The current experience of digital librarianship in the U.S. and around the world is defined in part by precarity and crisis. In March 2025, Trump issued an Executive Order that dismantled the IMLS; as of April 2026, his proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year does not include IMLS funding. Demands to censor books representing the experiences of LGBTQ+ people continue to break records. Tech companies inundate our digital platforms with AI tools dependent on extractive environmental practices, exploitative labor, and copyright infringement. Libraries are reorganized and consolidated in grasping attempts to prove relevance and stretch resources. These examples are specifically relevant to our work as information professionals, but we are also affected by broader atrocities. As ICE’s federally-mandated acts of cruelty, bragging promises of war crimes, and ongoing genocide in Palestine fill our newsfeed, we continue to be faced with questions about the impact and sustainability of our digital library work.
This special issue of the Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship invites submissions that explore the intersections between digital library work and current democratic crises. What strategies can we use to keep our work sustainable when funding is precarious? How are our digital tools (including tools we are expected to engage with on our campuses) changing, and how do we respond when those changes threaten our ability to center justice in our work? What steps can we take within our professional roles to advocate for our most vulnerable neighbors? What work is being done to digitally highlight and archive the labor of activists who resist nationalist violence?