Saturday July 20

Breakout session 2, 12:15-1:00pm

Session name: Diversity and Inclusion

Facilitator: Matt C.

Note taker: Jennifer E.

• Introductions
  • Topics that came up: 
    • Representation
    • zines as an educating force to expose young people to other perspectives
    • Curation & starting a zine collection
    • countering elitism/hegemony in art libraries
    • inclusive spaces
    • health disparities
    • shutting up & getting out of the way, using power to lift others up and create inclusive spaces
    • inclusiveness in makerspaces, generous exclusion – Marijel (Maggie) Melo
• Building Safe Spaces
  • How to create safe spaces without policing people?
  • Responsibility of being an authority figure (in the classroom) – calling a bad action bad if you see it
  • Statement about a safer space, laying out expectations 
  • Code of Conduct – post it at your event, enforce it 
    • De-escalation training, have a point of contact for zine fest tablers to contact if they are in a tough/uncomfortable/violent/unsafe situation 
  • Community agreement – discuss parameters, give people buy-in by creating an agreement together.
  • Refer to Code of Conduct for this conference: http://zinelibraries.info/events/zine-librarian-unconferences/zluc-organizers-toolkit/#conduct
• Inclusive Spaces
  • Librarian conferences are white spaces (librarianship is an 80% white profession) – conversations about diversity & inclusion are fraught, people often don’t know how to respond 
  • Embracing embarrassment and uncomfortable moments in order to move beyond mistakes
  • Lack of conversation
  • Diversity as a buzzword rather than an action and a practice
  • You will make mistakes, and we will talk about it as part of a community conduct agreement
  • De-escalation training as part of a conference like this, seeking out professional development opportunities
  • Reading circle to learn how to talk about race
  • Bystander intervention, using your voice to preempt violence when you see it 
• Getting out of the way vs. speaking up
  • Doing the work but not being a white savior
  • Community partnerships
  • Explicit goals in collection development, strategic planning in general
  • Not expecting people from marginalized communities to be the only ones doing the work, while centralizing marginalized voices
  • Racist imagery in old yearbooks – endless meetings, lots of anxiety, no action
  • “Verbal asterisks” when showing historical objects in closed stacks & pointing people to resources
    • Context and information literacy are our jobs too!
    • Presenting without lecturing
  • Getting into leadership in order to make change
    • Again, not expecting PoC & marginalized communities to do the work, but using power 
    • Lip service vs. action