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Introduction
The climate and environmental crisis has come with a call for action in public libraries worldwide, leading libraries and librarians to negotiate their neutrality in efforts that may border on activism. The societal engagement of Norwegian public libraries has a long history and is a product of both the librarianship field and cultural policy developed in line with political agendas for social inclusion, democratic rights, participation for all and, currently, sustainable development, in line with international public library agendas (Audunson et al., 2022; Ministry of Culture and Equality, 2019). Public libraries gain a foothold as institutions for societal change by embracing complex new roles in local communities. In accordance with the global political issues and increased polarisation of our time, this has led scholars and parts of the professional field to call for libraries and librarians to take on activist agendas and identities or embrace roles as radical positive change agents (Jochumsen et al., 2022; Lankes, 2016; Mathiasson and Jochumsen, 2022b). Public libraries’ activist and political stands include working for democratic and human rights principles and supporting social justice movements, digital literacy and ethnic and sexual minorities (Gibson et al., 2017; Sundeen and Blomgren, 2020; Kann-Rasmussen, 2022; Kann-Rasmussen et al., 2022). Additionally, libraries are working to achieve the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) through a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional material collections, organisational partnerships and by building competency and conveying the message of climate change and environmental degradation to large audiences through public events (Beutelspacher and Meschede, 2020; Mathiasson and Jochumsen, 2022a).
This article explores how the concept of political neutrality relates to Norwegian public libraries and the activism, tools and materials of librarians who engage in sustainable development. Library neutrality is contended, and today some scholars reject the notion that public libraries can be neutral (Gibson et al., 2017; Lankes, 2020), while others argue that neutrality should remain a guiding principle (Larsen, 2023; Koizumi and Larsen, 2023; Wenzler, 2019). To address the inherent ambiguities and provide new empirical insights, the concepts of neutrality and activism are framed in terms of negotiations in the daily workings of librarians implementing the UN SDGs. In Norway, an amendment to the library legislation in 2014 mandated the public library...