THE 2024 WRAP UP IN WHICH WE PREPARE FOR THE YEAR AHEAD BY LOOKING BACK AND CELEBRATING WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED WITH GREAT GRATITUDE. THIS IS VOLUME 5 AND COVERS JANUARY 2024 - DECEMBER 2024. ENJOY.
Writers.
jennifer brown, nicholae cline, crystal chen, nicollette davis, sofia leung, charlotte roh, becca quon, chella vaidyanathan
Writer, designer, editor.
jennifer arévalo ferretti
1.
the intro
The Intro
Welcome to the 2024 We Here Wrap Up
While there is much to be concerned with in the upcoming year, it is a privilege and human necessity to be reflective and show gratitude for what we’ve been able to accomplish in 2024.
In our four years of doing this work, we’ve realized something: The world isn’t set up for us. We Here is costly, time consuming, and at times difficult work because much of what we do isn’t something we see at other organizations we have personal experience with. So if this is the case, what keeps us going? The community. Our supporters. Those who give their time and expertise to We Here. If you’re part of our private communities, support us financially, worked with We Here, submitted to our job board, subscribe to our newsletter, registered for a workshop or event, or shared information about We Here, you are what keeps us going. That and the fact that we want to be part of a community like We Here.
We keep going because we value a space where folks who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color in libraries and archives are elevated, recognized, and celebrated.
Thank you for being with us in this work. Wishing you peace and health for you and yours in 2025.
/ WH
2.
the mission
Our Mission
Community—Joy—Growth
We Here®️ seeks to provide a safe and supportive community for Black and Indigenous folks and People of Color (BIPOC) in library and information science (LIS) professions and educational programs and to recognize, discuss, and intervene in systemic issues that have plagued these professions both currently and historically.
We Here’s private communities for BIPOC who work in libraries and archives were established in 2016 and are at the center of our work. Member-only spaces, events, and opportunities are essential for keeping our members safe and supported and our mission front and center.
All We Here projects and programs have shared desire for community learning and growth. We work with members of our community to facilitate workshops through our Community School, explore topics together through Community Study, create opportunities for mentorship and encouragement through We Together, and nurture the needs of folks who seek new reading, watching, and listening material as We Reads.
Through knowledge sharing and community building, we are taking up space in the LIS field in a way that is familiar and empowering.
3.
the team
Admin, We Reads, We Lead Co-Organizer
Jennifer Brown
Admin, Community Study, We Reads, Dream-Shaping Co-PI
nicholae cline
Crystal Chen
Admin, We Reads, We Together
Nicollette Davis
Admin, We Together
Jennifer Arévalo Ferretti
Founder, Principal, Creative Director, Dream-Shaping Co-PI
Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez
Grants and Giving Manager, Dream-Shaping Project
Community School Manager, We Lead Co-Organizer
Sofia Leung
Charlotte Roh
Admin, We Reads
Dream-Shaping Advisory Team
Zakiya Collier
Twanna Hodge
Gabriel Solís
Laura Tadena
4.
private communities
We welcomed
This year we welcomed 116 new members across our three private spaces — Facebook, our Google Group, and Slack. While Facebook remains our largest community, frustrations with the platform are shared by Admin and members alike.
We supported
Archives and Heritage for Palestine series, a joint initiative of the Middle East East Librarians Association (Archives & Heritage for Palestine Advocacy Sub-Group), the American University of Beirut’s Palestine Land Studies Center, Publishers for Palestine, and the Archives & Digital Media Lab. The series responds to the urgent need to act in solidarity with Palestinian colleagues and institutions in Palestine and the Shetat (Diaspora) to safeguard the heritage, history, and memory of the Palestinian people under settler colonialism and genocide. Through education and advocacy, they work to surface, connect, amplify, and promote ongoing efforts by Palestinians and supporters in the archives and heritage sectors.
We celebrated
Team We Here’s Nicollette Davis who was awarded 2024 Library Journal Mover & Shaker among other wonderful We Here members.
We also celebrated the life and legacy of Satia Marshall Orange, whose impact on the field was immense. Within the We Here community, she was known for amplifying good news, making sure we all saw the latest opportunities, and for her unfailing optimism about libraries and the need for BIPOC representation in them. We’re grateful to Satia for seeing and believing in all of us. She will be missed.
On October 30, 2024, we welcomed over 150 registrants to “Critical Race Feminist Perspectives on Leadership in Libraries,” a panel discussion for We Here members organized and moderated by Silvia Vong.
This panel’s conversation drew on Critical Race Feminism (CRF) to center the voices of BIPOC women in leadership roles. Leadership is often conflated with management when it is in fact inclusive of different roles and positions we engage with in the library setting. The CRF approach acknowledges that BIPOC women cannot be essentialized and each speaker brought with them their own strengths, perspectives, and experiences on leadership. The speakers of this panel shared their personal experiences in various leadership roles on how they navigated dominant structures and practices in libraries and how they resisted the pressures to conform to dominant ideals of leadership.
We hosted
Speakers included:
Mahasin Ameen (she/her), Indianapolis Public Library
Inaam Charaf (she/her), University of the Fraser Valley
Sheila García Mazari (she, her, ella), Academic librarian, Latine storyteller, multimedia artist
Maha Kumaran (she/her), University of Saskatchewan
Lori Salmon (she, her), New York University
5.
our supporters
We Here’s Patreon and Seed Circle communities help us achieve our mission to support and uplift BIPOC in libraries in archives in ways that at the moment grants do not. Support from these communities allow us to compensate our accountant and speakers, and pay for costly subscriptions such as Squarespace, Zoom, and project management tools.
Patreon and Seed Circle supporters receive exclusive perks for their support. This year they received:
Our Supporters
12
Exclusive Content Posts
Exclusive content posts included access to things like The Update, a monthly feature written by We Here team members; interviews with team members; tailored book suggestions through our Your Next Read survey; access to weTV, quick, unscripted videos about things that are resonating with us; all unavailable anywhere else.
5
Early Access Posts
Early access posts included early Community School registration opportunities; Conversations on Community, interviews with folks we admire; and early access to any new resource releases.
A selection of exclusive content post art
Join us and support our work starting at the cost of a cup of coffee each month. Learn more about which community (Patreon or Seed Circle) is right for you.
Thank you to our Totally Dedicated tier Patreon supporters!
ANONYMOUS
ANONYMOUS
BECCA QUON
The Totally Dedicated tier on Patreon is our highest support tier. Thank you so much to these three individuals for supporting and believe in We Here! See what they support in the Pay Us and The Cost sections below.
6.
our work
members
Sofia Leung, Community School Manager
Jennifer Arévalo Ferretti, Founder, Principal
mission
the community school seeks to provide a learning community with opportunities for personal and professional development based in anti-racist pedagogy.
The Community School hosted four workshops in 2024: two synchronous and two asynchronous with a total of 97 registered attendees. We kicked off the year with Saira Raza’s Writing Your Personal Annual Review: A Four Week Manifesting Series. Saira has led a webinar version of this course several times (sometimes more than once in a year) and this year she presented it in an asynchronous, course format.
Instructional Designer Treshani Perera returned to The Community School with her asynchronous course “Inclusive Description for Cultural Heritage Materials.” Treshani’s first workshop with us was “Incorporating Critical Cataloging into Your Work,” presented with Deidre Thompson on October 6, 2020. Treshani and Deidre generously allowed us to provide the recorded webinar for purchase on our website from then until this year.
Also this year we welcomed two new instructional designers: jaime ding, who led “How We Work Better Now: a History of Librarian Professionalization,” and Charlotte Roh, Admin and We Reads team member, who led “Fundamentals of Academic Publishing.”
members
nicholae cline + jorge lópez-mcknight + sofia leung
mission
An ongoing constellation of study groups, immersions, community learning spaces, and reading groups centered around BIPOC being and (be)coming together in study.
This year, Community Study took a break to focus on other projects and dreams, personal and professional, including our ongoing work supporting the Dream-Shaping project. We are excited to return in the new year.
You can take a look at past studies (with reading lists) on our website and support the program by buying books through our Bookshop.org lists.
2024 members
jennifer brown + nicholae cline + crystal chen + nicollette davis + jennifer arévalo ferretti + cristina fontánez rodríguez + sofia leung + charlotte roh + chella vaidyanathan
mission
A three-year project funded by the Mellon Foundation that aims to expand on some of the work We Here is already doing and give us the space to explore new ideas.
As you may have heard, we received a generous project-based grant from the Mellon Foundation (via our fiscal sponsor, the Greater Washington Community Foundation), and kicked off the work for this project, which we call Dream-Shaping Our Community, in January 2024.
Over the three year period of the grant, project teams We Lead, We Here Press, We Reads, and We Together will embark on several endeavors:
The development of We Lead, a virtual leadership program.
The exploration of a Press via one publication project.
Analyze data pertaining to BIPOC in publications.
Release a podcast centered around highlighting BIPOC in media and cultural creators.
Expand We Together, the impactful mentorship program for We Here members.
The grant also allowed us to create contract positions meant to exist throughout the life of the grant that are new to We Here. We welcomed Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez as Grants and Giving Manager and Chella Vaidyanathan as We Together’s Mentorship Development Coordinator.
The second year of the grant will include additional contracts, such as Literary Researcher and Podcast Producer. We also anticipate being able to print our first publication under We Here Press as the manuscript was almost complete by the end of 2024. We’ll see We Lead come on the scene in 2025, with the program kicking off in 2026. We Together will have its first cohort kick off under this grant at the start of the year.
Along with the project teams, we also have the privilege of working with our Advisory Team members. The Advisory members are a team of folks outside of our project teams who help keep us accountable and highlight potential unseen gaps.
Each of the Advisory Team members are folks we admire because they are creating meaningful change in libraries and archives in their own work. We’re grateful they could join us on this journey.
The Advisory Team includes:
Zakiya Collier
Twanna Hodge
Gabriel Solís
Laura Tadena
members
jennifer brown + nicholae cline + crystal chen + charlotte roh
mission
We Reads is, first and foremost, about highlighting BIPOC voices in literature. It is also deeply personal, and joyfully so: we read as our whole selves, bringing our identities and experiences with us when we enter the world of a story or poem.
Big things are happening for We Reads, even more than the new branding we got this year. We’ve expanded the seasonal reading lists to other genres, such as music (albums and songs), podcasts, films, and television shows. We Reads also has big things on the horizon thanks to the Mellon Foundation-funded Dream-Shaping project, including a Literary Researcher position to help analyze the book collections and their usage. You can still view and sort through all past collections in The Archive.
We’ve also started dropping Monthly Mixes as a way to showcase new music and share our love of BIPOC artists throughout the year. All tracks are from BIPOC artists/bands released this year.
Listen to the playlists:
We Together
members
crystal chen + nicollette davis + chella vaidyanathan
mission
reimagining mentorship for mutual growth and liberation.
This year, We Together brought on a new Mentorship Development Coordinator, Chella Vaidyanathan, who is supporting the We Together Mentorship Program by compiling resources and helping with program logistics! Our new cohort doesn’t officially launch until the new year so we’ve spent this year planning and have kept busy this fall by collecting, reviewing, and matching mentor and mentee applications.
7.
pay us
Pay Us is an annual Wrap Up tradition where we tally the amount we’ve paid people who have contributed to we here. Our main motivation for becoming an LLC was to pay people for their time and expertise.
$1,104
Paid in honoraria for events, We Here Press readers, etc.
$48,973.17
Paid for professional fees, including monthly accountant fees and contractors.
$303
Paid for workshops and trainings for We Here contractors.
8.
the cost
The Cost is a small window into what it takes to operate we here from the Founder’s perspective. What’s missing and maybe most important but more difficult to quantify is the emotional labor of operating an organization outside of organizations. This also illustrates the need for fundraising efforts through Patreon and Seed Circle as much of this is not covered by grant funding.
298:26:21
Total amount of hours spent by the Founder/Principal in 2024 on contracts, taxes, meetings, customer service, grant management, outreach and promotion, private and paid community efforts, etc.
$20,953.82
Total amount spent on state and federal tax and LLC operating fees.
$5,058.34
Total cost of subscriptions (i.e. project management platform, cloud storage, email, etc.) and software (e.g. Microsoft Office, Adobe Suite, etc.).
