Is homelessness a library issue?

From the ALA weekly newsletter, an interesting article: Professor teaches librarians to never be meek. CeEarly on, professor Toni Samek asks her students this question: Is homelessness a library issue?

Students entering the Master of Library and Information Studies program at the University of Alberta, where Samek has taught for 18 years, come from fields as diverse as nursing and law. They arrive not knowing what to expect. But after the homelessness question, students forget their stereotypes about meek librarians. Samek is anything but meek. In fact, she sees herself as an activist in a radical profession. It’s no surprise, then, that her teaching is grounded in the idea put forward by scholar Henry Giroux that a good education is one that is constantly engaged with public life.

Giroux is a new name for me.

Giroux has been an important contributor to a variety of academic fields, including critical pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, and media studies, among others. His work draws from a number of theoretical traditions extending from Marx to Paulo Freire to Zygmunt Bauman. He is also an advocate of radical democracy, vigorously opposing the anti-democratic tendencies of neoliberalism, militarism, empire, religious fundamentalism, and the ongoing attacks against the social state, the social wage, youth, the poor, and public and higher education. Giroux's most recent work focuses on public pedagogy, a term he coined to describe the nature of the spectacle and the new media, and the political and educational force of global culture. He is also a regular columnist for Truthout and writes for a variety of academic journals and public venues.