers, maps, photographs, genealogical records, legal documents, and historical context into a free public resource. That research proved to me that information justice involves not only discovering suppressed or overlooked material but also making it understandable and accessible to all while distinguishing confirmed evidence from interpretation.

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     My work in IST 564: Library Observation further expanded my understanding of how inequality can be embedded in physical and technological design in a library atmosphere. At the Oakland Public Library, I observed barriers involving accessible parking, entrances, doors, elevators, restrooms, narrow aisles, self-checkout kiosks, standing-only catalog stations, high shelving, seating, signage, and surveillance technology. The library offered valuable accommodations, but the observation demonstrated that individual accessible features do not automatically create a fully accessible environment for our community. A patron may technically be able to enter the building while still encountering obstacles that discourage an independent use. This assignment taught me to evaluate the complete user experience rather than treating accessibility as a checklist. My Philosophy and Goals of Librarianship assignment helped me articulate the ethical values I want to carry into professional practice, including equitable access, privacy, service, preservation, lifelong learning, and community participation. I applied these values more concretely in my Know Your Rights: Community Toolkit for Families and Caregivers page, which organizes trustworthy information related to immigration, education, housing, employment, health, and legal rights. Because the intended audience includes people who may be especially vulnerable to inaccurate or outdated information, I prioritized authoritative sources, multilingual resources, clear disclaimers, privacy, and referrals to qualified organizations reinforcing that ethical information service requires transparency about what a resource can and cannot provide.

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     I explored equitable policy and institutional responsibility through Story Times Can Be a Drag, a management and ethics case study. My group analyzed a library director’s decision to offer an inclusive drag queen story time without adequate stakeholder communication, board coordination, security planning, budgeting, or consistent public messaging. The program itself supported diversity, but the lack of planning created financial and administrative consequences. Our analysis showed that equitable policy does not mean avoiding controversial services and instead, it requires clear programming standards, defined authority, community assessment, staff preparation, safety planning, and a commitment to serving all users even when a vocal group objects. My Dearing Family Research and Memorial Advocacy similarly moved from research into public action. I worked with descendants, local equity organizations, historians, city representatives, journalists, and community members to advocate for public recognition of the Dearing family. This process taught me that people whose histories are being interpreted should have a meaningful voice in decisions about preservation and memorialization. My interviews with Oakland History Center librarian Emily F. and elementary school librarian Tiffany C., along with my volunteer work at the local elementary school library demonstrate my commitment to lifelong learning. Experiences like these allowed me to learn from practicing librarians about collection development, community outreach, research instruction, digitization, fundraising, inclusive programming, volunteer coordination, and the realities of working within limited budgets and staffing while continuing to be passionate about the profession. Both of these leaders also influenced some of my projects such as ReadQuest Read - a - Thon and Read & Roam, which were designed around student choice, accessible formats, family participation, assessment, and collaboration within my community.

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Learning Transfer

     These experiences together have taught me that information equity should be intentionally integrated into every level of library and archival service rather than added after decisions have already been made. In my future professional practices, I will continually ask: Who is represented? Who is absent? What barriers may prevent someone from finding or using this information? How do description, technology, policy, and physical design influence this access? Whose voices informed the decision, whose were not and who may be affected by it? When developing a community archive, I will involve community members from the beginning rather than asking for input only after the project has already been defined. I will seek appropriate consent before sharing personal materials, document provenance, protect sensitive information, use respectful and reparative description, and provide access through multiple formats whenever possible. I plan on distinguishing between evidence and interpretation and acknowledging any uncertainties rather than presenting incomplete conclusions as fact. When designing programs, I will consider whether cost, schedules, transportation, childcare, language, technology, physical space, or traditional measures of success could unintentionally exclude participants in the communities I will serve. A program may appear open to everyone while still favoring people with greater time, money, mobility, or technological access. I will therefore use surveys, interviews, observations, participation data, and ongoing feedback to understand how services are experienced by different groups for those I am serving and to revise them when needed.

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     I will also apply this competency when supporting institutional policies. Whether working on collection development, programming, privacy, accessibility, technology use, community partnerships, or archival description. I will always advocate for transparent and consistent policies that protect equitable access for everyone. I will ask who will benefit from each policy, who might be burdened by it, and if it reinforces historical exclusions. My background in software quality assurance will help me approach these systems critically. In my role as a Quality Assurance Engineer (QA), I compare how a product is intended to function with how users actually experience it, document failures, identify patterns, communicate with stakeholders, and test improvements. In librarianship, I can use that same mindset to evaluate services, catalogs, websites, programs, and policies while remembering that library users are not simply customers or data points and instead they are a part of the whole system. Privacy, dignity, cultural knowledge, and lived experience must be respected and included to protect my community.

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     I also understand that advancing information equity and justice is not a competency that can be permanently completed. As language changes, technologies evolves, professional standards develop, and communities continue to grow and identify needs that institutions may have overlooked I will need to remain humble enough to recognize when my own assumptions, failures or practices that require revision. Within my first year of working in a library, historical center or information providing organization, I plan to complete at least one professional-development webpage related to equitable policy development, reparative description, accessibility, or community-centered archives. I also hope to participate in the review of at least one institutional policy or service using an equity-focused assessment and to seek feedback from the people most affected by it in its community. Over time, I will continue building relationships with local librarians, archivists, educators, historians, descendants, civic organizations, and community members so I can continue learning about my community. These experiences and assignments have given me the ethical foundation and practical skills to identify information inequality and respond thoughtfully, but they have also taught me that the most responsible information professionals will continue to ask questions themselves, listening to others, and adapting their practice going forward. For me, advancing information equity and justice means using my skills, access, and professional position to help ensure that information institutions do not simply welcome everyone, but also actively create conditions in which every person who enters can participate, contribute knowledge, and see their experiences as worthy of preservation and respect.