R1 Academic Libraries and Committing to Social Justice: Identifying a Path to Locate Intentionality Among the Performance

theory | action | reflection

"Whiteness has permeated every aspect of librarianship, extending even to the initiatives we commit to increasing diversity. We can, however, make meaningful and important changes. With continued critical study of whiteness and its effects on LIS, it is possible to redirect our thinking about diversity from a problem to be solved to a goal worth achieving" - April Hathcock, 2015

For my artifact, I sought to visualize and capture how socially just practices have the potential to emerge from inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) efforts and initiatives in academic libraries at institutions with very high research activity--universities with R1 status. Drawing from a data set that centers universities that are comparable in size to UNC and are collegiate institutional peers, this project categorizes various efforts related to social justice, inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. This visual artifact is meant to identify one path from which to begin unpacking the multifaceted nature of understanding the intentionality behind these efforts as well as performativity so as to contribute to the discursive and practical initiatives dedicated to transforming librarianship.

I designed my artifact to mimic a reference desk at a library, and the data is visualized through the three trees that can be rotated utilizing the small wire handles. I was inspired by the entrance of Davis Library. Each tree corresponds with the amount of initiatives or efforts at each library. The data that inspired this work was generally categorized into statements related to IDEA or social justice and anti-racism, initiatives such as diversity committees, and resources such as LibGuides offering information about IDEA or social justice in academic libraries--each of these are color coded on the leaves themselves (with a legend provided) in the artifact.

the Process

My creative process for this project incorporated lots of planning, changing plans, and redoing my entire project. As such, I would describe the process itself as chaotic and cathartic and meaningful. Thinking about the interactions between the literature I engaged with, in conjunction with the data set I utilized, provided a space for reflection that I had not encountered before.

I initially designed my artifact to illustrate a bar graph of sorts, however, this proved difficult and did not capture the essence I intended; and, there was also no possibility for interacting with my piece. After several design iterations, I arrived at a plan that I felt represented my data and also portrayed the possibility for growth, hope, and transformation. Moreover, the new design of my project allows for interaction which I feel can allow space for reflection and imagination for others as it did for me.

Furthermore, I wanted to work with materials that I had not really used extensively prior to this project. I love to crochet and sew, but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and work with tools and materials that I was not as familiar with. For instance, I used different kinds of wire, polymer clay, and rubber cement. I also wanted to use a variety of materials that are all mixed together to create what I hope is a harmonious artifact that effectively blends together the different textures. I used branches, glass cups, paper, paper bags, and acrylic paint.

The political considerations that influenced my artifact focus on decentering whiteness and dismantling the harm that results from the normalization of white supremacy culture both in academic librarianship and beyond. Throughout this entire process, understanding the complexities involved with performative actions versus intentional actions related to upholding IDEA principles and embodying a socially just praxis underscores not only the ethical considerations, but the ethical imperatives that drove the physicalization of this data.

in and among the discourse

This artifact represents the challenges involved with bringing about sustainable change in academic libraries; changes that focus on expanding upon IDEA principles and emphasizing the importance of socially just practices in libraries that impacts library user communities. The hardship involved with this is ensuring that these practices are efficacious, sustainable, and actually bringing about tangible change--in other words engaging with the theory to embody an intentional praxis while moving farther from performing IDEA and social justice. This is what libraries and librarianship needs to respond to.

The literature suggests that change related to IDEA and socially just practices in libraries is happening (Mathiesen, 2015; Allard et al., 2007; Foy, 2021; Vinopal, 2016; Dominguez Ramirez, 2019; Ferreti, 2020, Mathuews, 2016; Morales et al., 2014; Espinal et al., 2018; Edwards, 2019). Library workers, activists, and community organizers are enacting transformation and revolutionizing from the ground up. I do think it takes more time to alter institutional practices and procedures. I also believe that as a whole, institutions thrive on performance because there are optics to uphold for shareholders involved and invested.

The reason I wanted to depict my data using trees and leaves is because trees are the foundations for upholding leaves. Leaves fall every autumn allowing for new leaves to emerge in the spring. This happens every year. With spring and new leaves, comes rebirth and more possibilities. This for me represents hope. Engaging with Library Science theorists and practitioners such as Leung and López-McKnight (2021), Chou and Pho (2018), Nicholson and Seale (2018), Jones and Murphy (2019), Colón-Aguirre and Cook (2022), Hathcock (2015), Figueroa and Shawgo (2021) give me hope.

The relevant inequities and social justice issues that my project is in conversation with are the experiences of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and other marginalized people in academic librarianship. I have more of a research focus on the experiences of library workers, however, this also incorporates the experiences of community patrons as a whole. This includes the injustices and lack of IDEA that exist in seeing diversity reflected in the library's infrastructure, hiring practices, the dearth of voices that are excluded from collections, the emotional labor and exhaustion that BIPOC library workers undergo while existing professionally in academic libraries (Anantachai & Chesley, 2018; Jocson Porter et al., 2018; Chou & Pho, 2018).

Research in Library and Information Science (LIS) suggests that whiteness is the aspect that perpetuates and sustains social injustices in librarianship (Vinopal, 2016; Espinal et al., 2018; Hathcock, 2015; Rosener et al., 2019; Brook et al., 2015; Yeo & Jacobs, 2006) . In regards to the work that is being done to address these inequities in academic libraries--such as diversity committees and task forces, resources, research and scholarship, inclusive recruitment, hiring, and retention practices--these are usually facilitated and led by BIPOC and other marginalized individuals and library workers (Anantachai & Chesley, 2018; Vinopal, 2016; Brown & Leung, 2018; Neely, 2018; Jocson Porter et al., 2018).

"Whiteness is a shifting status bestowed by those in power, intertwined with class relationships and the production of structural inequalities." - Angela Galvan, 2015

solutions

Identifying possible courses of action or locations for enacting sustainable change is hard because revolutionizing institutions takes time, effort, and hope, while effectively merging discursive theoretical endeavors with an embodied and intentional praxis.

One of the main components to this project was to identify a how to address the following questions: How can academic libraries, as part of the interconnected system of power within the institution of higher education, access and harness a lens that is transformative rather than performative? How can performativity and intentionality be measured? Should it be measured or quantified? What does a mechanism to quantify but not erase look like? Leung and López-McKnight (2021) discuss 'performative commitment' (p. 4) whereby they explain how practices such as relying on committee work or statements alone without critically engaging with the realities of injustice and how they go beyond librarianship are ineffective. Rather, understanding the deeply profound historical roots of these challenges and injustices are imperative (Espinal et al., 2018).

Intentionality behind actions is both a solution and a process. Espinal, Sutherland, and Roh (2018), Leung and López-McKnight (2021), Colón-Aguirre and Cook (2022) suggest that acting with intentions supporting IDEA initiatives rooted in a socially just praxis is a way that change can be harnessed rather than approximated.

Engaging with the literature has encouraged me to critique performativity, especially in regards to enacting change to center BIPOC and other marginalized individuals. Questioning institutional practices to weaken institutional legacies is one way that I envision crossing over from performance into intentional and transformational change. In reflecting on measuring performativity or intentionality, I believe these do not need to be assessed in such a way to quantify or empiricize to make more digestible, instead, I think these need to be felt, understood, and viewed as a basis from which to gauge the necessity for revolution.

"Without a commitment to design, or in some cases, redesign, or to redistribute physical and virtual spaces that facilitate epistemological discourse and training for librarians, workers in the GLAM sector...will continue to perpetuate the basic inequalities of society and virtually guarantee a white, heteropatriarchal, ableist, capitalist status quo, not just for our users, but for our library staff as well." - Morales & Williams, 2021

Works Cited & consulted

Anantachai, T., & Chesley, C. (2018). The burden of care: Cultural taxation of women of color librarians on the tenure-track. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 301–328). Library Juice Press.
Bell, L. A. (2016). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams & L. A. Bell (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (Third Edition, pp. 3– 26). Routledge.
Bourg, C. (2019). Introduction. In S. D. Jones & B. Murphy (Eds.), Diversity and inclusion in libraries: A call to action and strategies for success (p. XV–XVIII). Rowman & Littlefield.
Bright, K. (2018). A woman of color’s work is never done: Intersectionality in reference and information work. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 163–196). Library Juice Press.
Brown, J., Cline, N., & Méndez-Brady, M. (2021). Leaning on our labor: Whiteness and hierarchies of power in LIS work. In Knowledge justice: Disrupting library and information studies through Critical Race Theory (pp. 94–110). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11969.003.0007
Brown, J., Ferretti, J. A., Leung, S., & Méndez-Brady, M. (2018). We here: Speaking our truth. Library Trends, 67(1), 163–181. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0031
Brown, J., & Leung, S. (2018). Authenticity vs. professionalism: Being true to ourselves at work. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 329–347). Library Juice Press.
Chou, R. L., & Pho, A. (2018). Introduction. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS. Library Juice Press.
Colón-Aguirre, M., & Cooke, N. A. (2022). LibCrit: Moving toward an ethical and equitable Critical Race Theory approach to social justice in library and information Science. Journal of Information Ethics, 31(2), 57–69. https://doi.org/10.2307/JIE.31.2.57
de jesus, nina. (2014). Locating the library in institutional oppression. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2014/locating-the- library-in-institutional-oppression/
Dominguez Ramírez, C. (2019). Leading a diverse and inclusive public library. In S. D. Jones & B. Murphy (Eds.), Diversity and inclusion in libraries: A call to action and strategies for success (pp. 55–63). Rowman & Littlefield.
Espinal, I., Sutherland, T., & Roh, C. (2018). A holistic approach for inclusive librarianship: Decentering whiteness in our profession. Library Trends, 67(1), 147–162. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0030
Ferretti, J. (2020). Building a critical culture: How critical librarianship falls short in the workplace. Communications in Information Literacy, 14(1), 134–152. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2020.14.1.10
Figueroa, M., & Shawgo, K. (2022). “You can’t read your way out of racism”: Creating anti-racist action out of education in an academic library. Reference Services Review, 50(1), 25–39. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-06-2021-0025
Foy, C. M. (2021). Successful applications of diversity, equity, and inclusion programming in various professional settings: Strategies to increase DEI in libraries. Journal of Library Administration, 61(6), 676–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2021.1947057
Galvan, A. (2015). Soliciting performance, hiding bias: Whiteness and librarianship. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/soliciting-performance-hiding- bias-whiteness-and-librarianship/
Hathcock, A. (2015). White librarianship in blackface: Diversity initiatives in LIS. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/lis- diversity/
Jocson Porter, A., Spence-Wilcox, S., & Tate-Malone, K. (2018). I, too: Unmasking emotional labor of women of color community college librarians. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 273–300). Library Juice Press.
Leung, S. Y., & López-McKnight, J. R. (2021). Introduction: This is only the beginning. In S. Y. Leung & J. R. López-McKnight (Eds.), Knowledge justice: Disrupting library and information studies through Critical Race Theory (pp. 1–42). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11969.003.0002
Mathiesen, K. (2015). Informational justice: A conceptual framework for social justice in library and information services. Library Trends, 64(2), 198–225. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2015.0044
Mathuews, K. (2016). Moving beyond diversity to social justice: A call to action for academic libraries. Progressive Librarian, 44, 6–27. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1798413736/abstract/127E90E202F64A33PQ /1
Morales, M. E., & Williams, S. (2021). Moving toward transformative librarianship:
Naming and identifying epistemic supremacy. In S. Leung & J. R. López- McKnight (Eds.), Knowledge justice: Disrupting library and information studies through Critical Race Theory (pp. 73–93). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11969.003.0006
Neely, T. Y. (2018). I am my hair, and my hair is me: #BlackGirlMagic in LIS. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 121–146). Library Juice Press.
Roh, C. (2018). Reflections on the intersection of publishing and librarianship: The experiences of women of color. In R. L. Chou & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 427–446). Library Juice Press.
Rosener, A., Frigo, E., Ponischil, S., Bélanger, A., Rander, J., & Salazar, E. (2019). Leading from the center: Reimagining feedback conversations at an academic library. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/reimagining-feedback/
Vinopal, J. (2016). The quest for diversity in library staffing: From awareness to action. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2016/quest-for-diversity/
Yeo, S., & Jacobs, J. R. (2006). Diversity matters? Rethinking diversity in libraries. Counterpoise, 10(1/2), 78–80. https://www.proquest.com/docview/227976074/abstract/CC32EEE6F9D048F4PQ /1

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with an image by boonchuay1970 - "creative layout, green leaves with white square frame, flat lay, for advertising card or invitation"