Throughout my life, my grandmother often reminded me that she only completed the seventh grade, yet I always considered her highly intelligent. Her lack of formal education was not due to a lack of intelligence, but rather because the opportunities she needed were not available to her in the same way they would later be for me.

As a child, she learned a hard truth: if you wanted to keep something from a Black person, put it in a book. This message reflected generations of exclusion from literacy and written knowledge. Her guidance and instruction were shaped by her own upbringing and experiences in a world where racism was evident, and the communities in which she lived were often unwelcoming to African Americans. For my grandmother, the idea of hiding something in a book became a motivation to read, to learn, and to ensure that her grandchildren would never be denied access to the knowledge those books contained.

My grandmother encouraged my love of reading. I still own the first book she bought for me and read with me, The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories by Mary Batchelor, illustrated by John Haysom, and published in 1985. From an early age, I learned the joy of getting lost in a good book. Reading allowed me to hear the stories of people whose life journeys differed from my own, exposing me to new words, new ideas, and new perspectives. Books opened my mind and my ears to ways of seeing the world beyond my own experience.

Looking back, I realize that what my grandmother was giving me was more than a love of reading. She was giving me access to knowledge and teaching me how to seek it out. Long before I learned the term information literacy, I was learning how to navigate information, ask questions, and rely on evidence to understand the world around me. In many ways, she was teaching me how to be a librarian.

Her influence also shaped how I understand information privilege. Information privilege refers to the advantages some people have in accessing information that others cannot. It may depend on where you live, how much money you have, or whether you are affiliated with a well-resourced institution. Some people grow up surrounded by books, libraries, and reliable internet access. Others do not. Some are taught how to evaluate sources and question information. Others are left to navigate complex systems on their own.

Access itself is a privilege. But knowing how to use information once you have it is another privilege entirely.

The barriers my grandmother described did not exist in isolation. They were part of larger systems that shaped who could access knowledge and who could not. I first learned the term “information redlining” in January 2022, when the American Library Association Executive Director, Tracie D. Hall, spoke to the African American Medical Librarians Alliance. I was already familiar with the term redlining before Hall’s presentation, but I had never heard the phrase information redlining. When she introduced the concept, it immediately resonated with me. Information redlining is the systematic denial of equitable access to information, information services, and information retrieval methods. The concept itself has deeper roots. In 1996, Timothy Coggins and Rhonda Oziel compiled a list of selected readings on the topic and noted that information redlining extends beyond the availability of technology or online services. It also concerns what information is available to lower-income, minority, and rural communities.

To fully understand information redlining, it helps to understand the history of redlining itself. According to Richardson and colleagues (2020), redlining refers to discriminatory practices that denied access to credit and insurance for borrowers in neighborhoods that were economically disadvantaged or had high percentages of minorities. Entire communities were marked as risky investments and systematically denied opportunities for economic growth.

The same logic can appear in our information systems. Gaps in broadband access, library funding, and digital infrastructure continue to shape who can fully participate in today’s information economy. As Tracie Hall discussed in the November 2020 issue of American Libraries, information redlining highlights how inequities in technology and information access continue to affect communities today.

Information privilege also appears throughout scholarly communication. It influences who gets published, whose work is cited, which institutions can afford journal subscriptions, and whose research is considered credible. Many scholarly systems assume a level of access that not everyone has. This is where libraries matter. At their best, libraries push back against information privilege. For some communities, we open doors that were once closed by providing books, databases, technology, and guidance. We teach people how to search, evaluate, and use information to improve their lives. Libraries send a powerful message: this knowledge belongs to you, too.

Every time I walk into a library, teach a class, or help someone find sought-after information, I carry my grandmother’s lesson with me. Priscilla Perkins taught me to value information and to understand its power. Due to her influence, I believe in giving people unfiltered access to information so they can make informed personal and professional decisions. My grandmother once learned that books could be used to hide knowledge from people like her. Because of her, I became a librarian who believes all forms of information should do the opposite.

Books should not hide knowledge. They should open doors.