CfP Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies (JCLIS) Special Issue

Strike Wave: Changing Tides of Labor Organizing in Libraries and Information Fields

Guest Editors: Dr. Britt Paris, Emma May

This special issue aims to engage in a conversation on how concerns of labor, precarity, and economic forces more broadly take shape within information ecosystems and library and information professions. In the midst of record inflation, an ongoing global pandemic, and increasingly precarious occupational conditions, labor organizing is on the rise in the United States, culminating in ongoing strike actions across industries. The global discourse around such organizing efforts has become more prominent, as social movements around reproductive justice, gender liberation, and protests challenging systemic racism and policing primed the broader public for thinking critically about power and oppression. In alignment with increased interest and participation in labor organizing across industries, knowledge sectors—such as libraries and higher education—are undergoing a shift towards increased unionization and labor organizing efforts. Through both deft online and offline outreach efforts, workers have highlighted how interconnected issues such as record inflation, stagnant wages, and the rampant defunding of public services reflect broader systems of power and inequality.

Rather than simply questioning how inequalities arise within information ecosystems, it is crucial that the library and information science literature critically examine the political economic conditions that create these inequalities in the first place. In recent labor organizing efforts in libraries and beyond, workers have made clear how struggles for economic, racial, gender, and disability justice are interconnected. Therefore, it has become increasingly important to explore intersectional analyses of information and information systems with attention to their economic dimensions—which include questions of labor.

We invite practitioners and researchers to send proposals for exploratory or other experimental and nontraditional works, short papers (no more than 4000 words), and traditional research papers that explore various perspectives on issues of labor as they relate to library and information studies. We greatly encourage contributions from library workers and from scholars outside the library and information studies field. Contributions may include, but are not limited to, topics such as:

– Unionization in libraries
– Worker-led and worker-centered organizing around technology such as generative AI
– Undercommons of librarianship, the importance of insurgency, and how we might build liberatory alternatives in the face of ongoing institutional oppression
– History of professionalization in libraries
– The intersectional dimensions of precarity within library work
– Information access in the face of contemporary informational capitalism (e.g., large-scale boycotts, alternative publishing avenues, regulating data collection and use)
– The use of online and offline media (e.g., memes, Discord, zines, etc.) to initiate and engage in conversations about issues relevant to library workers
– Political education within LIS curricula and professional development

Potential contributors should submit a 500-word abstract (which excludes references), and the contact information of the corresponding author to Dr. Britt Paris (britt.paris@rutgers.edu) and Emma May (emma.may@rutgers.edu).

If an abstract is selected, the author(s) will be invited to submit their work to the journal. It should be noted that the acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication in JCLIS, given that all manuscripts will go through a peer review process.

Tod Rutherford, “The Labor of Strikes: Unions, Workers, and the 2023 US Strike Wave,” Human Geography 17, no. 2 (July 1, 2024): 220–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786241227171; Drew DeSilver, “2023 Saw Some of the Biggest, Hardest-Fought Labor Disputes in Recent Decades,” Pew Research Center (blog), January 4, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/04/2023-saw-some-of-the-biggest-hardest-fought-labor-disputes-in-recent-decades/.

James B. Thelen, “A New Era of Union Activism in Higher Ed,” Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2023, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/03/15/new-era-union-activism-higher-ed-opinion; Diana Castillo and Kelly McElroy, “Solidarity Is for Librarians: Lessons from Organizing – In the Library with the Lead Pipe,” Solidarity Is for Librarians: Lessons from Organizing (blog), August 24, 2022, https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2022/solidarity/.