#critlib

A place to talk about critical pedagogy and other critical approaches to libraries.

[library-graffiti]

Brand new blog post.

[heath-bear-deactivated20190314]

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg (CMHR) -- the first national museum located outside of Canada's capital city, Ottawa -- has been fraught with controversy since its inception, large...

This article was posted in Progressive Librarians Guild FB group and it has me thinking a lot about how LOC subject headings and information access points describe (or misrepresent) the events they seek to mark for library users.

Something that is consuming my thoughts is how large-scale systems come up with descriptive systems/categories/taxonomies that are in keeping with the dominant power/paradigm. Is it possible to have room for both? Could there be LOC Subject Headings developed that makes the republic comfortable sit alongside a social justice-based taxonomy/classification system? What would it take to open it up to other perspectives? 

Also I am curious about how these “objective” subject headings get selected and used. If there can be no objectivity in creating subject headings/classification systems/access points how can we create more space for multiple viewpoints that don’t get brushed aside because “well, that’s not what the historical record says” or focusing on the dominant power to determine access points and classification. 

[critlib]

Registration for #CritLib Unconference San Francisco Now Open!

What:  #CritLib Unconference San Francisco 2015 When:  Friday, June 26th 2015, 8:30am-1pm Where:  University of San Francisco, Gleeson Library (30 minute bus ride from ALA location) Cost:  Free! Coffee and snacks provided, lunch will be on your own. Registration:  http://tinyurl.com/critlib-ala15 Contact:  [email protected]

Library instruction, assessment, cataloging and classification, collection building, staffing, administration, and other functions of libraries are all political projects that librarians undertake inside institutions that operate under capitalist, patriarchal, and racist power structures that many of us aim to contest. How do we do this in both theory and practice?

This unconference, coinciding with the ALA Annual Conference 2015, aims to bring together a diverse group of voices to address this social justice work from a range of perspectives. As we gather in San Francisco to discuss best practices and plan the profession’s future, we invite you to join us on June 26th.  Registration is limited to 100, so reserve your space now.

How is this different from the ALA main event?

This is open to non-ALA conference registrants, but we hope that ALA participants will join us too.

The unconference allows a more openly critical, social justice perspective.

This will be a small concentrated group with specific focus.

This is a less common conference theme.

What IS an "unconference"?

Short answer: No predetermined schedule, presentations or panels. What happens will be determined by who shows up and everyone is expected to participate. So it should be relevant and fun.

To register, please visit http://tinyurl.com/critlib-ala15.  Contact us at [email protected] if you have additional questions.

[judevachon]

STOP.

In July of 2014 , Elly Blue reached out to me (a former zine librarian who hosted Joe Biel and Elly Blue a few years before for a similar talk) to let me know that she and Joe Biel would be giving a talk about bike culture and advocacy in Pittsburgh and to ask me to spread the word.

I had been reading about, thinking about and processing with others accusations of abuse, failed accountability processes, and unethical business practices on Joe’s part for years.

I hadn’t taken any sort of public stance up to that point. I felt anger and exhaustion at all of the havoc that Joe had wreaked on the zine community and confusion about him still getting a lot of play nonetheless. I felt a responsibility, as a zine community member and manager of a zine collection (a representative as well as an individual), to take a position in solidarity with those who had suffered from Joe’s behavior especially now that I was being asked for support.

I told Elly in an email that I valued her work and that I had just recently brought her zines to a women and biking zine event, but that “I’ve read,  thought and talked with people about Joe’s behavior in personal relationships and as part of the zine community, and I’ve decided not to support his projects.”  She said that she was shocked that I believed the “rumors” and that I would tell her that. She told me that I didn’t have permission to share our email exchange. I explained that I needed to be responsible to my zine community and left it at that.

She and Joe then contacted my former employer’s HR department and shared the emails with them. Joe and Elly said something about my emails fitting nicely into a slander lawsuit. I was suspended for a week without pay and told that I could not discuss the situation with anyone.

I spoke about it with fear in some private conversations over the past months. I no longer work at that institution (the suspension certainly had further negative effects on my work situation) and want to release that fear and share my anger at yet another person being bullied by Joe (and Elly). Maybe it’s difficult to talk because of legal or emotional threats, or in my case fear of being fired, but it’s not for lack of words. Words like domination, dismissiveness, control, manipulation, threats, lawsuits. This needs to be over. I am tired of all of the energy this is taking from good work and good collaborations and good women. Stop damaging the community. Stop, take a break, examine yourself. Stop.

Background reading:

https://alexwrekk.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/so-whats-the-deal-with-you-and-microcosm/

http://doriszineblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-wont-be-working-with-microcosm.html

https://alexwrekk.wordpress.com/tag/athens-support-network/

http://seattlefreepress.org/2013/11/15/the-rise-and-co-optation-of-microcosm-publishing/

http://grasstronaut.com/2014/10/10/pioneers-press-microcosm-lawsuit/

[critlib]

ACRL is using program reporters again this year for ACRL-track programs at the ALA Annual 2015 conference. We are doing a #critlib program on Sunday of the conference from 4:30-5:30pm in the convention center. If you would be willing to be a reporter, please email us at [email protected] by May 15th!

[About the program:]

“But we’re neutral!” And other fictions confronted by #critlib

A panel + discussion

Twitter chats are an opportunity for synchronous bursts of conversation on current topics. We started the #critlib chat to build a conversation about issues of critical pedagogy in academic libraries, but topics have grown to include library assessment, gender in RDA, and library responses to social justice actions in our communities. Publicly exploring our assumptions about our profession is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes fiery, and always an opportunity for growth and action. This panel presentation and discussion will examine how we talk--and don't talk--about critical issues surrounding the profession and our identity within it.

Presenters: Emily Drabinski, Kelly McElroy, Nicole Pagowsky, Annie Pho

[So you know what you’re in for as a reporter:]

Deadline: July 23, 2015

Length: 300 words or less

Content: Summarize key points made during the presentation, written in an informal manner, using the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed.

Example summaries from previous years: http://crln.acrl.org/content/75/8/449.full

The person designated for this will be sent more details before June 1.

[critlib]

For the PLOS ONE paper, researchers looked at searches containing the N-word. People search frequently for it, roughly as often as searches for  "migraine(s)," "economist," "sweater," "Daily Show," and "Lakers." (The authors attempted to control for variants of the N-word not necessarily intended as pejoratives, excluding the "a" version of the word that analysis revealed was often used "in different contexts compared to searches of the term ending in '-er'.") It's also important to note that not all people searching for the N-word are motivated by racism, and that not all racists search for that word, either. But aggregated over several years and several million searches, the data give a pretty good approximation of where a particular type of racist attitude is the strongest.

The Most Racist Places in America, According to Google, reporting on this paper in PLOS

[curating-africa]

[kellymce-blog]

All y’all MLIS students out there

If you are interested in the social responsibilities of our profession, please consider submitting one of your papers for the Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize, presented by the Progressive Librarians Guild.

Why? Well, the winner gets:

their paper published in the summer issue of Progressive Librarian

a press pass for ALA Annual (SF, y’al!!) – free entry to sessions and the exhibition floor – as long as you write a short reflection for PLG to publish

a $500 stipend to defray the cost of going to ALA Annual

to present their paper at the PLG meeting, and getting the award at their annual dinner

connected with PLG members who share your interests

This is an awesome opportunity to get something published, and to get connected with other social justice-minded librarians while you are still in school. If you have any questions at all, please let me know! The deadline is May 1, so get on it!

[critlib]

Deadline is Friday!

[critlib]

2015 SCIL Spring Program - Critical Practice: Sounds Great in Theory, but...

Join the Southern California Instruction Librarians/California Academic and Research Libraries for an exciting workshop featuring presenter James Elmborg. Learn about critical practice in libraries and network with your awesome librarian colleagues!

http://carl-acrl.org/ig/scil/ 

[critlib]

Critlibtech Manifesto!

Please share widely!! Several options: http://tinyurl.com/critlibtechifesto or http://bit.ly/critlibtechmanifesto (case-sensitive) or http://bit.ly/CritLibTechifesto (case-sensitive) ---- This is a space for community development of an idea germinated at the CritLib15 unconference: a CritLib Tech M

Tuesday night, 6PST/7MTN/8CST/9EST, join us on Twitter to talk about the Critlib Technology manifesto.

[critlib]

The problem isn’t just that men explain technology to me. It isn’t just that a handful of men explain technology to the rest of us. It’s that this explanation tends to foreclose questions we might have about the shape of things. We can’t ask because if we show the slightest intellectual vulnerability, our questions – we ourselves – lose a sort of validity.

Audrey Watters, Men (Still) Explain Technology to Me: Gender and Education Technology

[critlib]

The greatest challenge of “running” meetings and other group interactions is that there are subtle communication and power dynamics underlying them all. Once you realize this, you begin to see that whether you like it or not agency is distributed well beyond the facilitator, and that participants have the ability to run in their own directions – over and away and everything in between.

Char Booth, On Facilitation

The 4/21 #critlib chat is about anti-oppressive facilitation. Qs and readings, including Char Booth’s blog post, are posted at the cheatsheet: http://tinyurl.com/critlibx

[critlib]

So the #journalofneutrallibrarianship was a thing over the weekend, but keep it going and add your own! Here are some of the Tweets:

That's Not a Microaggression: You're Just Overly Sensitive #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Meredith Kahn (@m_kahn)

April 12, 2015

"Dunning-Kruger Syndrome: All the students have it so let's just show them Summon one more time" #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Nicole Pagowsky (@pumpedlibrarian)

April 12, 2015

#journalofneutrallibrarianship: in which reviewers will demand you define all common LIS terms ensuring minimal space to challenge discourse

— Lauren Smith (@walkyouhome)

April 11, 2015

Now More Than Ever: Counting Things. and Displaying Them In a Table. #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Emily Drabinski (@edrabinski)

April 11, 2015

An anecdote about the information access of my middle class friends and their children (Editorial) - #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Hugh Rundle (@HughRundle)

April 11, 2015

#journalofneutrallibrarianship pic.twitter.com/NlOxJfAiiM

— jp porcaro ☆ (@MakeItHappenDay)

April 11, 2015

@pumpedlibrarian @edrabinski "I'm Just Describing What Is: Role of Librarian in the Classroom" #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Lisa Hinchliffe (@lisalibrarian)

April 11, 2015

@pumpedlibrarian @edrabinski "What Do You Want Me To Teach? The Question in Working with Faculty" #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Lisa Hinchliffe (@lisalibrarian)

April 11, 2015

"We won't make members of the dominant culture uncomfortable by discussing the hegemony of that culture." #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Barnard Library (@barnlib)

April 11, 2015

Submissions should be written in the fifth person: less visible the author is, the better. #journalofneutrallibrarianship #authorguidelines

— Donna Witek (@donnarosemary)

April 11, 2015

@pumpedlibrarian @edrabinski @EamonTewell @ibeilin "Library of Congress Subject Headings are Just Fine the Way They Are"

— jessamyn west (@jessamyn)

April 11, 2015

I've been wanting to read the #journalofneutrallibrarianship & be convinced neutrality is possible—but it's behind a steep paywall. #critlib

— Ryan P. Randall (@foureyedsoul)

April 11, 2015

"Library admin carefully explains 'because we've always done it that way' as part of the new strategic plan" #journalofneutrallibrarianship

— Nicole Pagowsky (@pumpedlibrarian)

April 11, 2015

[ellieheartsreads]

Elevating certain types of professions to something worthy of love necessarily denigrates the labor of those who do unglamorous work that keeps society functioning, especially the crucial work of caregivers.

[critlib]

But, when the most explicit imagery of the violence enacted against black bodies can be at the top of The New York Times and the Daily Mail, it says that these are the images that sell in a world where clicks equal cash, and there’s no warning necessary. This is content everyone should see! Don’t miss this amazing new footage of a black man dying. Warning, graphic content, but the screen capture really sells the tale. The distribution channel isn’t the same as those videos of gyrating youngsters, but it is distributed and monetized just the same.

Jade E. Davis, “Black Men Being Killed is the New Girls Gone Wild“

[niwandajones]

“Another major impetus for creating this guide was to demonstrate that the library is an ally, providing students—students of color in particular—with another safe space on campus. If the library is meant to serve our entire campus community, we should be thinking about how to provide social and emotional inclusivity alongside our academic mission. We don’t solely support our community members through provision of resources, technology, and study spaces—these are all important, but are only pieces of our larger mission. Positioning the library as anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-oppression helps us stay at the heart of the community, particularly in challenging times.” – Nicole Pagowsky & Niamh Wallace

[critlib]

Check out this great intro to critical theory from the #critlib15 unconference by Lydia Willoughby!

Critical Theory - some basics - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires