As someone who is a white ciswoman I navigate the world with a lot of privilege this includes seeing myself and my race represented in all of the industries available to work in. This especially includes Libraries. These building\spaces are supposed to be warm and inviting but up until I worked in two I didn't find them inviting. The stereotype of the Public Librarian is an older white woman that shushes you if you are too loud around the books and others quietly reading. But I still have always seen my race in libraries and as librarians. For most others, this isn't always the case. Yesterday I met an undergraduate student, Megan, at a Library event that my friend was hosting in the Undergraduate Library or UGL as it is more widely called which will be closing at the end of this semester due to the expansion of the Archives Library into that space. One of the things that Megan brought up yesterday was that she was sad that the UGL was going to be combining with the Main Library or Graduate library and that it gave off to get your shit and get the fuck out vibes because of the closed stacks whereas the UGL has an open stacks policy. Open stacks mean that you can enter whenever the library is open and carry your bags around with you. Versus the closed stacks mean that you have to check your bag in a locker and go into the stacks and basically the deeper down you get the more like a dark basement it looks and feels like! Even I usually request my books and pick them up at the front Reference desk in front of the closed stacks so the librarians do the hard work and I just come and pick the items up! Then tonight she came to the Gender and Women's studies Solidarity night around the Anti-trans bills going around the country and she said something that I had in the back of my mind but it didn't click in my head because of my privilege of her not ever seeing herself in any of the librarians she had ever met throughout her education career. So this inspired me after I got home from a long day of work and events because after the GWS event I went to an open mic night with my friends to start researching Filipino American Librarians and I found one! She died in 2011 but she helped to found the Filipino American Library in California! So I texted the student to alert her of this! I just had to get this on this!
Resources to check out:
Why aren't there more black librarians?
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