We Here seeks to provide a welcoming, professionally engaging, supportive, safe community for our members and the public. We do not tolerate harassment in any form, which is understood as any behavior that threatens or demeans another person or group, or produces an unsafe environment. Anyone engaged in this behavior will be removed from We Here events without refund. 

All of Community School offerings and other events are designed to center folks who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), who make up less than 15% of the people who work in libraries and archives. If you do not identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a person of color, we ask that you please refrain from questioning the authority of those who do. Rather than calling out, we ask you to reflect and think about calling in any errors you hear in terminology or technical knowledge. Event leaders are almost always placing themselves in vulnerable positions and performing emotional labor, all for shared learning. 

Additionally, the structure of our events may differ from what you’re used to in “professional” settings. We provide full support and authority to Community School and event leaders to design ‘pop up rules,’ rather than relying on ‘etiquette’ or ‘professionalism,’ which actually work to exclude. Pop up rules could be applied to the question and answer period, break out rooms, etc (1). 

Other guiding agreements: 

• W.A.I.T. & W.A.I.N.T.: Ask yourself Why Am I Talking & Why Am I Not Talking? We all come with relative societal privileges and oppressions based in part on our experience with race, gender, class, ability, nationality, sexuality, health, citizenship-status, and more. Let’s be aware of how this affects what we say and how we act. 

• In this space, listen to your intuition; be open to learning; and practice self-care and community care, which means paying attention to your needs and the needs of others. 

• Speak your truth and keep in mind confidentiality: take the lessons, but not the details. This includes not sharing or distributing materials produced during or for our events with anyone without written permission, which includes derivatives such as screenshots. 

• Be open to but not attached to the outcome. Sometimes the process is the outcome. 

• Assume best intent, but attend to impact. 

• BIPOC: Recognize the multiplicities of BIPOC. We’re here after centuries of trauma. Don’t assume your ancestral trauma is that of all BIPOC and vice versa. 

(1) We love how Priya Parker describes this in her book, “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters (2018, pg. 121): “And if etiquette is about keeping people out of certain gatherings and social circles, pop-up rules can actually democratize who gets to gather. What could be less democratic than etiquette, which must be internalized for years before showing up at an event? A rule requires no advance preparation.”