[Libs-Or] To ALA or Not...

[Robertshaw, Brooke]

>Honestly, the two places I consider sanctuary against everything political is my church and the library. My church has disappointed me on that point, but I >can make sure that the library will always be a sanctuary for people to not have to deal with this crap.
>Why do we even need to take a side? How about this: We say we are hopeful that we as librarians will be able to have a good relationship with the new >administration. End of subject, we all go on with our lives. I am tired of TV, the 'news', entertainers and clothing shops thinking that their political opinion is >important to me.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this post over the last 12 hours. I’ve been thinking about how to respectfully and succinctly share my thoughts about it.

On the political nature of libraries.

1.       In this time of rising, by disturbing magnitudes, racism, islamophobia, arabphobia, refugeephobia, immigrantphobia – that libraries welcome everyone – (we even have such a statement as you walk into Valley Library here at OSU) means that we are political.



2.       In this time of a speeding up of the de-sciencing of public discourse, that libraries are on the front lines of protecting, & standing up for, the free exchange of valid and reliable information means that we are political.

On the nature of privilege.

1.       I am white settler class, and I’m highly educated. I pass and I can, more easily than others, check out of politics and forget what is happening around me. Regretfully, I have used my passability to check out. But I move about in communities that are targeted by this administration (and were targeted by the previous one too), and they/we are afraid, so, really I can’t check out. Further, my friends and I need to know what companies & businesses have stood up to protect their/our rights, their/our freedoms, their/our very safety, what companies have remained silent (and thus complicit) and what companies and businesses have actively worked against their/our rights, freedoms and safety. We have a right to make a choice about who gets our money and who does not. (Note, I use two pronouns because of my passability).

-Brooke


——————————————————————
M. Brooke Robertshaw, PhD
Assistant Professor & Assessment Librarian
Oregon State University Libraries & Press
121 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97331
Office: (541) 737-1780
Mobile: (541) 870-6136
brooke.robertshaw at oregonstate.edu
——————————————————————
“Numbers have life; they’re not just symbols on paper.” ~Shakuntala Devi


From: Libs-Or <libs-or-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us> on behalf of c wacker <wackt55 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: c wacker <wackt55 at yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 6:12 PM
To: Max Macias <max.macias at gmail.com>, libs-or <libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>, "REFORMANet at googlegroups.com" <REFORMANet at googlegroups.com>, "uwmosaic at u.washington.edu" <UWMOSAIC at u.washington.edu>, "tf-edi at lists.ala.org" <tf-edi at lists.ala.org>
Subject: Re: [Libs-Or] To ALA or Not...

Honestly, the two places I consider sanctuary against everything political is my church and the library. My church has disappointed me on that point, but I can make sure that the library will always be a sanctuary for people to not have to deal with this crap.
Why do we even need to take a side? How about this: We say we are hopeful that we as librarians will be able to have a good relationship with the new administration. End of subject, we all go on with our lives. I am tired of TV, the 'news', entertainers and clothing shops thinking that their political opinion is important to me.
Cheryl Spangler

On Sunday, February 12, 2017 6:36 AM, Max Macias <max.macias at gmail.com> wrote:

Someone on a list I'm on recently posted that they were hesitant to renew their ALA membership because of the recent ALA Press release scandal.  You can read about it on Librarian in Black here: http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/alastatements/. The person who posted asked the group what they thought about renewing their ALA memberships.

I'm not a member of the ALA, but I work with them on issues concerning Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.  I'm on the ALA EDI implementation Work Group and I try to represent marginalized people who can't afford membership or conference participation (among other things).

For the rest of my response, please see my blog post on this subject:

https://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/2017/02/to-ala-or-not-ala.html



Respectfully,


Max Macias



--

The ideas expressed in these emails in no way represent any organization's viewpoints, or opinions.  The opinions, ideas and reflections are my own personal intellectual property.




http://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/


Twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/maxmacias

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