Tag: Litwin Books

CfP: Human Rights Archives and the Problems of Provenance

Human Rights Archives and the Problems of Provenance

Special Issue of The Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies

Editors: Michelle Caswell, UCLA and Jess Melvin, University of Sydney

Records documenting human rights abuse raise a host of critical challenges for archivists, scholars, activists, survivors, and source communities. Who owns such records? Which stakeholders have the legal and/or ethical authority to make decisions about their stewardship? When should community-based collections, personal records, oral histories or artistic expressions comment on, respond to, or fill in the gaps left by official state documentation?

Dominant Western archival theories trace the provenance of records to their creators. By this narrow estimation, many records documenting human rights abuse belong to the abusers who created them or successor states. However, recent developments in critical archival studies challenge dominant Western notions of provenance, expanding it (as in community or social provenance) (Bastian 2009, Douglas 2017), retooling it for liberatory aims such as crip provenance (Brilmyer 2022), land as provenance (Ghaddar 2022), or provenancial fabulation (Lapp 2023), or abandoning it altogether (Drake 2021). A recent special issue of Archival Science edited by Jeannette Bastian, Stanley Griffin, and James Lowry addresses emerging conceptions of provenance in detail.

This renewed interest in provenance has opened up critical questions as provenance relates specifically to the ownership, stewardship, and uses of records documenting human rights abuse. This special issue of The Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies will exclusively feature papers produced at the Human Rights Archives and the Problems of Provenance symposium at the University of Sydney in June 2025. The symposium was organized as part of the Indonesia Trauma Testimony Project made possible with support from the Australian Research Council.

Submission due date: September 1, 2025 (Contact jclis@litwinbooks.com to submit a paper.)

Anticipated publication date: Spring 2026

References

Bastian J (2006) Reading colonial records through an archival lens: the provenance of place, space and creation. Arch Sci 6: 267-284.

Brilmyer G (2022) Toward a crip provenance: centering disability in archives through its absence. J Contemporary Arch Stud 9:1-25

Douglas J (2017) Origins and beyond. In: MacNeil H & Eastwood T (eds.) Currents of Archival Thinking (2nd. ed) Libraries Unlimited, California. pp 25-52

Drake J (2016) RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description. Medium. https://medium.com/on-archivy/radtech-meets-radarch-towards-a-new-principle-for-archives-and-archival-description-568f133e4325

Book Launch Event: Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create

Join us May 6, 2025 at 7pm Eastern for virtual book launch for the new title Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create edited by Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski.

Register Here

Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create sits at the heart of the library project, shaping how materials are described and organized and how they can be retrieved. The field has long understood that normative systems like Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress do this inadequately and worse, deploying language and categories that are rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, and U.S. imperialism. Ways of Knowing presents unique and timely oral histories of alternative thesauri created in response to the inadequacies and biases embedded within widely adopted standards in libraries. The oral histories tell the stories behind the thesauri through the narratives of the people who created them, revealing aspects of thesauri work that ordinarily are overlooked or uncovered.

The set of oral histories included in the volume document the Chicano Thesaurus, A Women’s Thesaurus, and Homosaurus. The authors recorded hour-long oral histories with two representatives from each project, documenting the origins of each thesaurus, the political and social context from which they emerged, and the processes involved in their development and implementation. Introductory essays provide a context for each thesaurus in the history of information and activism in libraries. The book and accompanying digital files constitute the first primary source of its kind and a unique contribution to the history of metadata work in libraries. Capturing these stories through sound recording offers new ways of understanding the field of critical cataloging and classification as we hear the joy, frustration, urgency, and seriousness of critical metadata work.

Learn more and purchase the book here.

JCLIS Special Issue – Strike Wave: Changing Tides of Labor Organizing in Libraries and Information Fields

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/.

Call for Chapters: DEIA in Faith-Based HigherEd Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs)

Chapter submissions are welcome to be published in the forthcoming Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in Faith-Based Higher Education Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs), an edited volume to be published by Litwin Books.

Book Description

In light of the Library and Information Science (LIS) field’s ongoing challenges with racial equity, there is a pressing need to disrupt traditional paradigms and reimagine the discipline through critical frameworks like Critical Race Theory (CRT). This reimagining aligns with “a commitment to social justice and the eradication of racial and all forms of oppression” (Leung & López-McKnight, 2021, p. 18). Building on existing DEIA scholarship to address significant gaps examining critical race theory and faith-based library work, this volume seeks to expand upon the current body of DEIA scholarship by specifically addressing the intersection of critical theories and frameworks with the operations of faith-based higher education institutions’ GLAMs.

Recent scholarship has underscored several critical areas for exploration:

  • The necessity for a dedicated forum where library workers in faith-based higher education can voice their experiences and insights.
  • The tension between the implicit religious teachings at these institutions and their direct or indirect perpetuation of racial, gender, and sexual prejudices and inequalities.
  • The scarcity of effective decolonization initiatives within faith-based institutions, particularly those with legacies of Black and Indigenous subjugation.

Aim of the Volume

This anthology aims to consolidate contributions from LIS scholars, practitioners, and organizations to critically assess the prevalence of white supremacy within LIS and propose strategies to dismantle racial oppression and inequalities within the field.

Call for Contributions

We invite submissions from professionals associated with GLAMs in faith-based higher education contexts. We are looking for:

  • Empirical research
  • Narrative accounts
  • Practitioner-developed curricula
  • Creative works that address DEIA efforts and their impact within LIS environments

Topics of Interest

We welcome proposals that are theoretically informed and empirically grounded, including but not limited to:

  • DEIA initiatives and their outcomes in GLAM settings
  • Experiences with DEIA assessment and implementation
  • Creation and impact of DEIA statements, committees, or strategic plans
  • Audits of DEIA in collections, facilities, and digital spaces
  • Roles and reflections on DEIA-specific positions
  • Projections for the future of DEIA in LIS GLAMs
  • Other relevant themes

Collaborative Peer Feedback Process

In alignment with our dedication to collective scholarship, this project will incorporate a structured peer feedback mechanism. Contributors will participate in a transparent, community-driven review, providing critical yet supportive feedback on each other’s chapters, enriching the academic rigor and cohesion of the volume.

Submission Guidelines

  • Research articles and narrative accounts should be between 6,000 to 9,000 words.
  • Case studies, reflective essays, and creative contributions may be shorter.
  • All submissions must adhere to the Library Juice Press Author Guidelines.

Abstract Submission

Submit a 250-500 word abstract outlining your proposed chapter by January 22, 2024

Important Dates

  • Proposal Submission Deadline: January 22, 2024
  • Acceptance Notification: February 19, 2024
  • Full Chapter Submission Due: July 22, 2024
  • Anticipated Publication: Spring 2025

Contact and Submission

Questions and completed proposals should be directed to the co-editors at editorsdeiaglams@gmail.com. Proposals can be submitted via the provided Google Form link: https://forms.gle/m3HCcnoRPTbsktyk7

We encourage you to distribute this call for papers within your professional networks.

Co-Editors

V. Dozier, Associate Professor and Education Librarian, University of San Diego

Martha Adkins, Associate Professor and Research and Instruction Librarian, University of San Diego