Librarians with Spines Author Showcase #3

 

Information and registration is here:

https://www.librarianswithspines.com/blog

Three Anti-Racist Actions YOU Can Take in Your library RIGHT NOW!

"Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably." - NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity

 

Here are three Anti-racist actions you can take today in your library:

Give your library policies an anti-racist audit.

Form a group from different stakeholders at your library.  

Recruit individuals from the administration of your organization, your union and your HR department--if possible.

Pick a simple policy, practice or procedure to analyze.

Notify any stakeholders who might not be included yet about your intent to audit the policy, practice or procedure.  

Crowdsource your analysis on a zoom whiteboard, or Google Doc, or something that makes collaboration easier. 

Present your findings to the group who owns said policy, practice or procedure.  

Ask for feedback from them on your groups suggestions for anti-racist improvements.

If the analysis is accepted and implemented, ask for a report on the impact these changes have made.

Present this information to your library administration with an executive summary.

Appoint people from marginalized communities to positions in your library.

If you are a hiring manager, find out what it takes to appoint people to positions under your domain.

Form a group from different stakeholders at your library.  

Recruit individuals from the administration of your organization and HR if possible.

Do an analysis of your department's ethnic makeup.

Find qualified candidates for appointment by getting in touch with BCALA, APALA, REFORMA, AILA, CALA, ALA Spectrum and Library Schools.

Work with community organizations to get interns and students from underrepresented groups to come work in your library.  

Provide support in the form of mentorships, affinity groups and antiracism groups--to begin with.

Define racist and other forms of bigotry outside of 'free speech.'

Many racists like to hide behind the veil of free speech, but racist speech and other forms of harassment are not free speech.  

Come up with a policy that bans racist forms of harassment by explicitly defining actions and words that are racist as such.  

For example, if someone is sending out emails to their organization, or simply individuals in their organization questioning if racism exists should be defined as explicit racist behavior.

Don't assume it is a question of free speech right off the bat.  We have restrictions on our behavior, language and other aspects of our lives while at work.

Racist behavior should not be treated as a special kind of offense--it is an egregious offense and their should be dire consequences.  Racism impacts productivity, 

Use these tactics to create an anti-oppression atmosphere for other marginalized and oppressed groups.

I know that this is a fourth action, but hey--it is necessary.

This is a blog post and is not meant to be comprehensive.  However, I would like comments so I can sharpen my suggestions with your practical insights and constructive criticism.  

Please.

My goal is to crowdsource practical ways to implement antiracism policy analysis and antiracism in general into US libraries.  

The time is past for EDI!

We need to work on Anti-oppression and 

Be actively anti-racist!  

Change doesn't happen on it's own, or just by waiting for it to happen.

We can all take active steps toward building the libraries and world we want!

Recording of Librarians with Spines Author Showcase #2: Grace Yamada interviews kYmberly Keeton.

The recording is now available!  You can now hear Grace Yamada Interview kYmberly Keeton about the Black Covid 19 Project.  

Here is the recording of the Showcase:

Librarians with Spines Author Showcase 2: Grace Yamada Interviews kYmberly Keeton

Come hear and interact with two Librarians with Spines: Grace Yamada Interviews kYmberly Keeton about the Black Covid 19 Project, about Hip-Hop and Information Science (kYmberly's chapter was on this).  The conversation will be sure to include aspects of digital citizenship (Grace's chapter was on this topic), books, libraries and more.

More about the Black Covid-19 Project: 

Keeton--Austin History Center's African American Community Archivist and Librarian was instrumental in organizing and launching Growing Your Roots, the four-day statewide African American genealogy conference earlier this year. But in this case, Keeton is all about the present – specifically about African Americans living through this same pandemic that's sending the AAABF to Zoom this year. She believes their stories matter, and she's collecting them for the Black COVID-19 Index, an independent project she initiated to gather stories, images, audio, and video created by African Americans in response to the coronavirus and these times.  Source: Austin Chronicle

Please sign up for this free event below and we will send you event information: 

Recording:Librarians With Spines Author Showcase One: Ann Matushima Chiu and Cathy Camper

A conversation with Ann Matsushima Chiu and Cathy Camper on 6/27/2020 from 1-2 pm on Zoom! Both Ann and Cathy Camper were chapter authors in Librarians with Spines Vol. 1. Interviewers: Autumn Anglin, Yago Cura, Max Macias.   

Here is the recording of the Showcase:

Librarians with Spines Author Showcase: Ann Matsushima Chiu and Cathy Camper 6/27/20

Please join us for a conversation with Ann Matsushima Chiu and Cathy Camper on 6/27/2020 from 1-2 pm on Zoom! Both Ann and Cathy Camper were chapter authors in Librarians with Spines Vol. 1. Interviewers: Autumn Anglin, Yago Cura, Max Macias.  This event is free.

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Please fill out the form below to register for this exciting event.  We are requiring registration to avoid unwanted visitors and other forms of Zoombombing.  Once you are registered, we will send you the login information.  

Librarians With Spines Online Salons....

[Cancelled--we will be back soon with a different, more focused format.   Max]

A librarian with a spine hard at work!

Please join us for a series of Librarians with Spines Salons.

This is a collaboration between Hinchas Press and Lowrider Librarian.

We wish to host conversations between Librarians about important issues such as:

• Information Literacy in the time of Covid-19.
• Self-publishing and censorship
• BIPOC Librarian experience ethnographies, or other related topics.

Anything you all want to talk about--we are pretty open and can have a conversation about anything...

Please join us weekly on Friday evenings from 6-8 pm PST here:

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We look forward to seeing you and hearing what you have to say!

Lowrider Librarian and Hinchas Press