Introduction

We are celebrating twenty-six years of the Voices of the Future column with a special issue. The column was the brainchild of former editor Jim Cole and features papers written by students enrolled in library and information science programs in the United States and Canada, as well as other countries. The column is designed to be a forum for students to discuss key issues they see in libraries and to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. The papers are recommended for publication by instructors and are “think pieces” that present innovative ideas or syntheses of ideas, providing fresh perspectives from those entering our field, while at the same time highlighting the many excellent LIS programs in the United States, Canada, and other countries.

The first column was published in 1997. I have had the pleasure of editing the column since 2001. We have had column contributors representing LIS programs in Australia, England, Ontario, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington DC , and Washington State. The pieces provided in the column have been very cutting edge. Included among the treated topics have been open access, the first sale doctrine, digital privacy policies in libraries, institutional repositories, the information poor, health information literacy, digital humanities, net neutrality and libraries, health care workers’ choices for medical literature, unique benefits of conference attendance as a method of professional development for LIS professionals, obsolescence of the main entry, Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield as information object: serial literature in the Victorian world of documents, ethics of preservation, information seeking behavior of older adults, digital piracy, monopolization of academic journal publishers, English language centric library systems, documentation in technical services, fan fiction and the fair use doctrine, open access to taxpayer-funded research, and subject access to LGBTIQ materials.

The student articles are widely read and highly cited. Three of the thirty most frequently read journal articles have been from our student authors. In addition, four of the thirty most cited articles of all time, and six of the thirty most cited articles of the last three years, including the most cited article (Information Behavior of Parents during COVID-19 in Relation to Their Young School-age Children’s Education by Karen You-Chuan Wang) were published in the column.

With rare exception, the publication in the column proves to be the student-scholar’s first publication credit. Through our collaboration, these gifted students, achieve a “step up” in their chosen field. It is my honor to have shepherded these students along in a first significant scholarly achievement.

My thanks to the outstanding editors I have worked with for their support and guidance: Jim Cole, Andrew Shroyer, Louise Penn, Sharon Dyas-Correia, and Courtney McAllister. A special thanks to the dedicated faculty for supporting student research and recommending papers. It is truly a pleasure and one of the highlights of my forty-one year career to work with passionate faculty and talented student-scholars.

For this special issue, we are again highlighting the high quality of our library school students. We are featuring compelling articles from six students representing five library schools who demonstrate a gift for scholarship. The articles represent a broad range of topics written by gifted student-scholars.

For the first time we have two articles by a student being published in the same issue. In her first article, “Discouraging Freedom in the Library,” Zoe (Abbie) Teel, a student at the University of North Texas College of Information, addresses the critical issues involving book bans affecting children and young adult literature. Abbie writes “This continued attack on books does not seem to be decreasing with time; rather it is increasing and has become mainstream. It has begun to significantly specifically target children and young adult books that are written by authors who are a part of minority groups and subject areas pertaining to sexuality and gender identity, the presence of violence, witchcraft or paganism, religious reasoning, and racial issues.”

In her second article, “Guardians of Freedom: Examining Privacy, Censorship, and Government Legislation in Collection Development,” Abbie addresses the complex and inseparable relationship between collection development in libraries and the interconnected factors of privacy, censorship, and government influence. Abbie writes “One of my major concerns regarding libraries is their resilience in the face of government-imposed restrictions and community biases. While some argue that libraries have managed to endure throughout history, recent times have witnessed a growing atmosphere of hostility. Factors such as the lingering effects of the pandemic, political divisions, religious conflicts, and socio-cultural tensions have contributed to this persisting negativity in society. Unfortunately, libraries have become targets of these sentiments. I am deeply concerned that libraries may face repercussions from individuals or groups who seek to censor based on personal biases, often viewing their actions as morally justifiable.”

In her article, “Father Figures: Renegotiating Preservation of Oral Tradition Through Four Forefathers.” Gina Devincenzi, a recent graduate of the Pratt Institute School of Information, provides us with a unique perspective on oral tradition as an information medium. Gina writes “Oral tradition has effectively taken a back seat to newer, static, and reliable methods of information sharing, and with that, entire languages, narratives, and oral cultures have gone extinct. As more cultures grow increasingly vulnerable to such erasure, it is fundamental that the information science field renegotiates their relationship to oral tradition, reconciles the neglect it has weathered, and reinvigorates praxes to support its preservation. Oral tradition is the Father of Information from which all other methods, modes, and means were born. The provisions for remedying the decay of this primeval medium can be found in the very ideologies and documents that caused it, as illustrated by four forefathers of modern thought.”

In her article, “Changing Tides: A Critical Reflection on Neutrality and Antiracism in LIS,” Ronique Gillis, a recent graduate of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at University of Western Ontario, investigates the intricate relationships between neutrality and racism as they are demonstrated by tangible and intangible forms in library and information science spaces. Ronique writes “Neutrality in librarianship is a nonsensical concept that libraries of all kinds (e.g., public, academic, special, etc.) should not strive to embody in any shape or form. The concept promotes willful ignorance and an ambivalent nature that does not work in tandem with the recent emergence (and advocacy) of equity/equality, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization (EDID) strategies and committees.”

In her article, “The People’s Access to Information: How Definitions of Ownership Influence the Public Domain,” Nat Wood, a student at the School of Information Studies at Dominican University, supplies us with a valuable review and critique of copyright systems in the United States and their impacts upon creators and individuals alike. Nat writes “The struggle between creators, their content, and copyright laws is a longstanding one with a complicated backstory. Considering the long history Americans have regarding the treatment of and consideration for personal property, how U.S. publishing laws came about is a particularly American phenomenon.”

In her article, “Harmful to Minors”: How Book Bans Hurt Adolescent Development,” Grace Pickering, a student at the Pratt Institute School of Information, provides us with a perceptive history and analysis of book bans in the United States. Grace writes “While facing book bans has long been part of a librarian’s job, there are unprecedented challenges to libraries and their users. Book challengers are much better organized, working in coordinated groups to pressure library boards and school districts. Many of the attacks are coming from lawmakers. Activists seem unprepared to back down, no matter the cost, in their attempts to protect children – theirs and other people’s – from what they deem inappropriate content. But what they are deeming inappropriate are, overwhelmingly, books that reflect the experiences and lives of marginalized young people. And librarians are feeling the pressure as they try to ensure books about everyone are available for everyone.”

Finally, Rebecca Teague, a recent graduate of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama, provides valuable insight and a fascinating perspective on the question of who is not being represented in archives in her article “Finding Minority Voices in Early Modern European Archives.” Rebecca writes “So, how do archivists find these hidden and exploited communities and individuals, like the boy from the Radegunde convent, in early modern archives? If they are not using, or cannot use, social provenance, oral history testimonies, shared-stewardship, and community archives to fill in these gaps in the social record, what methods, strategies, and/or techniques are archivists employing? Is exploration or understanding of these minorities’ lives even still possible with such biased materials and documentation that remains? In this paper, I evaluate a number of different scholarly works which address, or demonstrate, the issue of finding minority voices in early modern archives specifically. Whether through the study of works of art, literature, or legal, government documents, these authors either find ways to breathe life into past histories once assumed to be utterly lost, or their problematic analyses uncover potential for using such methods.”

I am incredibly pleased to be publishing more impressive papers from library school students. We will continue in the Voices of the Future column to publish thoughtful, cutting-edge articles from gifted student-scholars. It bodes well for the profession that these new entrants demonstrate such a gift for scholarship.