Academic libraries serving refugees and asylum seekers

Bowdoin, Natalia Taylor; Hagar, Chris; Monsees, Joyce; Kaur, Trishanjit; Middlebrooks, Trae; Miles-Edmonson, Leatha; White, Ashanti; Vang, Touger; Olaka, Musa; Yier, Charles; Chu, Clara M.; Ford, Bárbara J.

doi:10.5860/crln.78.6.298

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The second programmatic implication is the need for inter-agency and interdisciplinary collaboration in this effort. One natural partnership appears between the two existing primary providers of digital skills training: libraries and resettlement service agencies (Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange, 2021; Dahya et al, 2020;Felton, 2015;HIAS, 2021;Bowdoin et al, 2017). Project Welcome (2018), a U.S. national initiative to assist libraries with addressing the information needs of refugees and asylum seekers in the resettlement and integration process, stresses the collective impacts to be gained through collaboration among libraries, resettlement agencies, direct and indirect service providers (e.g., educational institutions, museums), and ethnic community-based organizations.…”

Section: Implications For Programmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Role of Digital Skills in Refugee Integration

Potocky

2022

IJIDI

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Two concurrent 21st-century phenomena—the nearly unprecedented number of forced migrants and the near ubiquity of information and communications technology—have given rise to increased scholarship in “digital migration studies.” One area of investigation in this emergent interdisciplinary field is the role of digital skills in refugee integration. Given the accelerated global reliance on technology resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the author conducted a state-of-the-art literature review to identify emerging issues and highlight research needs in this area. A search of 10 databases yielded 39 studies spanning the major resettlement regions (North America, Western Europe, Oceania), and including refugees from across the globe. The inclusion criteria were studies focused on refugees’ practical use of digital technology in integration, published from January 2020-April 2021. Exclusion criteria were studies on refugees in transit or protracted displacement, digital connectivity and accessibility, use of digital technology by humanitarian actors, software development, analyses of digital representations of refugees, public attitudes toward refugees as expressed in digital media, and literature reviews. Ndofor-Tah et al.’s (2019) Refugee Integration Framework was used to organize and synthesize the findings. The studies demonstrated how digital skills affect all domains of integration. Additionally, the studies confirm that many refugees in resettlement have limited digital skills for necessary integration tasks, such as navigating websites and assessing the credibility of online information. Limitations of this state-of-the-art review include its cross-sectional nature, having only one reviewer, and only published literature accessible online through public websites or subscription databases. An important emerging issue for future research is assessing, teaching, and learning digital skills among this population. The study's contributions to the knowledge base and theory, and its implications for information science scholars and practitioners and those in allied disciplines within digital migration studies, are discussed.

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Section: Implications For Programmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• providing refugees access to resources, such as native-language digital media, that may not be available through the public library (Bowdoin et al, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Role of Digital Skills in Refugee Integration

Potocky

2022

IJIDI

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“…Libraries have played a critical role in the lives of refugees, noted in an IMLS‐distributed study as a long‐standing historical role traced back to Andrew Carnegie's support for immigrant self‐education at public libraries (US CIS, 2006). They help children of refugees with homework (Bowdoin et al, 2017), they “set up outside of Walmart” with information to assist refugees (Witteveen, 2015, n.p. ), they host language classes and provide access to audiobooks in several languages (Dowling, 2017), and they conduct extensive literacy programs in schools (Jacobson, 2016).…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting refugees by facilitating the innovation of nonprofit resettlement agencies: A case study

Freeburg

2020

Proc Assoc Inf Sci Technol

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This study tested the implementation of the Information for Innovation model (IIM). The IIM posits that to implement innovations and adapt to external change, nonprofits must increase both the inward and outward flow of information. This increased flow comes through experimentation, information‐seeking, and self‐expression. Over 1 year, the researcher implemented the model with a refugee resettlement nonprofit in the Southeastern U.S. A case study design was used, following the approach of Community‐Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The implementation of the IIM followed the structure of Communities of Practice (COP), and participants held several face‐to‐face meetings and engaged in virtual information‐seeking. Results show that increases in information‐seeking improved the nonprofit's confidence in its ability to manage change. Improvements in self‐expression enabled the nonprofit to benefit more fully from the diversity of existing staff. Yet, the IIM's impact on implementation was limited by lack of resources. This study contributes to literature on the expansion of Library and Information Science (LIS) into communities by proposing an evidence‐based approach to working with nonprofits. This study also contributes to literature on the role of LIS in refugee populations, suggesting that these institutions work more directly with the nonprofits whose expertise and funding most directly supports refugees.

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The Information Needs Matrix: A navigational guide for refugee integration

Oduntan

Ruthven

2019

Information Processing & Management

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This paper presents an information needs matrix as a navigation guide for refugees and host societies to support integration. It is an outcome from an information behaviour investigation into refugee integration, conducted through interviews with asylum seekers and refugees. A sense-making methodology was used as a framework to examine the experiences of refugees, focusing on the situations and information gaps encountered during integration. The study identified information needs on housing, financial, legal and social support, mobility, health, education, employment and state benefits. A unique feature of the proposed matrix is the order dependency of the uncovered needs by our investigation. The findings were validated with observation data collected while undertaking a role at the Scottish Refugee Council. The matrix can be used to guide society's provisions for integration, assess levels of individual integration and inform the design of information support for refugees.

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Academic libraries serving refugees and asylum seekers

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Role of Digital Skills in Refugee Integration

Role of Digital Skills in Refugee Integration

Supporting refugees by facilitating the innovation of nonprofit resettlement agencies: A case study

The Information Needs Matrix: A navigational guide for refugee integration

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