Journal of Radical Librarianship

Review of Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education

Joel Blechinger — 2024-01-24

Review of Zyagintseva, L, & Greenshields, M. (Eds). (2023). Land in libraries: Toward a materialist conception of education. Library Juice Press.

Review of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI

Joel Blechinger — 2024-05-20

Review of Mollick, E. (2024). Co-intelligence: Living and working with AI. Penguin Portfolio.

Review of Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online

Joel Blechinger — 2024-03-04

Review of Caulfield, M., & Wineburg, S. (2023). Verified: How to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online. University of Chicago Press.

Review of The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family

Joel Blechinger — 2024-08-19

Review of Cook, J. (2024). The quiet damage: QAnon and the destruction of the American family. Penguin Crown.

Review of On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US

Daniel Clarkson Fisher — 2024-02-28

ABSTRACT: Review of LaRue, James. On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US. Wheat Ridge, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. 2023. Ebook version, 81 pages. ISBN 9781682754580.

Information Hegemony, Transcending Positivism, and Applying Critical Legal Information Literacy Concepts in the Legal Research Classroom and Beyond

Latia Ward — 2024-05-13

This paper provides an overview of critical information literacy, critical information theory, critical legal research as well as how information hegemony impacts the legal information industry. To prepare law students for the practice of law, a discussion of ways to embed critical information literacy and critical legal research in a legal research course is provided.

Uncontrollable Vocabularies:

Lynne Stahl — 2024-03-11

This article brings together critical librarianship and queer theory to intervene in ongoing discourse about subject headings related to sexual identity. While many librarians favor a corrective cataloging approach that updates language with more current and ostensibly community-preferred terms, I draw on work by Emily Drabinski, Melissa Adler, Eve Sedgwick, and Kadji Amin to argue against corrective approaches—and against a mindset that seeks affirmation in the catalog to begin with, rather than understanding any taxonomic project to be intrinsically fraught and reductive. The purpose of this article is threefold: 1) to elucidate and challenge what I call a “paradigm of exposure”—a form of “outing” texts—around Library of Congress Subject Headings that are related to sexual identity, 2) to illustrate the fundamental irreconcilability of queerness with the cataloging principle of “aboutness,” and 3) to argue for a dispositional shift that embraces an ambivalent relationship to the catalog even while permitting for good surprises. As a case study, I examine the application of the LCSH “Lesbians” and “Female friendships” to films and challenge the paradigm of exposurethat characterizes prevalent approaches to cataloging LGBTQ-related materials.

Keywords: cataloging, critical librarianship, queer theory, academic libraries, Library of Congress Subject Headings, sexual identity

Settler Narratives

Olivia Radbill — 2024-09-23

The gendering of the library profession toward female dominance, occurring between 1876 and 1905, coincided with an influx of affluent, educated white settlers in California. The simultaneity of Westward expansion and gendering of librarianship laid the framework for white women settlers to find successful careers in libraries in California. The first City Librarian of the South Pasadena Public Library, located in South Pasadena, California, was a woman named Nellie Keith. Viewed through an intersectional lens, Keith’s journey, from her birth on a New Hampshire farm to her appointment as a City Librarian in California, was paved by both her access to white privilege and her subjection to the sexism of nineteenth century male figureheads in the field of librarianship.

From Gatekeepers to Facilitators

Demetrius Currington — 2024-08-27

Metadata is necessary for intellectual control of materials, providing context, and facilitating findability. In the creation of metadata, information professionals may inadvertently act as gatekeepers, perpetuating the marginalization of people and identities through the use of complicated and outdated descriptive practices. The People’s Archive, the local history department of the DC Public Library set out to revise our metadata practices for digital collections to prioritize inclusivity and findability in our collections. Addressing the role our profession has played in perpetuating harmful social structures is hard and uncomfortable, but it is also overdue and necessary if we truly want to provide the best access to our users. In this article, the authors review the methodology and outcomes of a yearlong effort to update our metadata practices.

Building and Researching Queer Community-Driven Archives in the Pacific Northwest

Josie Cohen-Rodriguez — 2024-09-18

This paper explores approaches to developing and sustaining queer community-driven archives. Authors utilize autoethnography, critical race theory, and critical archival studies, to interrogate institutional power structures and move towards more equitable and reciprocal learning models. The authors will outline the founding of the Washington State University Queer Archives through the reflexive process of developing guiding principles that center relationality, community-driven decision making, counter-storytelling, and self-determination for queer communities. Original research conducted at queer archives throughout western Oregon will be analyzed and discussed using structural, relational, and curatorial lenses. Lessons will be tied to reflecting on the role of memory work in queer communities and the role of archives towards queer cultural re/production.

Critical Cataloguing and Contradiction Analysis

Ryan Burley — 2024-07-09

This article pioneers the application of Marxist theory in the field of critical cataloguing. I take the recent Library of Congress ‘Illegal aliens’ controversy as a case study to demonstrate how dialectical materialism—specifically Mao Zedong’s contradiction analysis—can serve as a useful approach for addressing ruptures in classificatory language. I identify three advantages to using contradiction analysis in critical cataloguing research. First, by giving equal attention to all aspects of a phenomenon, contradiction analysis accounts for the inherently biased nature of library classification systems. Second, by insisting that all phenomena are in motion from one state towards another, contradiction analysis accommodates the fluid and contextual nature of language. Third, contradiction analysis is not limited to a single discipline—it can be effectively applied alongside a range of other approaches, such as feminist theory, queer theory, and critical race theory. My analysis reveals how dialectical materialism can be applied both retrospectively and in future critiques of classificatory antagonisms. I also call for an extension of the challenge to the language of undocumented migration beyond the realm of library classification and into the field of legal discourse.

Building the Path for the Last Mile:

Annie Pho — 2024-10-15

This article examines the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and libraries by looking at the evolving research process through the framework of critical librarianship. Through a review of relevant literature and case studies, we discuss how AI tools are reshaping higher education amid a backdrop of budgetary cuts and an increasingly siloed academy. In this environment, library workers are increasingly anxious to defend their role in the research process and illuminate harms perpetuated by algorithmic tools. By engaging with the concept of the “last mile,” an analogy for AI in the research space, we consider the intersections of labor, pedagogy, and professional practice. We argue that librarians enhance and facilitate deeper learning as researchers and students strive to reach milestones in their research journey. Further, we emphasize the importance of being proactive with advocacy in our academic communities by highlighting this unique role. Through exploring these critical perspectives, we advocate that librarians actively challenge algorithmic biases, advocate for users to engage with AI ethically, and increase focus on relational labor in the research process. This article contributes to the ongoing dialogue of AI use in libraries, but offers a critical lens and a path forward for actionable insights for librarians and library workers.

What a Recent Ta-Nehisi Coates Lecture Offers the “Intellectual Freedom vs. Social Responsibility” Debate

Daniel Clarkson Fisher — 2024-07-22

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates's 2023 Arthur Miller Lecture at the PEN America World Voices Festival has been little remarked-upon since he delivered it. This oversight is particularly noteworthy in the field of library and information science, as his comments have much to offer the perennial debate between intellectual freedom absolutists and social responsibility advocates.

David's Paradox

Jacob Fehr — 2024-03-04

Various authors have counted gender representation in picture books using textual analysis, notably Crisp and Hiller in 2011. However, text-only analyses such as theirs are problematic because they do not adequately address inequalities in visual representation of gender, nor consider the focalization that informs a book’s text. Ultimately, these text-only studies serve to reinforce rather than challenge lopsided gender representation in picture books.

Beyond a Land Acknowledgement:

David Lemmons — 2024-06-27

The Logistics Committee of the Conference on Academic Library Management (CALM)’s 2023 conference posed a question early on in conference planning: what if we rejected the traditional model of land acknowledgements? In answering that question, the committee embarked on a year-long process to radically revise the statement to one focused on reparative action. This article covers the revision process, including what inspired it and how the committee structured their work.

Progressive Library Organizations Update 2018-2023

Alfred Kagan — 2024-11-13

This is the second update article for my book, Progressive Library Organizations: A Worldwide History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015). The first update article was for 2013-2017 and was published in this journal in volume 4 (2018). This second update includes all the organizations, or their successor organizations covered in the book except for Library and Information Workers Organization of South Africa (LIWO) which folded in 2000. The organizations covered are: Bibliotek i Samhälle (BiS) of Sweden (functioning at reduced capacity), AK Kritische Bibliothek (Kribiblio) of Germany (disbanded in 2022), Verein kritischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare (KRIBIBI) of Austria (disbanded in 2022), Information for Social Change of the United Kingdom (in hiatus), Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association (SRRT) of the United States (functioning as usual), and Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG) of the United States (in hiatus). This description and analysis is based on research done in 2024, and includes new interviews in Sweden, documents from websites, email correspondence, and much personal experience. I used Google Translate for documents in Swedish and German.

Miami University Librarians Unionize for Equity and Dignity

Ian McCullough — 2024-06-17

Librarians describe their path to unionization at Miami University. After losing a hearing and being removed from a faculty union's bargaining unit during a union certification drive, librarians used their signed union authorization cards to file for and win a union authorization vote. The new Faculty Alliance of Miami - Librarians (FAM - L) group was formed and are currently bargaining for their first contract. This interview with four librarians deeply involved with the union drive and bargaining details the conditions at Miami they hope to improve and their challenges and hopes looking towards the future.