Description: This book shows how today's waves of book bans and disinformation campaigns intentionally drive the cultural erasure of marginalized communities-and what we can do to stop them.
Brief description: Paul T. Jaeger, PhD, JD, is a Professor, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, and Co-Director of the Doctor of Information Science degree program in the College of Information at the University of Maryland, USA. He is the Co-Chair of IDGS, co-Executive Editor of Including Disability, co-Editor of Library Quarterly, and Associate Director of the Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility. He founded the Conference on Inclusion and Diversity in Library and Information Science.
Review Quotes:
"Book Bans, Disinformation, and Cultural Erasure is exactly the book we need right now: drawing together the myriad issues the US and its libraries face. Jaeger is exactly the person to tackle the phenomena of this volume: a scholar with deep learning and research who engages public matters. He covers not just contemporary issues but the long tail of their history and context that gives them current resonance and oxygen. At each step Jaeger brings the stakes - social, political, educational - to bear on libraries and learning and democratic society. It is also very well written. In all, a feat of synthesis and analysis that will define both scholarship on and how we think about the last decade and a half." --Dr. John Buschman, Dean of University Libraries and Associate Provost for Research and Innovation Seton Hall University, USA
"An incisive, extensively researched assessment of the political and social context of American censorship, misinformation, and cultural erasure. This well-crafted treatise explains how censorship reflects a much broader societal movement that destabilizes society's dispossessed and undermines their access to power. Jaeger provides a wakeup call to librarians and urges them to confront the warning signs endangering the health of our democracy." --Nancy Kranich, Teaching Professor, Rutgers University Department of Library and Information Science, and Past President, American Library Association, USA "Paul T. Jaeger provides a sharp, critical, and contemporary analysis at the intersection of book bans, disinformation, and cultural erasure, targeted at libraries, schools, and democratic institutions under the far-right political leadership in the United States. Refurbishing past writings organized through a fresh array of related topics, Jaeger weaves a renewed and compelling argument around the implications of the unprecedented hatred and revengeful attacks of today's nationalist political regime. The question of the durability of democracy in a period of vast political upheaval is at the forefront, while the urgency and need for immediate action emerge as key takeaways for resistance to censorship and disinformation as it is continuously politically coordinated to erase marginalized cultures and constrain freedom of expression for all." --Bharat Mehra, Ph.D., EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice and Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alabama