Librarians with two organizations based in the U.S., the Progressive Librarians Guild and RadicalReference, will attend the USSF to engage in four primary activities. Our work will be framed by the question: In what ways can the field of librarianship help realize the goals set by the social forum movement?
Already librarian colleagues in several parts of the world are involved in the social forum movement in different ways: (1) collecting publications from social forum participants to document and preserve the memory and history of this important social movement, and in doing so to continue work begun in Nairobi in establishing the WSFLibrary; (2) informing social forum participants on the role librarians and libraries can play in communities to support social justice and, conversely, inquiring of participants how librarianship might best serve their needs; (3) in providing library services during the social forum itself to media workers; (4) in sharing our experience as activists engaged in opposing and exposing privatization of public services, disinformation, and censorship; and (5) engaging in dialogue with colleagues attending the forum on how we can bring the message, spirit and goals of the forum into the field of librarianship. Both the Progressive Librarians Guild and Radical Reference want to participate in the U.S. Social Forum in order to support the work begun by our colleagues within the context of the World Social Forum.
