The Practice Lens: Intersectionality and Contemporary Public Library Services to Adults

ABSTRACT

Intersectionality can be applied as a practice-based lens through which to perceive 21st-century public library services to adults. Intersectionality as a framework can facilitate the implementation of equity and social justice in the design and development of contemporary library services. Professional practice relates to the public library workplace and everyday work practices enacted on a day-to-day basis. This article outlines how intersectionality is embedded in public library services to four service populations: immigrants, incarcerated, LGBTQ+ people, and homeless/houseless citizens. Insights provide a guide for theoretical and social positioning of public librarians to enact their professional service within an intersectional lens.

Keywords:

• Adults
• intersectionality
• practice-based
• public libraries
• services

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bharat Mehra

Bharat Mehra is EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice and professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His research focuses on diversity and social justice in library and information science and community informatics or the use of information and communication technologies to empower minority and underserved populations to make meaningful changes in their everyday lives.

Vanessa Irvin

Vanessa Irvin is associate professor with the Master of Library Science Program of the College of Education at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. Dr. Irvin’s research focuses on various aspects of public library services: reference services, youth services, and professional development, and ways in which critical race theory and social justice are interwoven in public librarianship.