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Kajian Dalam Bidang Ilmu Perpustakaan dan Informasi: Filosofi, Teori, dan Praktik
praxis at the level of their library community. Counter hegemonic academic
librarians should act as educators and facilitators for students, staff,
professional scholars, and community users. Hence, as suggested by Raber
(2003), Buschman (2009), and Danner & Bintliff (2007), it is critical to
fight for intellectual freedom and against censorship. For librarians to have
counter hegemonic awareness, Raber advocates the teaching of critical
theory as part of library school education. Introducing critical theory to
library school students will allow the emergence of librarians who are
able to make progressive changes in librarianship. It is hard to conceive
that librarians will have the initiative to get involved in transformation
processes and be able to deconstruct the established service orientation if
the existing foundation is non-supportive of attitude in that direction.
The significance of critical librarianship can also be understood
from the findings by Schroeder & Hollister (2014). From their study of
librarians’ familiarity with critical theory (concept, terminology) in their
professional practices and social justice issues, it was concluded that
librarians were not familiar with critical practices, making it hard for
them to make significant changes in librarianship, especially in relation to
social justice and welfare. Many librarians were not familiar with critical
theory and practices in librarianship and lacked the awareness of social
justice and other significant issues in their everyday professional practices.
Schroeder & Hollister suggested incorporation of critical theory in LIS for
LIS graduates to be able to accommodate services for all community layers
when performing their professional tasks.
II. CONCLUSION: ROLE RECONSTRUCTION
In fact, critical theory for social reality analysis has already been
a part in the development of many disciplines, including education,
literature studies, philosophy, management, communication/media
studies, international relations, political science, geography, language
studies, sociology, psychology, to name but a few (Leckie, Buschman, &
Given, 2010: ix). Without the knowledge and recognition of librarians or
library and information science academics, critical theory has been a part
of discourse in library literature, for example, in the search in database
(Leckie, Buschman, & Given, 2010). In Indonesia, it seems that not many
are aware of critical perspectives’ use as a method of deconstructing library
and librarianship role to reconstruct ideas, roles, and change efforts.
More than merely gaining knowledge and understanding of a
multitude of critical theories, when librarians are faced with the pressure to
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