Challenges and LIS Responses to Digital Literacy in Crisis

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in the Spring of 2020, vulnerable Canadians were left behind by digital exclusion, which was exacerbated by an increased reliance on digital technologies. In this article, I seek to provide an overview of the links between digital inclusion, social justice, and the values of the LIS profession. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, another crisis of digital exclusion has revealed the ways in which digital citizenship and socio-economic exclusion are fundamentally intertwined. In response, many LIS professionals have overcome extensive closures and reductions in resources to find innovative solutions to this crisis of inequality. This article will provide just a few examples of these responses from LIS organizations. Indeed, even among overwhelming barriers, LIS professionals have not lost sight of community values and commitment to social justice in challenging times. In unprecedented times, LIS professionals have found innovation to address ongoing social and economic barriers of digital exclusion.