Library & Information Science scholars and practitioners have been trained to maintain their libraries and knowledge centers as ‘Silence Zone’. The pandemic has made humans realize the importance of mental health & wellbeing. However, still the topic needs more awareness and breaks the taboo around it. How about library community taking the baton and spreading awareness on mental health & wellbeing and mindfulness activities in their libraries. 

Libraries have always been a more inclusive yet diverse place for all regardless of any biases of gender, caste, geography and such. 

In this special issue, we invite authors to share their experiences and insights on how MH&W can be made a part of essential library services.  Such resources are currently lacking and implicit.

Themes and questions of interest for the special issue could be, for example:

• What kinds of activities a library can design around the theme?
• How do you build your mental health & wellbeing?
• How conflicts can be managed in a team by being mindful or practicing mindfulness?
• How does mental wellbeing play an important role to you to balance your academic career and life?
• How do you view and cope with issues such as gender/racial bias?
• How did you cope with the toxic relationships in academia if you have experienced them?
• Role of social media in building up stress or anxiety.
• How do you deal with criticisms in academic settings, e.g., peer review, job seeking process?
• Are there any initiatives in your organization around the theme for staff/employees?
• Libraries as a Community places
• Juveniles, Young adults and mental health
• User Engagement and Community Services
• Libraries, SDG 3 and MH&W
• Changing roles of libraries and librarianship
• Re-imagining libraries as community welfare spaces.
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In the special issue, we seek short texts for general audiences, accompanied by personal experiences and perspectives, issues to consider, potential solutions, and your ongoing research or ideas.

Author instructions

All proposals should be submitted directly to the Information Matters platform following the author instructions. Authors are also encouraged to provide illustrations to accompany texts. When submitting your article, make sure to select “SI MHW” as a tag to be considered for this Special Issue.

Pay special attention that in this special issue we are not seeking conventional scholarly papers but short texts (500 to 1000 words) accessible for the general audience. Work that is previously published elsewhere will be considered if it is rewritten in the format applicable to Information Matters. The texts will be published in parallel through SSRN in a citable format with a DOI, volume and issue and are indexed in a series of publication databases.

Important Dates

CFP Opens for submissions: November 18, 2024

Last date for submissions: January 31, 2025

Decisions and publication through IM website: Typically, within two weeks of submission

Publication of the special issue and indexing through SSRN: March 2025

Questions

For queries about the special issue, please contact the guest editor.

Editors

• Poonam Bharti Gola, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India [email protected]