The focus of the book is on two themes, civic engagement, and social justice. This brings in two perspectives that become the value of this book. First, it is to illustrate that librarians are not just stamping books, and libraries are not just lending books. Libraries and librarians are actively engaged in social goals and encourage community-led partnerships. Second, it presents evidence that library-led engagement does facilitate in bridging the digital divide and therefore a social good.
The lessons and best practices in the book will include, among others, digital literacy skills with a focus on social justice. Such a narrative will describe the process to search the surface and deep web, discover and locate desired information. For example, it will also enable a smart "digizen" (formerly Netizens), to uncover masked sites and critically evaluate each. The skillful training will also teach them to be empowered to see what lies behind and beyond in the form of hate, violence, discrimination, cybercrimes, fake news and much more. Hopefully, some of these "digizen" will eventually become ambassadors to reduce cultural and religious illiteracy.
In addition, this book focuses on community engagement and social justice in a smart city's digital world. This brings about research on technology in libraries, smart technologies, and digital literacy. With the special reflections on civic engagement and social justice in smart cities, this book will open new windows for civic-minded groups to consider a collaboration with libraries and will also be beneficial within multicultural and multi-faith digital literacy programs.
