Jason Griffey (MSLS’04), alumnus of the UNC School of School of Information and Library Science (SILS), was invited to deliver the SILS Spring Commencement address at the Dean E. Smith Center on May 7.

Though the SILS ceremony and other University graduation events were postponed due to COVID-19, Griffey finished composing his address and published it on his website under the title “The World We Dream About & the One We Live in Now.”

Griffey offers SILS graduates professional advice and reflects the challenges they will face in the current unwieldy and unregulated information landscape. He argues that building a better world – one of “equity and inclusion, of facts and truth” – will take a collective and sustained effort.

“It takes the type of work that maintains, that builds, that gathers people together towards a vision,” he writes. “It takes the work of different people, all wanting to make the world fair and equitable for all people. It is often quiet work that goes unrecognized. It takes people who are willing to stand up for the truth of reality, that insist on rationally understanding the world through expertise and evidence.”

Read the full address on Griffey’s website, or listen to a recording Griffey made of the speech.

A librarian and technologist, Griffey is currently the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the National Information Standards Organization. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, he ran a technology consulting company for libraries. He has been an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

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