Lowrider Librarian

Problems in multicultural_collection_development from Max Macias: Info, Tech and Leadership This is a presentation I did in library school back in 2007.

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Star_Trek_uniforms.jpg Kael Moffat Information Literacy Librarian, Saint Martin’s University As librarians, one of our many hats could be expressed as “identity formers.”  At first glance, this may seem like a grandiose claim, but if we look at aspects of our profession in light of Georg Simmel’s concept of the web of group-affiliations, we can see that we do play such an important role.  Simmel was a late nineteenth-century, early twentieth-century German sociologist and philosopher who wrote on such broad topics as the history of philosophy, philosophy of money, and social structure.  One of his influential shorter works, “The Web of Group-Affiliations,” published in 1922, can be used as lens through which we can look at how librarianship affects identity formation. Simmel points out that an individual’s identity is initially imposed on them through the “web of circumstances” of family and oth...

Libraries and the Fight Against Terrorism Libraries can and should be an important weapon against terrorism.  "Librarians are soldiers in the war against ignorance!"  Racism is fundamentally ignorance which leads to hate.  This is a call out to all librarians to help end the ongoing terrorism against people of color in the US. People of color in the US live under a state of domestic terrorism.  This terrorism is conducted via many official channels.  The education system, law enforcement, healthcare, judicial system and other aspects of the state have been and are used against people of color in the US. The terrorism we experience on a daily basis meets ALL the criteria below:  "Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics: Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law; Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by ...

Conversations With Skateboarders [2005: Reprinted from MaxM a subsidiary of Sleestak.net] Image is everything, at least thats what you see on tv, read in magazines, and hear on the radio. A cool image is something that has always been important, and always will be, but it bothers me when only one stereotypical image is portrayed as 'cool.' One image that bugs the shit out of me is the dressed in black, rock & roll Glam belt, drunk, dirty, ignorant idiot that is oftentimes used to characterize skateboarders. What is really sad is that our magazines support this type of image, offer no alternatives to impressionable kids, and encourage these stereotypes. Transworld does promote the image of skaters as wholesome jocks--which is just as bad, but I'm focusing on the aforementioned image in this writing. Here is an example of Thrasher's idea of a good way to gain skate time: Thrasher's Study Less page   [This page no longer exists--it was a coll...

Yes, that is a Grumpy T-shirt.   Here is a link to an short interview I did for a multicultural librarian graduate course: https://goo.gl/r93L4g These are the questions I covered:   Questions for 825 Interviews   1. Will you please introduce yourself to the class and briefly describe your current library and position as well as the path that led you to librarianship?   2. In this course, we are exploring how libraries can best meet “the recreational, cultural, informational, and educational needs of African American, Asian American, Latina/o, Native American, and bi/multiracial children, young adults, and adults.” In what ways does your racial/ethnic identity enable you to meet these needs in your library?   3. As a patron in libraries throughout your life, you have probably had both positive and negative experiences related to access and collections. How have these experiences shaped your work as a professiona...

I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates in one sitting.  It was a decent book. Get this book for your library! So many people have already praised it for its great writing and incredible erudition.  I felt really let down after reading his book because I was expecting so much more. Mr. Coates is a good writer, but he is not a great writer.  His prose flows and I believe he has found his own voice.  However, the writing is not beautiful, nor is it creative or innovative in any manner. In my opinion the most important aspects of this book are his insights on the black body.   African Americans, after all, were considered products to be exploited for their value as slaves.  Their (and latino) bodies are still used in such a way in the prison industry as explicated so brilliantly in Michelle Alexander's seminal work, The New Jim Crow. He COMPLETELY neglects the fact that other ethnicities (besides black people) have race issues in the U...