Reading Reflections

Mehra and Braquet’s (2007) article, discusses the top ten barriers that the LGBTQ community faces at universities and the top ten ways that academic LIS professionals can do something about it. The author’s methodology was a series of interviews and “participant observation.” Meanings, that the authors are a part of the community in which they are studying, as both authors are openly gay. Despite some of the drawbacks, such as objectivity, the benefits, such as increased context and rapport, justified this position. The author’s list both their findings and their recommendations as a “top ten list” so that the information being presented is more accessible. Some of the barriers that the authors list are, isolation from a community, invisibility, and lack of representation in the curriculum. The article then recommends things such as Academic LIS actively participating in classes by either teacher or working with other professors, along with using other skills to help create digital and physical resources and safe spaces. The authors conclude with a discussion on the improvements within their own university using some of these steps.

One the things I found interesting in this reading was Mehra and Braquet’s focus on actively working to include LGBTQ students and staff in nondiscrimination policies and law. I found this particularly interesting after reading chapters from Dean Spade’s (2015) book, Normal Life. Spade argued against such reliance on policies and laws because it doesn’t fix systemic oppression, which he argues happens on an administrative level. He argued that reliance on laws and policies actually reinforces systems of oppression, by allowing administrative regulations to shift, rather than change, and possibly even widen the scope of other systems of oppression, such as the prison system. I know there is a bit of a gap between Mehra and Braquet’s (2007) article and Spade’s (2015), and I’m curious if their position has changed? Particularly since Mehra and Braquet were concerned about non-discrimination because of safety. They wanted universities to be safe for all students and staff in the community and believed that safety should start with school policies. I can where both arguments are coming from. One side wants a guarantee of safety as they try to make changes, and the other wants to throw the whole system out in order to start again without systemic oppression. But I think that Dean Spade’s argument certainly more compelling. It makes me consider the comic that I’m sure we’ve all seen comparing Equality to Equity, but a more recent version (Wells, 2016) knocks the fence down completely, and I think that’s what Spade’s argument is really about. It’s about getting rid of the barriers entirely rather than amending them. (or if you want a different idiom, treating the disease rather than just a symptom).
So libraries in general are funded by many of the systems and administrations that are oppressive to minority groups. How do we begin to make changes without just treating the symptom?




Mehra, B., & Braquet, D. (2007). Library and information science professionals as community action researchers in an academic setting: Top ten directions to further institutional change for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Library Trends, 56, 542-565.

Spade, D. (2015). Normal Life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Durham: Duke University Press.

Wells, Kristopher. [KristopherWells]. (2016, APril 15). Equality. Equity. Liberation. KNOW the difference! #abed. [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/kristopherwells/status/721158763881730048

Reading Reflections

The Diversity Mandate was written by Denise Adkins and Isobel Espinal in 2004. The article about the need to overcome the lack of librarians of color. The authors acknowledge that while LIS as a profession has put effort into becoming more diverse, the increase is not yet enough to reflect actual population numbers and therefore be truly meaningful. The authors then give examples on programs that actively seek recruit students Latino and Native students, it mostly comes down to the programs providing adequate support. The classes offered reflect what students of color might be interested in, and how best to serve their communities, but the programs also offer monetary support. The authors then explain that while LIS programs aren’t seeing a large increase of students of color, they are beginning to see an increase of students of color graduating. They then go one to explain that those numbers are also reflected in the faculty. The authors also list all the programs with the highest rates of graduation of students of color. The article closes with statements about how important funding is to these programs, and a reminder on how the point of libraries is to serve communities and that the best way to do that is have librarians who reflect those communities. This article was published in Library Journal, so the intended audience is other librarians, regardless of focus or type of library, it’s an attempt at impacting LIS as a whole. What stood out to me in this article is the need to support students of color. It shows that part of the problem is the education that LIS students receive.

One of the other articles is Racial Microaggressions in Academic Libraries: Results of a Survey of Minority and Non-minority Librarians written by Jaena Alabi in 2015. This article is an analysis of racism in librarianship because the author sees a need to broaden an otherwise limited pool of literature on the subject. Alabi argues that racism being prevalent and unseen by a majority of librarians (i.e. white librarians), may contribute to burn out among librarians of color. Alabi draws support for this argument from the results of a survey that, while limited, does show that microaggressions do occur and white librarians are not aware Alabi concludes that this needs to be addressed in order to retain librarians of color better. This article was published in The Journal of Academic Librarianship, which is a multidisciplinary journal for academic librarians. What stood out to me in this article is almost same as the previous article.

Both of these articles point to the problem of retention of people of color within librarianship, both students and fully employed librarians. Alabi even mentions that burnout is at the bottom of the inability to retain librarians of color. I think that is also true for the previous article as well. Programs are so white that students of color don’t get the support they need to finish their degrees emotional or monetary. We need to start in investing in librarians of color, and the programs that support them. This needs to be a monetary investment as well as a re-evaluation of libraries themselves. I think part of the way we do this, is by practicing what Melody Hobson is talking about in her Ted talk “Color blind or color brave?” we need to start addressing the problem head on, rather than shying away and ignoring it. Because there is a problem and it isn’t going to go away on its own.






Adkins and Espinal. The Diversity Mandate. Library Journal, Apr 15, 2004. Vol 129 (7) pp 52-54.

Alabi, J. (2015). Racial Microaggressions in Academic Libraries: Results of a Survey of Minority and Non-minority Librarians. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41(1), 47–53. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2014.10.008

TED. (2014, May 5). Color blind or color brave? | Mellody Hobson [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKtALHe3Y9Q

Book Review: Trainwreck by Sady Doyle

I really liked this one. Even as someone who was not invested in the lives of celebrities, I'm still guilty of a lot of the things discussed in the book. It really made me reevaluate my view of the world. The format was interesting, the author discusses and current and events and social attitudes, then finish a chapter by discusses the "anatomy of a train wreck," a historical figure like Mary Wollstonecraft, and Sylvia Plath. It was overall really interesting. Some of the discussion is already a little dated, but I think that's just the nature of the topic.


That said, this was not an easy read (or listen). There were a lot of heavy topics discussed such as rape, mental illness, addiction, and suicide.