CFP: Information, Power, and Reproductive Health

Call for Chapter Proposals

Working Title: Information, Power, and Reproductive Health
Editors: Gina Schlesselman-Tarango (Des Moines University); Alanna Aiko Moore (University of California, San Diego); Renée Ann Rau (University of Southern California)
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2023
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book Description

Information, Power, and Reproductive Health will encourage readers to explore the inextricable intersection of reproductive health information and power. Rooted in a framework of reproductive justice, it will explore the ways in which power plays a central role in how reproductive health information is created, controlled, withheld, and shared. Deeply entrenched ideologies about which bodies are deserving or undeserving of reproductive care, which facets of reproductive life are worthy of research, which issues are taboo or frequently dismissed, and how to control bodies considered unruly all affect what health information is easily accessible or perhaps hidden from those who need it. Legislative, bureaucratic, medical-scientific, economic, and familial systems and structures shape reproductive health information, and framing information production and consumption as a social act can help us to trace these structural and ideological forces in the reproductive health landscape and locate transgressive sites of information sharing that speak back to power. Chapters will address the continued and more-urgent-than-ever interest in reproductive health, feminism(s), womanism, critical theory, and praxis in librarianship and information studies. We aim to develop an essential volume for librarians, healthcare practitioners, academics, advocates, and activists involved in the study of or street-level organizing around reproductive health in this critical era of reproductive crisis.

We seek proposals that demonstrate a substantive exploration of power and intersectionality, with attention to race, gender, sexuality, class, (dis)ability, and the like. We welcome all genres, from empirical research and critical analysis to personal narrative and autoethnography (and everything in between).

We welcome submissions from first-time authors and authors working outside academia. In the spirit of community, contributors will have the opportunity to be in regular contact with editors and with each other throughout the writing and publication process. Authors will also have the opportunity to both review and have their work reviewed by fellow contributors.

Potential Topics Include (but are not limited to)

  • The history of reproductive health information. For example:
    • Archival or library holdings
    • Close readings of historically influential resources
    • Lasting impacts of absent, erroneous, or discriminatory reproductive health information
    • Underground information-sharing networks of the past
  • The reproductive body, information, and the state. For example:
    • Information in relation to biopower, population control, or pronatalism
    • Forced hysterectomies/sterilization
    • Government records
    • Legislation
    • Funding for reproductive health research
    • Various forms of state and corporate surveillance (e.g., period tracking apps)
  • Reproductive health information and medical institutions. For example:
    • Medical records and medical classification
    • Pathologized bodies
    • Patient consent and information sharing
    • Medicalization of queer bodies
    • Medical technologies, fertility treatments, and assisted reproductive technology
    • Cultural competence and information sharing
    • Marginalized communities’ relationship(s) to the medical establishment
    • Capitalism/neoliberalism/racism/classism, etc., in medical institutions
  • Health information and the taboo reproductive body. For example:
    • Deviations from the “normal” or “healthy” or “fertile” body
    • Heteronormative ideas regarding reproduction and parenthood
    • Reproductive information for people with disabilities or otherwise “unruly” bodies
    • Libraries providing access to “taboo” reproductive information and resources (e.g., tampons/pads, condoms, materials on menopause)
    • Access to reproductive health information for non-normative or queer individuals or families
  • Taking control of reproductive health information post-Roe. For example:
    • Library and archival collections, services, and resources
    • (Radical) reproductive justice as information practice
    • Narrative medicine and storytelling
    • Zines and graphic medicine
    • Social media and information sharing
    • Underground information-sharing networks

Important Dates and Anticipated Timeline (subject to change)

  • Office hour: March 1, 2023, 10:00 – 11:00 am PST. Join the Information, Power, and Reproductive Health editorial team for an informal office hour. Pop in to say hi and ask us your questions about the call for proposals.
  • Proposal due date: April 1, 2023
  • Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2023
  • First draft due: September 1, 2023
  • Anticipated publication date: 2025

How to Submit

Submit chapter proposals and brief author bio(s). Proposals should not exceed 500 words.

Due to the political climate and nature of the collection’s subject matter, we respect that some contributors might choose to publish anonymously or using a pseudonym. If you have questions or concerns, please contact us at info.power.rephealth (at) gmail (dot) com: info.power.rephealth@gmail.com.

About the Editors

Gina Schlesselman-Tarango (she/her) is a health sciences librarian at Des Moines University. She holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Drake University, a masters of Social Science with an emphasis on Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Colorado Denver, and a masters of Library Science from the University of Denver. Her research interests include race and gender in librarianship, critical information literacy and peer learning in higher education, and the intersections of reproductive labor and information work. She is the editor of Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in LIS (Library Juice Press, 2017), has served as a journal editor and reviewer, authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and presented at numerous library science, gender studies, and higher education venues. She lives in Iowa with her people, cats, and chickens, and is a doula-in-training.

Alanna Aiko Moore is the Librarian for Sociology, Ethnic Studies, and Critical Gender Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Alanna holds a bachelor of arts in Sociology/Anthropology and Gender Studies from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, and a master’s of Library and Information Science from Dominican University. Alanna has published book chapters and articles on queer parenting, cross cultural mentoring, emotional labor, activism, and issues affecting women of color librarians. She has worked in academic libraries for over 15 years and has presented at numerous conferences and organizations. Before librarianship, she worked at social justice-centered non-profits and community organizations.

Renée A. Rau is an Information Services Librarian at University of Southern California’s Norris Medical Library and the liaison to the Keck School of Medicine. She earned a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree at San José State University (SJSU), in 2020. In 2017, she earned an MA in 20th-century United States history, specializing in women’s and gender history, from Washington State University (WSU). Her current research interests include: Evidence Based Practice and information literacy instruction; Graphic Medicine and health humanities; and diversity, equity, and inclusion in health sciences librarianship.

CFP: Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries

This call does not specifically mention archives, but it is an opportunity to integrate archives into the discussion.
______________________________________________

Call for Chapter Proposals

Working Title: Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries
Editors: Jason D. Phillips and Jordan Ruud
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2023
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book Description: Libraries, long tasked with defending intellectual freedom, find themselves under siege with threats of censorship for carrying gender/sexuality-related materials or holding LGBTQ-related events. Efforts to censor materials and control programming arguably threaten to have a chilling effect on libraries’ ability to carry out their core missions. We are soliciting contributions from across the library ecosystem exploring the significance of these threats and how librarians have responded, offering an intellectual and practical toolkit, in tandem with lessons with experience, to help libraries make their way through this new intellectual climate.

Topics under consideration might include:

  • Censorship of programming
  • Censorship of materials at any point in the acquisitions cycle
  • Preemptive caution (anticipation of censorship struggles) exerting a chilling effect on intellectual freedom
  • How classification can impede discoverability of controversial materials: “bibliographic invisibility”
  • Visibility of LGBTQ topics in displays
  • LGBTQ YA/children’s lit and its curricular role
  • Safe spaces for digital scholarship
  • The role and inclusion of LGBTQ materials, services, and outreach
  • Responsive collection development policy to address potential challenges
  • Administrative interference (campus, school, or public)
  • Workplace protections for LGBTQ personnel or those involved in LGBTQ
    collection development/programming
  • Information barriers creating a non-inclusive environment
  • Building design as a barrier to vulnerable populations (trans people)
  • Impact of LGBTQ materials and/or programming on student retention/mental health
  • The erosion of tenure as a threat to protection of intellectual freedom
  • Reflection on the role of LGBTQ materials as part of a collection, and as an aspect of overall library/campus DEI strategies
  • Politicization of library funding

We welcome contributions discussing specific situations, and also reflections of a more general nature on the importance of, and threats to, intellectual freedom.

We ask authors interested in contributing to submit a proposal or abstract in our submission form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bP5Eo_GsMXuCBMNerSdgtS9hjUVqrfEEuwvEwrCR-mY/

Deadlines:

  • April 1, 2023: abstracts due
  • April 30, 2023: notification of acceptance
  • September 1, 2023: drafts due
  • December 1, 2023: final revisions due
  • December 31, 2023: final submission of manuscript

Questions: If you have questions, please feel free to ask the editors: Jason D. Phillips (he/him) and Jordan Ruud (he/him)

CFP for Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in LIS

Call for chapter proposals

Working title: Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in LIS

Editors: Kalani Adolpho, Stephen G. Krueger, Krista McCracken

Submission deadline: December 18, 2020

Publisher: Library Juice Press, Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies

Overview

Currently there are very few books that contain any content on trans and gender diverse* experiences within library and information science (LIS). Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in LIS will center the lived experiences of trans and gender diverse people in LIS work and education. All authors and editors will be self-identified trans and gender diverse people.

The editors invite submissions from anyone who identifies as trans and/or gender diverse and who works in, teaches, and/or studies library and information science, or has done so in the past, with the goal of representing a wide range of experiences and identities in the final collection.

*We use “trans and gender diverse” to describe any self-identified non-cisgender identities, including nonbinary, agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, and others, as well as genders that do not fall within the Western system, such as two spirit, māhū, and others.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Positive experiences with trans and gender diverse inclusion in LIS education and/or the workplace
  • Negative experiences with trans and gender diverse exclusion in LIS education and/or the workplace
  • Trans and gender diverse experiences during LIS education
  • Experiences outside of the cis/trans Western gender binary (e.g. two spirit, māhū, etc.)
  • The intersection of being trans or gender diverse with other identities in LIS work and study (including, but not limited to: race, ethnicity, disability, sexual and romantic orientation, mental health, religion, and socioeconomic status)
  • Transitioning and/or coming out in the workplace or as an LIS student
  • Navigating and performing gender, possibly in combination with other identities, and ideas about professionalism
  • Being the first/only out trans or gender diverse person in your workplace or LIS program
  • Experiences with changes over time in how the LIS field treats trans and gender diverse people
  • Navigating the workplace or educational environment as a trans or gender diverse person who is not out in those spaces
  • Navigating interviewing, hiring, and/or onboarding as a trans or gender diverse library worker
  • Navigating library systems and other structures (eg. library accounts, learning platforms, HR systems, etc.) as a trans or gender diverse library worker or student
  • Anything else about the personal experiences of trans or gender diverse LIS workers, educators, and students

Authors and Anonymity

We are fully aware that many trans and gender diverse people may not be able to comfortably or safely share their experiences with their name attached. Any authors may use a pseudonym or have their chapters published anonymously. The editors will communicate with all authors to ensure that nobody has information shared that they would prefer not to.

Proposals with multiple authors are welcome.

Tentative Timeline

  • Abstract submission deadline: December 18, 2020
  • Information session: October 6, 2020 at 3:00-4:00pm EST
  • Notification/Feedback regarding submission: February 19, 2021
  • First drafts due: June 18, 2021
  • Final drafts due: September 17, 2021
  • Final manuscript due to publisher: January 1, 2022

Submissions

Please use this form to submit proposals. Note that acceptance of a proposal does not guarantee inclusion in the final book.

Abstracts should briefly describe your topic and include a short biographical statement. You are welcome to submit multiple abstracts about different possible topics. Material cannot be previously published. Final chapters should be in the 1,000 to 5,000 word range.

For those interested in submitting a proposal, or learning more about the book, the editors will be holding an information session October 6, 2020 at 3pm EST to answer questions. Register for the session using this form.

Any questions can be directed to trans.voices.LIS@gmail.com or to any of the editors.

About the editors

  • Kalani Adolpho (they/them) is a queer, trans, non-binary, and hapa (Kanaka Maoli and white) archivist. They are the Processing Archivist for Manuscripts and Archives Management at University of Miami Libraries. Kalani has presented on trans and gender diverse inclusion in libraries, diversity residencies, and colonialism in cataloging. Kalani can be contacted at kalani.adolpho@miami.edu.
  • Stephen Krueger (he/him or they/them) is the Scholarly Publishing Librarian at Dartmouth College. He has written and presented extensively on trans inclusion in libraries, including the book Supporting Trans People in Libraries and the webinar Supporting Trans Library Employees (see full details at https://www.stephengkrueger.com/scholarly-work). Stephen is the founding member of the Gender Variant LIS Network. Contact Stephen at Stephen.G.Krueger@dartmouth.edu.
  • Krista McCracken (they/them) is a queer non-binary archivist and public historian. They work as the Researcher/Curator for the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre and Arthur A. Wishart Library at Algoma University. Their work focuses on community archives, access and outreach. Krista can be reached at krista.mccracken@gmail.com.

CFP: Reorganization of the Library: Investigating the Consequences @LibJuicePress

This call does not specifically mention archives, but is relevant to academic archivists.

_________________________________

Call for Proposals

Reorganization of the Library: Investigating the Consequences
Edited by: Tim Ribaric

Library services are steeped in tradition and are built upon decades of past practice that have shaped the way patrons envision the library. These services also reinforce the mission of the library as a stalwart to the academic mission of the institution. However the library is not immune to change and this is being demonstrated in numerous contemporary library reorganizations that are occurring across academic institutions in North America and beyond. Quite often these exercises involve reorganizing staff and reporting lines in an attempt to find efficiencies and to provide new services. However, these reorganization exercises often create conflicts with established workflows, upend professional trajectories, and sometimes create labour issues. In addition, motivations and precipitating reasons for these exercises are often opaque and not clearly constructed. This work will investigate the current trend of library reorganization exercises, analyze the impacts, and investigate motivated factors.

Suggested Topics Include:

  • Case studies
  • Reorganization frameworks/methodologies
  • Organizational studies perspectives
  • Interrogation of ‘change management’ discourse
  • Bloat in quantity, and purview in administration positions
  • Deprofessionalization
  • Upskilling, changing roles, and continuing education
  • Equity, diversity, and inclusion perspectives
  • The effect of management trends and fads
  • Vocabularies and taxonomies (e.g. use of terminology such as “teams”)
  • Autonomy, professional identity and power-shifts
  • Longitudinal studies of effectiveness and effects
  • Exploration of rhetoric, “fear of change” dialog
  • Comparative studies of techniques and outcomes
  • The transition from liaison/subject librarianship to functional librarianship
  • Modeling library services on ‘market needs’
  • Discussions on neoliberalism in the academy and ramifications to Library services
  • Investigations of what is driving the neoliberal restructuring exercise
  • Strategic grievance filing
  • Self-governance mechanisms utilized in reorganization exercises

Estimated final submission length is between 5000 and 8000 words. The work will be published by Library Juice Press. Interested authors should provide a 500 word abstract to Tim Ribaric <tribaric@brocku.ca> before January 1, 2020. Notice of acceptance February 1. Submissions due: July 1. Anticipated publication date is Fall 2020.

Call for Chapter Proposals: Borders & belonging: Critical examinations of LIS approaches toward immigrants

This call does not specify archives and is geared towards libraries, but there may be potential crossover.

__________________________________

Call for Chapter Proposals:
Borders & belonging: Critical examinations of LIS approaches toward immigrants

Book Editor: Ana Ndumu
Publisher: Library Juice Press
Series: Critical Race Studies and Multiculturalism in LIS
Series Editors: Annie Pho and Rose L. Chou

Borders & belonging: Critical examinations of LIS approaches toward immigrants is a response to the need for discourse on how the LIS field, particularly in North America, is shaped by longstanding ideologies on nativity, race, ethnicity, language, class, and “belonging.” The goal is to probe concrete aspects of the LIS field (e.g., workforce, programs, facilities, resources, education and publications) and shed light on ethnocentric and essentialist frameworks. Here, an immigrant is defined as a person who permanently lives in but was born outside of the U.S. or Canada and respective territories. An immigrant is either a refugee, asylee, legal permanent resident, naturalized citizen or undocumented person. Please consult the editor about ideas involving international students.

Works should critically examine the role of immigration policy along with sociocultural paradigms in the library-immigrant relationship. Prospective authors are encouraged to refer to Mignolo & Walsh’s1 On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis along with Caidi, Allard, and Quirke’s2 Information practices of immigrants to develop their contributions.

Below is a sample, not exhaustive, list of topics:
• libraries and the promotion of assimilation or westernization
• linkages between libraries and colonialism and/or imperialism
• the role of libraries and information in mass migration and globalization
• immigrant self-determination versus structural inequality
• immigrant pre-migration information behavior
• immigrant contributions to information innovations (e.g., Silicon Valley, H-1B visa)
• presumptions of immigrant information incompetence and/or digital divides
• libraries and model minority narratives
• libraries and liberation rhetoric in the immigrant context
• libraries in sanctuary cities/states
• libraries in immigration detention centers
• libraries, privacy and the USA PATRIOT Act
• library services to specific immigrant groups (i.e., DACA recipients, TPS holders, religious minorities, forcefully displaced groups)
• nativism, populism, or xenophobia in libraries
• historical aspects of library services to immigrants
• gaps in immigrant information behavior research
• immigrants in the LIS workforce

Invited authors will complete 3,000 to 6,000 word chapters. LIS affiliates (LIS professionals, paraprofessionals, students and faculty) in the U.S. and Canada are encouraged to propose chapters. Chapters may be conceptual or empirical, exploratory or explanatory. All research methods are welcome. Case studies and literature reviews must draw from both migration/population studies and LIS literature. No previously submitted or published material.

Submissions:
Please email a 300-500 word proposal to Ana Ndumu at andumu@umd.edu by December 15, 2018. Proposals should include:
• Anticipated title
• Chapter rationale
• Brief outline
• Author(s) bio(s)

About Library Juice Press:
Library Juice Press, an imprint of Litwin Books, LLC, specializes in theoretical and practical issues in librarianship from a critical perspective, for an audience of professional librarians and students of library science. Topics include library philosophy, information policy, library activism, and in general anything that can be placed under the rubric of “critical studies in librarianship.”

About the Series:
The Critical Race Studies and Multiculturalism in LIS series collects and publishes works from theoretical, practical and personal perspectives that critically engage issues of race, ethnicity, cultural diversity and equity in library and information science (LIS). Works published in this series include:
Pushing the Margins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS, edited by Rose L. Chou and Annie Pho
Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science, edited by Gina Schlesselman-Tarango
Teaching for Justice: Implementing Social Justice in the LIS Classroom, edited by Nicole A. Cooke and Miriam E. Sweeney

About the Editor:
Ana Ndumu is a researcher at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park’s College of Information. She earned a Ph.D. in Information at Florida State University´s School of Information and explores the intersection of libraries, information and demography. She has completed studies on Black immigrants’ ICT device and Internet access; Black immigrants’ information behavior and experiences with information overload; the development of a scale for measuring and examining information overload as immigrant acculturative stress; and critical discourse analysis on LIS literature involving immigrants. Ana is a UMD President’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Digital Library Federation (DLF) Futures Fellow.

1. Mignolo, Walter, and Catherine E Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, and Praxis. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.
2. Caidi, Nadia, Danielle Allard, and Lisa Quirke. “Information practices of immigrants.” Annual review of information science and technology 44, no. 1 (2010): 491-531.

CFP: Rethinking The Collector and the Collected: Perspectives on Decolonizing Area Studies Librarianship

This call is for academic librarians, and though it doesn’t specifically mention archives, the topic is relevant.

______________________________________________________

Library Juice Press

We are inviting chapter proposals for the upcoming Library Juice Press publication tentatively titled Rethinking The Collector and the Collected: Perspectives on Decolonizing Area Studies Librarianship. This volume will explore the paradigm of “area studies” — a way of supporting regionally-focused collecting, processing, and liaison work — in the academic library through an explicitly anti-colonial lens. We will center debates on the politics and problems of area studies in libraries. Specifically, we ask how libraries are rethinking their approaches to collecting global resources and serving our constituencies in a contemporary and progressive manner. While libraries need to address the problematic nature of area studies, we see a larger academic trend in the push for “global” initiatives which ignore historically, linguistically, and culturally significant sites of difference, inequity, and asymmetrical power relations.

What does it mean to break down the artificial divide between “collectors” of knowledge and those of us who have these knowledges “collected” for use? What work is required to decolonize collections, collecting practices, and practices of access originally designed to help Euro-American scholars study “the other?”

Possible focuses for chapters include, but are not limited to:
– negotiating areas: the politics and history of delineating regions, places, and spaces;
– interdisciplinarity: exploring boundaries and relationships among academic disciplines and other interdisciplinary subjects such as women and gender studies, LGBT or queer studies, or environmental studies;
– funding and neoliberal history: looking at the relationship to governments, private funding, private capital, and the support of imperial and capitalist projects;
– collection development, acquisitions, and access: examining historical and current practices of acquiring materials and denying, limiting, or expanding the use of these materials through copyright, paywalls, or open access regimes;
– identity, professionalism, and training for library workers: centering the lived experiences of library workers, particularly librarians abroad, immigrants, and individuals from diaspora communities.

Accepted essays will offer a nuanced critique with solutions that go well beyond an erasure of difference. We are especially interested in soliciting chapters from writers of color, indigenous writers, or scholars from outside of the U.S. We also invite new translations of previously published work currently unavailable in English. Further, we invite work which operates from the assumption that hegemonic areas should be studied using the same tools, theories, and approaches as non-hegemonic areas — much like the precedents of whiteness studies and masculinity studies. Lastly, we plan to integrate peer review among authors into our process in addition to editorial review and ask that potential authors be willing to provide feedback on at least one fellow author’s material during the editing process.

Proposals should be no more than 300 words and describe the chapter, the framing and structure of the chapter and/or any theoretical frames necessary to the piece. Further, please indicate if the chapter would fit into any of the above focuses. If proposed work is a translation, please indicate if you are the original author or have the original author’s permission and provide the citation for the original. Please send proposal as a .docx attachment and in the body of the e-mail along with your CV and a short biography. Our deadline for proposals is December 15, 2018.

Please e-mail the editors at DecolonizingAreaStudies@gmail.com with any questions about the book including procedural questions or to ask about potential fit for your proposal.

CFP: Critical Librarianship and Library Management

This call does not specifically mention archives, but the topics are applicable.

______________________________________

Call for proposals

Advances in Library Administration and Organization
Critical Librarianship and Library Management
Publication due 2020

Series Editor: Samantha Hines, Peninsula College
Volume Editor: David Ketchum, University of Oregon

The critical librarianship movement has shone light on many aspects of our profession and encouraged us to question why we do things the way we do them. One area underexplored in this moment, however, is library management: Are there management practices that need to be questioned or interrogated? Are there progressive practices that have not received the recognition they deserve?

ALAO seeks submissions for the “Critical Librarianship and Library Management” volume that delve beyond examples and case studies to critically examine library management.

Proposals in the following areas would be of particular interest:
Implicit bias and library management/operations
Retention and hiring for diversity and inclusion
Social justice in library leadership and management
This will be the first volume of Advances in Library Administration and Organization (ALAO) to publish in 2020.

About the Advances in Library Administration and Organization series:

ALAO offers long-form research, comprehensive discussions of theoretical developments, and in-depth accounts of evidence-based practice in library administration and organization. The series answers the questions, “How have libraries been managed, and how should they be managed?” It goes beyond a platform for the sharing of research to provide a venue for dialogue across issues in a way that traditional peer reviewed journals cannot. Through this series, practitioners glean new approaches in challenging times and collaborate on the exploration of scholarly solutions to professional quandaries.

How to submit:

We are currently seeking proposals for the 2019 volume on Critical Librarianship and Library Management. If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please send a proposal including a draft abstract of 500 words or less, author details and estimated length of final submission to Samantha Hines at shines@pencol.edu by August 31, 2018.

Submission deadlines:

Submission deadline for proposals: August 31, 2018
Notification of acceptance sent by: October 31, 2018
Submission deadline for full chapters: February 28, 2019
Comments returned to authors: April 30, 2019
Submission deadline for chapter revisions: June 15, 2019

CFP: Sexuality in Libraries

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.

Award for Ongoing Doctoral Dissertation Research in the Philosophy of Information

1. Nature of the Award

1.1 The award shall consist of $1,000, given annually to a graduate student who is working on a dissertation on the philosophy of information (broadly construed). As we see it, the range of philosophical questions relating to information is broad, and approachable through a variety of philosophical traditions (philosophy of mind, logic, philosophy of information so-called, philosophy of science, etc.).

2. Purpose of the Award
2.1 The purpose of this award is to encourage and support scholarship in the philosophy of information.

3. Eligibility

3.1 The scholarship recipient must meet the following qualifications:
(a) Be an active doctoral student whose primary area of research is directly philosophical, whether the institutional setting is philosophy or another discipline; that is to say, the mode of dissertation research must be philosophical as opposed to empirical or literary study;
(b) Have completed all course work; and
(c) Have had a dissertation proposal accepted by the institution.

3.2 Recipients may receive the award not more than once.

4. Administration

4.1 The Litwin Books Award for Ongoing Doctoral Dissertation Research in the Philosophy of Information is sponsored and administered by Litwin Books, LLC, an independent scholarly publisher.

5. Nominations

5.1 Nominations should be submitted via email by June 1, to award@litwinbooks.com.

5.2 The submission package should include the following:
(a) The accepted dissertation proposal;
(b) A description of the work done to date;
(c) A letter of recommendation from a dissertation committee member;
(d) An up-to-date curriculum vitae with current contact information.

6. Selection of the Awardee

6.1 Submissions will be judged on merit with emphasis on the following:
(a) Clarity of thought;
(b) Originality;
(c) Relevance to our time;
(d) Evidence of good progress toward completion.

7. Notification

7.1 The winner and any honorable mentions will be notified via letter by July 1.

Read more about past winners.

CFP: Deconstructing Service in Libraries: intersections of identities and expectations

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________

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.