TPL Webinar – Libraries, Social Media, and Politics: Do You Know What to Post?

View the archive of the Feb 15th, 2018 webinar for free on EveryLibrary's Vimeo channel.

View or download the slides from the webinar on EveryLibrary's SlideShare.

According to a recent survey, librarians frequently “self-censor” their posts about local, state, and national political issues more than is required by policy or law.

If that self-censorship is getting in the way of libraries fulfilling their public education mission and civic engagement work, it has to be confronted and changed. On February 15, 2018, EveryLibrary and Kixal hosted a free, in-depth "The Political Librarian" webinar discussion with Dustin Fife and Mary Naylor Stephens where they took a deep-dive into their research findings in “Libraries, Social Media, and Politics: Do You Know What to Post?”.

During the webinar, they explored recent research they published in The Political Librarian about the ambiguity surrounding librarians’ social media behaviors and attitudes when it comes to politics. Most library professionals feel like they have little direction regarding politics and social media. This ambiguity and uncertainty creates a chilling effect that leads to self-censorship. Dustin and Mary also engaged webinar participants about their own experience, and discuss the repercussions from library professionals not engaging appropriately in political topics because of artificial hurdles.

Their original article (Dec 2017) is available as an Open Scholarship download on The Political Librarian. Special thanks to Kixal for sponsorship and support for this free webinar. You can learn more about their training and instructional design services for libraries, nonprofits, and government agencies throughout North America at Kixal.com.

Please join us for the next webinar in our The Political Librarian series: "An Organizer's Tale: Mobilizing Allies for Union Negotiations in Libraries" with Emily Drabinski on April 11, 2018 at 1pm CST. Please register in advance to ensure a space and easy access to the archive.