Past Events
For We Here Members Only
Critical Race Feminist Perspectives on Leadership in Libraries
Wednesday, October 30, 2pm ET USA
This panel’s conversation draws 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 brings with them their own strengths, perspectives, and experiences on leadership. The speakers of this panel share 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.
Panelists include:
Mahasin Ameen (she/her)
Inaam Charaf (she/her/hers)
Sheila García Mazari (she/her/ella)
Maha Kumaran (she/her)
Lori Salmon (she/her/hers)
Moderated by Silvia Vong
For We Here Members Only
Career Transitions Panel Discussion
Saturday, January 21, 2023, 2pm ET USA.
A conversation between Christian Minter, Katrina Spencer, and Arlene Yu.
Registration is required. This event is for We Here members only. We Here members are part of our Facebook Group, Slack project, or Google Group.
Open to the Public
Knowledge Justice at One
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 5:30pm ET USA.
A celebration of the one year anniversary of Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory, sponsored by up//root: a we here publication.
We Here + BIPOC Only, July 21, 2021
Meet and Learn About the Green Book for Libraries
Applying for library and information jobs can be brutal. Even more so for those of us who identify as BIPOC. Forget whether this place thinks I'm a good "fit" for them: are they are good "fit" for me? Will I be able to work in an environment with as little racism and micro- and macro-aggressions as possible? Or will this be a place where I collect my paycheck and experience and head out as soon as I can? The Green Book for Libraries, an online space created for BIPOC by BIPOC to rate and review LIS workplaces and graduate programs, was created with just these sorts of questions in mind. Join a few of us for an informal convo about the Green Book for Libraries and ways that you can get involved in helping to build and maintain this important community-led resource.
We Here Only + BIPOC webinar, Friday, May 14, 2021, 12pm PT, 1pm MT, 2pm CT, 3pm ET USA
We Got Us: BIPOC Mental Health and Solidarity
Featuring Cecily Walker, Nisha Mody, Amanda M. Leftwich, Alanna Aiko Moore, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick. Moderated by Annie Pho.
We Here Only + BIPOC webinar, May 7, 2pm PT, 3pm MT, 4pm CT, 5pm ET USA
The Problem with Latinidad: A critical discussion on the single narrative of Latinidad, anti-Blackness and white privilege within Latine communities, US imperialism, and Indigenous erasure from the perspectives of library and archives workers
We Here members and folks who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color are invited to join us for this panel discussion based on the Miguel Salazar article “The Problem with Latinidad” in The Nation (2019).
An edited transcript will be published publicly following the event.
03/03/21, 03/29/21, 04/14/21, Open to the Public
Making Knowledge Justice
Book launch events (March and April 2021) for the release of Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory from MIT Press. Now available in print and through open access.
Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory is the first book-length text that utilizes Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Library and Information Studies (LIS). With contributions from 29 Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color scholars, educators and practitioners, the foundational principles, values, and beliefs of LIS in the U.S. nation-state are challenged, while also imagining possibilities for justice to be actualized in the now and beyond.
Family Meeting: Holding Space for Grief and Power: Discussing the Letter to Asian Diasporic Library Workers
This family meeting will address and hold space for the anti-Asian violence of recent months, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and across generations of Asian diaspora in North America. In doing so, we also hope to discuss how Asian library workers can orient our political selves—not in striving toward whiteness—but in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. The meeting discussion will be with Anastasia Chiu, Deborah Yun Caldwell, Desmond Wong, and Jessica Dai based on their Letter to Asian Diasporic Library Workers published in up//root, in response to the School Library Journal cover for Black History Month and morphed into a call to action.
Discussion will include ways that we can better educate ourselves and our communities about systemic whiteness, recognize and accept leadership from Black people in frameworks of racial justice, address racism in our workplaces and in our profession, acknowledge the culture of anti-Blackness in our communities and organizations, and resist the idea that a neutral perspective on race is even possible. We also want to address how Asian identity is not monolithic and the complex ways in which anti-Asian rhetoric and racism impact Asians across different backgrounds.
03/05/2021, We Here Members Only
The Lived Experiences of Library Workers of Color Pursuing Doctoral Degrees
In this panel discussion, library workers of color from different types of institutions such as public and private universities, a community college, a school and public library will share their experiences, opportunities and challenges in pursuing doctoral degrees and leadership work. Is it worth pursuing a doctoral degree? Does the doctoral degree enhance one’s leadership and management approaches and opportunities? Panelists will reflect how it has affected their own experiences in the field. In addition, the discussion will explore topics such as working while doing the degree; essential experiences and skills to gain during the program; and advice and strategies in pursuing a doctoral degree, particularly for Black/Indigenous/People of Color (BIPOC) to consider. Panelists hold various positions and have pursued or are currently pursuing doctoral degrees in a variety of disciplines. This is an invitation to BIPOC library workers in the We Here Community interested in pursuing doctoral education and leadership work but are not sure what paths to consider and for those who have completed their doctoral education.
Moderator: Ray Pun, Librarian, Alder Graduate School of Education. Co-Presenters (panelists): Regina Gong, OER and Student Success Librarian, Michigan State University Libraries; kYmberly Keeton, African American Community Archivist, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library; Oscar Lanza-Galindo, Associate Dean of the Library and Learning Commons, Bunker Hill Community College; LeRoy LaFleur, Director of Learning and Teaching Services, Harvard College Libraries
02/06, We Here Members Only
Family Meeting: What’s Good with Library School?
A discussion about LIS educational programs with current students, potential students, and library and archives workers.
06/06/20, We Here Members Only
Family Meeting: Work During COVID-19
A discussion about anxieties, concerns, and strategies for returning to our workplaces.