Lowrider Librarian

    Hispanic/Latinx Free Symposium OCTOBER 15, 2021 In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15), the San José State University School of Information held a free symposium to discuss best practices in library services to meet the needs of the Hispanic/Latinx community with greater impact, cultural understanding, and sensitivity. Entitled “Making Vital Connections: Understanding and Serving the Hispanic/Latinx Community,” this inaugural event featured keynote addresses and panel discussions. I  had the honor of sitting on a panel at San Jose Sate University's School Hispanic Heritage Symposium.   I begin about 47 minutes in. #Antiracist   #libraries   #LIS   #Education   #HispanicHeritage   #SJSU

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Assata Shakur American Hero and Revolutionary Innovation is so much more than technology!  True innovation will only come when we break the incestuous cycle of white supremacist knowledge production.  We need new voices and those voices are standing right here.  Real innovation will come when people who created Hip-Hop, Jazz, Rock and Roll--when the people who created flavor in American cuisine and who pretty much generate American culture throughout the continent are involved in information production and knowledge creation.  Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other people of color will create a groundswell like never before once they are allowed to fully function within the academy.  We will change education's structures, its techniques, its goals, its meaning.  We are the harbingers of change and we are here...

  [Please share widely!] Hi Everyone,  I hope you and yours are safe and healthy. It is with great excitement and honor that the Oregon Library Association's Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Antiracism present the OLA EDI Antiracism Toolkit! You can download a copy at the Oregon Library Association Web Site , or the State Library of Oregon website . A paper copy of this toolkit will be distributed to every library in Oregon.  They will also receive a digital copy to print and share with staff.  We tried to make this toolkit as practical as possible!  A  antiracism readiness checklist survey is part of the toolkit.  We are asking library staff  in Oregon to fill out the survey/checklist so that we may get some informaiton on Oregon libraries  (see pre-conference information below).   We are asking that the survey be filled out by   Friday, March 19, 11:59pm to give us time to prep for our pre-conference session...

Scientists, Mathematicians, Computer types and other data driven colleagues, please join us for a special antiracist session about how we can center racial equity throughout data integration in our work at PCC.  Our guest speaker is Angela Bluhm! Event Date and Time: November 10th, 2020: 1pm PST Session description: Since 2019, AISP (Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy) at the University of Pennsylvania has led a diverse workgroup of civic data stakeholders to co-create strategies and identify best practices to center racial equity in data integration efforts. Angela Bluhm is an Analyst for the Educator Advancement Council in the Oregon Department of Education. Angela worked with the AISP while serving as Research, Data, and Communications Coordinator for the Oregon Longitudinal Data Collaborative in the Chief Education Office and later in the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC). Angela will discuss the work of the AISP, the Toolkit for Centering Racial...

I humbly submit some programming ideas for my friends who work in libraries. Do something different! Constitutional rights workshops Civics workshops How to avoid ICE DACA rights workshops Cannabis Consumer Workshops (In states where it is legal) Medical Cannabis patient workshops How to decolonize Education Activism Workshops Anti-Doxxing Workshops FreeSpeech versus HateSpeech Community Discussions Black History Programming How to monitor the police Patron electronic privacy workshops Marginalized people in Children's literature How to share electronic information anonymously  Ethnic Studies Workshops for local communities Archiving local neighborhood history How to build community How to get involved with local  public cable broadcasting How to publish a book How to blog How to be a neighborhood reporter How to start a news program How to write news articles How to be a public speaker How to listen How to argue How to self-reflect How...

Someone on a list I'm on recently posted that they were hesitant to renew their ALA membership because of the recent ALA press release scandal.  You can read about it on Librarian in Black here:  http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/alastatements/ . The person who posted asked the group what they thought about renewing their memberships.  Below is my response. I'm not a member of the ALA, but I work with them on issues concerning Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.  I'm on the ALA EDI implementation Work Group and I try to represent marginalized people who can't afford membership or conference participation (among other things).   I would say that ALA has been made progress due in large part to work by people like Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Trevor Dawes, Martin Garner and many others who are strongly committed to EDI in ALA and in libraries in general.  I would also say that the constituency should scrutinize candidate's actual wor...

Subject: ALA Task Force Seeks Your Input on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Greetings!  The ALA Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion was created in the spring of 2014 by then ALA President, Barbara Stripling.  The Task Force is currently in the information-gathering phase.  To aid with information gathering, it has launched a series of short surveys to be conducted at times to coincide with the ALA Midwinter Meetings and Annual Conferences through 2016.  These surveys are designed to help understand the culture of the association, the profession, and our communities with respect to equity, diversity, and inclusion. We recognize that incidents of racial bias and injustice continue to occur across the country on a regular basis.  This third survey, however, focuses on the economic implications of participating in ALA functions. The survey can be accessed at  https://www.surveymonkey.com/ r/TEDI3 . Responses will be...

The number one issue I encounter when dealing with racism on an organizational/institutional level is the lack of ability to put the organization's resources toward ending racism and the lack of diversity in the institution. Many US Organizations state they value "diversity."  What does that mean? Diversity, inclusion and equity aren't seen as an issue of sustainability for our organizations and institutions.   These issues are looked at like pinstriping on a sports car.  It seems they are not as important to our organizations as the engine, or even the tires of the car... Our nation will not survive if we do not deal with the issues of race that exist in our culture. Unconscious bias is built into most education, entertainment and other forms of information. We need teams of analysts to investigate these biases, analyze them, describe them for laypeople, and prescribe fixes for them.  We need these teams within our organizations and in general society. ...

It isn't just getting people the MLS, or MLIS.  I've had mine since 2009 and it hasn't done me much good.  Libraries, the ALA and Education is not really interested in equity, inclusion or diversity,  If they were, then they would put their money where there mouths are and make it a priority.  I have been working in libraries since 1987 and personally have not seen a change in representation.  I also have numbers that prove the field has become less diverse.   I think working together is the way to go, but I also think acknowledging "whiteness" and the privileges that go with it is an important step toward working together.  I'm not even White and I benefit from these privileges because of my lighter skin. I know I have more opportunities (generally) than my darker brothers and sisters. And god forbid they have an accent.  It isn't that hard to acknowledge the privilege--yet people constantly fight this acknowledgement.   We...