Podcast: Can Libraries Save Democracy
In this episode, Kristen talks to Sanobar Chagani, Democracy Projects Coordinator at EveryLibrary, about the crucial role of libraries in democracy with a focus on promoting civic engagement, preventing political violence, and combating misinformation.
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The discussion highlights the importance of librarians in election administration, civic education, and identifying and combating misinformation, with a particular focus on their role in underrepresented communities.
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Our goal at EveryLibrary is to support libraries in promoting democracy and find new ways for them to play a more active role in civic engagement and election administration. As libraries are inherently civic institutions, we also want to explore the role of violence and extremism so that librarians can prevent hyper-polarization, especially leading up to the election. Libraries are nonpartisan institutions, and as a public forum, the library has to be non-partisan for our democracy to survive. However, they can, and we argue they should be political. By that, we mean they should not only participate in the political process, but public libraries should also advocate for their own interests and not remain neutral when they are under attack for issues like book bans. Lastly, we discuss the role of making democracy larger than politics by remaining committed to being inclusive by creating policies and practices that promote accessible, diverse library collections to empower communities that have been historically marginalized and disenfranchised.