Congratulations to Fall 2018 semester LIS student Laila Brown on her successful thesis defense!
Title
Enacting Critical Feminist Librarianship: Examining LIS Book Clubs as a Means of Collaborative Inquiry and Professional Value Formation
Abstract
This master’s thesis presents an examination of the meaning and significance of dialogic exploration of texts in book club settings among Library and Information Science (LIS) master’s students at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM). I conducted participant observation among the feminist Books by Women Book Club and the progressive and diversity-ethic oriented UHM LIS Book Club and interviewed several members in each group. In this study, I sought to achieve an understanding of the creative, constitutive, and generative processes of these two book clubs. This study illuminates three essential elements of student participation in these value-driven and library and information science-intentioned book clubs. Firstly, these book clubs function as communities of practice that offer emerging LIS professionals networks of interpersonal and professional support. Secondly, these book clubs complement and supplement LIS classroom pedagogy, thereby contributing to member professional learning and knowledge. Thirdly, these book clubs contribute to the development of members’ personal and professional values and philosophy. Through focused exploration of textual content espousing the values upon which these book clubs are predicated—namely feminism and critical librarianship—these book clubs enable student participants to explore, negotiate, and enact such values in the book clubs, and to continue to do so in their future professional practice.
