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/.

Call for Chapter Proposals

Working Title: Comics and Critical Librarianship for Academic Libraries
Editors: Olivia Miller & Stephanie Grimm
Submission Deadline: December 15, 2017
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book description

This book will be a collection of chapters on ways comics have been used in the practice of critical librarianship. The intended audiences for this book are librarians and library workers that currently or hope to work with comics in academic libraries, people interested in critical librarianship, and comics scholars. The purpose of this book is to add to the conversation of critical librarianship within academic libraries by highlighting the use and focus of an already radical medium (comics) by librarians and library workers who practice critical librarianship.

For the purposes of this book, we use the term “comics” to mean any work in the medium of comics/sequential art. This can mean comic book issues, graphic novels, comic strips, webcomics, minicomics, etc.

We want both critical librarianship and comics to be approachable and accessible topics to our readers. One way we aim to do this is through approachable language much in the way that Maria T. Accardi did in Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction.

Possible topics

Possible topic areas include but are not limited to the following:

• Critical considerations of:
  • comics in academic library exhibitions or programming
  • comics in library instruction in higher education contexts
  • cataloging practices in relation to comics
  • acquisition or collection management/organization practices for comics and comics collections
  • comics or comics ephemera in special collections, archives, or manuscript collections
• Case studies on the critical use of comics in academic libraries and special collections
• Theoretical or research-based considerations of comics as a tool and site for critical librarianship
• Other relevant considerations of the topic

Timeline

• Abstract submission deadline: December 15, 2017
• Notification/Feedback regarding submission: January 31, 2018
• First drafts due: June 15, 2018
• Final drafts due: October 15, 2018
• Final manuscript due to publisher: December 2018

Submissions

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

Abstracts should briefly describe your topic and how your chapter discusses using comics in critical librarianship. 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 comics being used in critical librarianship practices 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 Olivia Miller and Stephanie Grimm, editors, at critlibcomics (at) gmail (dot) com.

About the Editors

Olivia Miller (she/her) is the Arts & Humanities Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her BA is in Art History and English from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and she attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for her MSLS. She built a strong graphic novel collection in her last position at Greensboro College and taught a for-credit course for two semesters on how to read and find comics with a feminist pedagogy.

Stephanie Grimm (she/her) is the Art and Art History Librarian at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She holds a BFA in Illustration and earned her MSI from the University of Michigan, where she developed a dedicated minicomics collection within the university libraries. She has worked with comics and illustration students at both art & design schools and research universities, and is a proponent of critical librarianship and literacy for artists and design students.