Category: Publications, etc.

Access, Incarcerated Adults, Publications, etc.

Essay on Information Access

My essay on information access in carceral institutions is now available online through Feminist Media Studies. Here’s the abstract:

Policing and incarceration are feminist issues that stand to be interrogated through examinations of carceral practices. This essay positions the management and withholding of information and the observation of communications as instances of carceral specific practices that shape possibilities for incarcerated people and their communities. The author draws from their experience as a librarian in carceral facilities to outline how State-enacted violence occurs through the regulation and management of information access. As carceral facilities utilize third-party ICT providers, it is difficult to ascertain what information is or is not available. The introduction of new and evolving ICTs has led to increased opportunities for the State to monitor people who are incarcerated and their communities, positioning incarcerated people and their networks not only as sources of information but as data to train technologies of policing and surveillance. Instances of resistance to these practices reveal some ways that people who are not incarcerated can act in solidarity with people who are incarcerated and people who are subject to State surveillance.

You can access the full essay at

Austin, J. (2020). Information access within carceral institutions. Feminist Media Studies. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2020.1786933

Incarcerated Adults, Publications, etc.

Open Access Article: Information Provision and the Carceral State

The Reference Librarian and Taylor & Francis will be providing free access to the article I recently published with Dr. Melissa Villa-Nicholas.  You can access the article at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02763877.2019.1645077 through December 31, 2019.

Title:  Information Provision and the Carceral State: Race and Reference beyond the Idea of the “Underserved”

Abstract: This article addresses an approach to library services for people who are incarcerated that meets the situated information needs and desires of people within jails and prisons. By creating a flow of information between LIS students and individuals who are incarcerated through a Reference by Mail program, resources available to incarcerated people are increased while students engage in a humanizing and self-reflexive project, with the understanding that the regulation of information within jails and prisons has lasting effects for the life chances of incarcerated people.

 

 

Incarcerated Youth, Publications, etc., Resources

Reform and Revolution: Juvenile Detention Center Libraries in the 1970s PDF

 

Happy to make my most recent publication available for no charge!

Austin, J. (2017). Reform and Revolution: Juvenile Detention Center Libraries in the 1970s. Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, 1(2), 240-266. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/libraries.1.2.0240

Abstract:

Librarians working with incarcerated populations during the 1970s drew from and contributed to ongoing movements against oppression based on race, gender, and sexuality. These movements shaped the ideologies and actions of librarians working with incarcerated youth. Librarians’ ideological approaches were not always articulated through publications. This paper examines publications in special issues of library journals during this period alongside associational archives and the revolutionary newsletter Inside-Outside to interrogate how ideologies of reform or revolution shaped library practice in juvenile detention facilities during this time. Inherent in this undertaking is an evaluation of how mainstream avenues for publication and association proceedings may have favored reformist positions. Available publications and records that relate to juvenile detention center libraries in the 1970s are framed in a larger discussion of youth incarceration.

You can access the PDF by clicking this link –

Libraries 1.2_05_Austin

Publications, etc.

Successful Dissertation Defense!

I successfully defended my dissertation – Libraries for social change: Centering youth of color and/or LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth in library practice – on November 6, 2017 at the iSchool at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I am honored to have worked with my committee, which included Christine Jenkins (chair), Nicole Cooke (research director), Carol Tilley, Soo Ah Kwon, and Rae-Anne Montague.

The announcement of my successful defense is available at

https://ischool.illinois.edu/articles/2017/11/jeanie-austin-defends-dissertation.