Working Title: Sexuality in Libraries
Editors: Brian Flaherty and Alana Kumbier
Publisher: Library Juice Press
Deadline for proposals: August 13, 2018

Access to information about sex, and platforms for sex education, have changed radically in the digital era. As curators and providers of information about sexuality, librarians have a responsibility to keep up with developments in both the types of information available, and the platforms on which that information is most readily accessible. In addition, sex is different: collecting and curating sex-related materials, as well as providing sex related information, are both fraught with a variety of issues including personal, political and religious values, age-appropriateness, censorship, and collection maintenance (less generously: vandalism).

This handbook will support professionals interested in developing critical approaches to work at the intersection of sex information, sexuality education, and librarianship. It is intended to help librarians build collections, recommend resources, and create a comfortable and supportive environment for patrons to do sex-related research. Our hope is that the collection will address how we can address issues of sexuality information in our teaching, cataloging, programming, and outreach.

Martha Cornog and Timothy Perper’s guide For Sex Education, See Librarian: A Guide to Issues and Resources (1996) is a key predecessor for this work, essential for understanding issues around sex information in libraries. We hope to build on its foundation by creating a resource that addresses the issues with the same breadth and intelligence, and to bring that information into the present. Among other things: discourses around gender and sexuality have changed; we have new vocabularies for sex, gender identity and expression, and orientation; the scope of sexuality education has changed to incorporate intersectional identities; porn and information literacy has become an essential facet of any discussion of sexuality information; and the legal and cultural discussion around sexuality and alternative sexualities has morphed to be almost unrecognizable to someone working in this area 20 years ago.

Perhaps more importantly, the media for delivering information – especially sexuality information – has changed entirely since the issue of sexuality information in libraries was comprehensively addressed. When For Sex Education…. was written (in 1995) the internet was just beginning to grow into the ubiquitous presence it is today, cell phones weren’t especially common, and nobody could even fathom a hand-held computer more powerful than the most expensive desk-top. The internet changed the way people access information in libraries, changed the role of librarian as curator of information, and made digital information literacy an essential component of librarianship. The proposed book aspires to address all of these issues in the context of sexuality information in libraries.

The work will begin with a collection of chapters authored by experts, addressing different aspects of sex information in libraries. Though authored by individual experts, the book is intended as a cohesive handbook on sexuality information in libraries.

Possible topics for chapters include, but are not limited to:
• The Role of Libraries in Sexuality Education
• History of Libraries and Sexuality Materials
• Sex Education: Past and Present
• Cataloging and Classification of Sexuality Materials
• Censorship of Sexuality Materials
• Special Collections: Sexuality-related Special Collections in Institutional Contexts
• Sexuality archives (including digital archives)
• Libraries as welcoming spaces
• Negotiating ethics, boundaries, identities and embodiments as librarians and sex educators Reference consultations and sexuality education
• Sex information and critical digital information literacy
• Joining sex education communities of practice
• Bringing particular theoretical or conceptual frames to the points at which librarians support access to sexual information and education (e.g., intersectionality, transgender theory, critical pedagogy)

Timeline:
CFP Distributed: Early June 2018
Deadline for chapter proposals and resource guide section editors: September 1, 2018
Notification of accepted proposals: November 15, 2018
First drafts due: May 17, 2019
Second drafts due: August 23, 2019
Final drafts due: November 1, 2019
Final editing & manuscript submission: December 2019 – January 2020

We encourage submissions from librarians and archivists, library and archives workers, and sexuality educators, scholars and activists. We also welcome perspectives from a variety of organizational and institutional contexts, including public libraries, academic libraries, special collections, archives, grassroots libraries and archives, community programs, and more.

Please email abstracts of up to 500 words to sexualityinlibraries (at) gmail (dot) com

For chapter proposals:
Abstracts for your proposed contribution should include the topic(s) you intend to cover, and a short biographical statement indicating your areas of subject expertise and/or experience relevant to the collection. You are welcome to submit multiple abstracts about different possible chapters. If your submission is tentatively accepted, the editors may request modifications. Material cannot be previously published.

Final chapters will be in the 4000-6000 word range.

About the editors:
Brian Flaherty is the instructional services librarian at Boston University School of Law. He is also the co-founder and co-director of Partners in Sex Education, teaching comprehensive sex education to middle school and high school youth in Greater Boston. He has written and edited sex education curricula, and presented at local and national conferences, including a keynote at the 2014 National Sex Education Conference, “Sex Mythbusters!”

Alana Kumbier is a research and instruction librarian at Hampshire College. They are the author of Ephemeral Material: Queering the Archive (Litwin Books 2014), a book about LGBTQ community archiving practices and methodologies. They are co-editor of Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods (Library Juice Press 2010), a foundational collection of essays on critical pedagogy and library instruction.

Please contact Brian and Alana at SexualityInLibraries@gmail.com with any questions.

This is library-specific, but their topics can also relate to archives.

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Call for Chapter Proposals

Working Title: Deconstructing Service in Libraries: intersections of identities and expectations
Editors: Veronica Arellano Douglas and Joanna Gadsby
Submission Deadline: July 15, 2018
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book Description
Research into the construction of librarians’ professional identities indicates a strong emphasis on our work as service providers, from both within the profession and the larger environment in which we exist. When taken to its most extreme conclusion, the service ethos that informs librarianship can turn into what some some in the field informally refer to as “Handmaiden Syndrome”– the expectation that librarians be at the beck and call of faculty, students, patrons, and administrators. This is most visible in traditional, patriarchal constructions of service that rely on hierarchical power structures, such as those present in academia and other educational and cultural institutions. But Roma Harris argues that librarianship has the potential to transform the ideal of service from one that exploits those in service roles toward a more democratic and potentially empowering exchange. To do so means an acknowledgement of the high level of emotional labor on the part of the librarian, who is constantly negotiating her sense of personal worth and professional value in pursuit of “good service.” It also raises questions about what components of identity we ignore or devalue when focusing on service as a defining feature in our profession.

This book will unpack the ways in which race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and ability combine with an “ethic of service” to create, stagnate, or destruct librarians’ professional identities, sense of self, and self worth. We would like to examine the power structures, values, and contexts that influence our personal, professional, and institutional conceptions of service in libraries, as well as the costs and consequences (to ourselves and our institutions) of these very personal identity negotiations.

Possible Topics

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:

Section 1: Situating Service in Librarianship
This introductory section will include a history of service values and behaviors in librarianship. It will examine the ways in which this value has been internalized by practitioners without a clear, agreed upon definition across the different subfields of librarianship.

Section 2: Intersecting Identities & Service
This section will include contributed chapters on the intersections of the ethos of service and personal identity. Questions explored may include:
• How do librarians’ personal identities influence their conception of service in libraries?
• What does service in libraries mean to you?
• In what ways do gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and/or ability influence service expectations of librarians; the ways in which service is performed/carried out; and the ways in which service is perceived by others?
• How do definitions and expectations of service shape professional identities of librarians?
• What are the consequences of not meeting service expectations? How do these consequences differ based on personal identities?
• What is the role of power in service roles and how is influenced by intersectional identity?

Section 3: Reworking the Concept of Service in Libraries
This section will attempt to redefine the concept of service in libraries through a variety of critical theoretical lenses. Contributed chapters may, for example, rework service through a feminist, critical race, or critical disability framework. We also welcome theories and perspectives from other fields. Questions explored may include:
• Do we need a new shared definition of service in libraries?
• Should we abandon the ethos of service in libraries altogether?
• If so, what other professional values should take precedence?
• How can service be redefined to promote a critical, just, and inclusive work and patron environment in libraries? Can it do this?

A variety of traditional and nontraditional scholarship methods are welcome, including but not limited to rhetorical analysis, critical analysis, lyric scholarship, autoethnography, ethnography, phenomenological research, interviews, and other methods of exploring personal and collective identity and the ethos of service.

Timeline
• CFP distributed: April 2, 2018
• Deadline for Chapter Proposals: July 15, 2018
• Notification of Accepted Chapter Proposals: October 1, 2018
• First drafts due: January 15, 2019
• Second drafts due: March 15, 2019
• Final drafts due: June 1, 2019
• Editing: June-August 2019
• Submission of final manuscript: September 1, 2019

Submissions

Please email abstracts of up to 500 words to serviceinlibrariesbook (at) gmail (dot) com.

Abstracts should briefly describe your topic and how your chapter examines the ethos of service in libraries in relation to identity, and/or a larger theoretical framework. You are welcome to submit multiple abstracts about different possible topics. If your submission is tentatively accepted, the editors may request modifications. Material cannot be previously published.

Final chapters will be in the 2000-5000-word range. Abstracts that discuss service in tribal college libraries, HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, community colleges, archives, special libraries, and libraries outside the United States are especially welcome.

Please direct any questions to Veronica Arellano Douglas and Joanna Gadsby, editors, at varellano (at) gmail (dot) com or jogadsby (at) gmail (dot) com.

About the Editors

Veronica Arellano Douglas is the Reference & Instruction Librarian and Instruction Coordinator at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She received her BA in English Literature from Rice University and MLIS from the University of North Texas. Her research interests include feminized labor in librarianship, intersectional librarian identity, critical information literacy and librarianship, feminist pedagogy, and relational theory.

Joanna Gadsby is the Instruction Coordinator & Reference Librarian at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She holds an MLIS from University of Maryland, College Park and an MEd from Loyola University. Her research interests include critical and constructivist pedagogies as well as issues that shape librarian identity.

CFP: Special Collections as Sites of Contestation
Editor: Mary Kandiuk
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Special collections are actively acquired by libraries or received by donation. Increasingly, special collections are emerging as sites of contestation. Funding and political choices often underpin acquisition, access and promotion of these collections resulting in unequal representation, biased interpretations and suppressed narratives. This collection of essays will interrogate library practices relating to special collections. The essays will explore the reinterpretation and resituating of special collections held by libraries, examine the development and stewardship of special collections within a social justice framework, and describe the use of critical practice by libraries and librarians to shape and negotiate the acquisition, cataloguing, promotion and display of special collections.

Proposals are invited for chapters relating to special collections held by all types of libraries in all countries. Special collections are library and archival materials encompassing a wide range of formats and subject matters. They are usually distinguished by their historical, societal, cultural or monetary value, uniqueness or rarity, and are housed separately from a library’s main circulating collection with a commitment to preservation and access. Specific topics of interest include but are not limited to:

– Evolving understandings and interpretations of historical materials in special collections.
– Censorship, self-censorship, academic freedom, intellectual freedom and special collections.
– The use of critical practice to resist cultural hegemony in the development of special collections.
– The challenges of developing contemporary special collections relating to social justice.
– Examining special collections through the lens of the marginalized and disempowered.
– The representation of unpopular or radical views in special collections.
– Contested interpretations of special collections.
– Safe spaces and special collections.
– Controversial exhibits relating to special collections.
– Information literacy and special collections employing a social justice framework.
– Decolonizing and indigenizing special collections.
– Donors, funding, power and politics and their influence on the development of special collections.
– Development and stewardship of special collections relating but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, politics, religion, war, conflict, genocide, sex, pornography, racism, discrimination, heritage, memory, and identity within a social justice framework.
– Any aspect of acquisition, curation, structure, cataloguing, digitization, presentation, arrangement, promotion, display and instruction relating to special collections using a social justice or critical practice framework.

Proposals

Chapter proposals should contain 1) an abstract of 500-750 words describing the proposed contribution and 2) a brief biographical statement about the author(s). Proposals are due June 1, 2018. Please direct all submissions and inquiries to Mary Kandiuk (mkandiuk@yorku.ca).

Timetable:

June 1, 2018: Deadline for 500-750 abstract proposing a chapter.
July 1, 2018: Notification of acceptance of proposed chapter.
December 1, 2018: Deadline for submitting full chapter manuscript.

About the Editor

Mary Kandiuk is the Visual Arts, Design & Theatre Librarian and a Senior Librarian at York University in Toronto, Canada. She holds a Master of Arts in English and a Master of Library Science from the University of Toronto. She is the author of two bibliographies of secondary criticism relating to Canadian literature published by Scarecrow Press and co-author of Digital Image Collections and Services (ARL Spec Kit, 2013). She is co-editor of the collection In Solidarity: Academic Librarian Labour Activism and Union Participation in Canada published by Library Juice Press in 2014. Her most recent publications include articles on the topic of academic freedom. For more information see:http://mkandiuk.blog.yorku.ca/.