All Nations LibGuide: System Barriers and BIPOC Advocacy in Librarianship
Resources
The page contains information for librarians interested in critical librarianship. Featured are books on creating inclusive spaces, libraries addressing oppressive legacies and librarian demographics and a call to action in the need for librarians of color. Also included are articles to support lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color (BIPOC) in library settings.
Journal Articles and Periodicals on System Barriers in Librarianship
ACRL. (n.d.). Keeping up with…Microaggressions. https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/microaggressions
BCLA. (2023). Beyond Tokenism: The Importance of Staff Diversity in Libraries. British Columbia Library Association: BCLA Perspectives, 15(3)
Blackburn, F. (2015). The Intersection Between Cultural Competence and Whiteness in Libraries. In the Library with the Lead Pipe: An Open Access, Open Peer Review Journal. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/culturalcompetence/
Espinal, I., et al., (2018). A Holistic Approach for Inclusive Librarianship: Decentering Whiteness in Our Profession. Library Trends, 67(1), pp. 147-162. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0030
Ettarh, R. (2018). Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves. In the Library with the Lead Pipe: An Open Access, Open Peer Review Journal. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
Galvan, A. (2015). Soliciting performance, hiding bias: whiteness and librarianship. In the Library with the Lead Pipe: An Open Access, Open Peer Review Journal. Retrieved from https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/soliciting-performance-hiding-bias-whiteness-and-librarianship/
Honma, T. (2005). Trippin’ over the color line: the invisibility of race in library and information studies. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 1(2). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nj0w1mp
Overall, P.M. (2009). Cultural Competence: A Conceptual Framework for Library and Information Science Professionals. The Library Quarterly, 79(2), pp. 185-204. https://doi.org/10.1086/597080
Pun, R., Green, P.R., & Davis, N. (2023). Medical Libraries and Their Complicated Past: An Exploration of the Historical Connections Between Medical Collections and Racial Science. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 111(3), pp. 740-745. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2023.1728
Swanson, Damasco, Gonzalez-Smith, Hodges, Honma, & Tanaka. (2015). Why diversity matters: A roundtable discussion on racial and ethnic diversity in librarianship. In the Library with the Lead Pipe: An Open Access, Open Peer Review Journal. Retrieved from http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/why-diversity-matters-a-roundtable-discussion-on-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-in-librarianship/
Velez, L. & Villa-Nicholas, M. (2017). Mapping Race and Racism in U.S. Library History Literature, 1997-2015. Library Trends, 65(4), pp. 540-554. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=lsc_facpubs
Selected Books on Inclusivity and Librarians of Color
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Creating an Inclusive Library:
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ISBN: 9798892556217Publication Date: 2024-10-18The critical work of being more inclusive and anti-racist in academic library teaching, collections, and community is even more important in today's social and political climate. Creating an Inclusive Library: Approaches for Increasing Engagement and Use with Students of Color explores the various methods used by librarians, archivists, and library workers to increase or enhance engagement with and use of library spaces, resources, services, and materials by students of color. -
Hopeful Visions, Practical Actions
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ISBN: 9780838938300Publication Date: 2023-04-28Cultural humility offers a renewing and transformative framework for navigating interpersonal interactions in libraries, whether between patrons and staff or staff members with one another. It foregrounds a practice of critical self-reflection and commitment to recognizing and redressing structural inequities and problematic power imbalances. This collection, the first book-length treatment of this approach in libraries, gathers contributors from across the field to demonstrate how cultural humility can change the way we work and make lasting impacts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries. -
Inclusive Cataloging
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ISBN: 9798892555661Publication Date: 2024-07-18As part of the profession's ongoing EDISJ efforts to redress librarianship's problematic past, practitioners from across the field are questioning long-held library authorities and standards. They're undertaking a critical and rigorous re-examination of so-called "best" practices and the decisionmakers behind them, pointing out heretofore unscrutinized injustices within our library systems of organization and making concrete steps towards progressive change. This collection from Core records the efforts of some of the many librarians who are working to improve our systems and collections, in the process inspiring those who have yet to enact change by demonstrating that this work is scalable, possible, and necessary. -
Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory
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ISBN: 9780262363204Publication Date: 2021Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color reimagine library and information science through the lens of critical race theory.
In Knowledge Justice, Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color scholars use critical race theory (CRT) to challenge the foundational principles, values, and assumptions of Library and Information Science and Studies (LIS) in the United States. They propel CRT to center stage in LIS, to push the profession to understand and reckon with how white supremacy affects practices, services, curriculum, spaces, and policies. -
Narrative Expansions
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ISBN: 1783304979Publication Date: 2022-01-19The demand to decolonise the curriculum has moved from a protest movement at the margins to the centre of many institutions, as reflected by its inclusion in policies and strategies and numerous initiatives in libraries and archives that have responded to the call, and are critically examining their own historic legacies and practices to support institutional and societal change. Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries explores the ways in which academic libraries are working to address the historic legacies of colonialism, in the context of decolonising the curriculum and the university. It acknowledges and explores the tensions and complexities around the use of the term decolonisation, how it relates to other social justice aims and approaches, including critical librarianship, and what makes this work specific to decolonisation. -
Where Are All the Librarians of Color?
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ISBN: 9781936117833Publication Date: 2016-01-20This book offers a comprehensive look at the experiences of people of color after the recruitment is over, the diversity box is checked, and the statistics are reported. What are the retention, job satisfaction, and tenure experiences of librarians of color? The authors look at the history of librarians of color in academia, review of the literature, obstacles, roles, leadership, and the tenure process for those that endure. What are the recruitment and retention methods employed to create a diverse workforce, successes and failures? Finally what are some mentoring strategies that work to make the library environment less exploitative and toxic for librarians of color?
