Counter-Storytelling in the LIS Curriculum

To present and explore the need for alternative narratives to be included in library and information science (LIS) curricula.

This chapter examines LIS and its curricula through the Storytelling Project (STP) framework. STP theorizes that there are four types of stories: stock, concealed, resistance, and emerging/transforming stories.

Each of these story types exists in LIS, but in unequal proportion. LIS curriculum should include more stories of resistance and more emerging/transforming stories. These stories should also facilitate the emergence of the “new storytellers,” faculty members and instructors in LIS graduate programs who are working diligently to incorporate new stories into the classroom by creating learning environments that accommodate and encourage discussions of race, privilege, social justice, and other necessary and difficult issues.

The STP story typology forms a counter-storytelling matrix that can allow LIS educators an opportunity to diversify their content and teaching styles, ultimately enriching their students, their programs, and the profession.

This chapter expands LIS pedagogy by infusing elements of diversity, social justice, and theory from the related field of education.