Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke and doctoral candidate Jeanie Austin will speak this week at the National Diversity in Libraries Conference, which will be held August 10-13 at the University of California, Los Angeles.
With the theme, “Bridges to Inclusion,” the conference will highlight issues related to diversity and inclusion that affect staff, users, and institutions in the library, archive, and museum fields. The event aims to articulate the value of and develop strategies for diversity and inclusion in these fields.
Cooke will speak during the town hall-style session, “Caught in the Crossfire: A Conversation on Libraries and Communities in Distress,” on August 10 at 4:30 p.m.
In this town hall, facilitators will share brief comments regarding the role of libraries in times of crises, including ideas such as the need to integrate critical approaches into LIS education and programming; the need for strong community partnerships; strategies for self-care; legal considerations regarding protest and free speech; and how LIS education may play a role in preparing future LIS professionals. We also wish to interrogate the idea of the library as a place of neutrality, a phrase that we have seen made by public librarians on social media. The remaining time will be spent facilitating a town hall discussion strategizing action steps.
Cooke also will cofacilitate the roundtable discussion, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Contesting Oppression and Building Cultural Competence and Empathy in LIS Spaces,” on August 12 at 9:00 a.m.
With the heightened focus on diversity and inclusion in LIS spaces and other segments of U.S. society, difficult conversations, and often confrontation around racism and other forms of oppression, have increased in libraries, classrooms, and other physical and virtual settings. Two LIS educators/librarians will facilitate this roundtable discussion on informing practice through different identities, intersectionalities, and privileges, and contesting microaggressions and other forms of silencing through empathy and cultural competence.
Austin will participate in the panel discussion, “Do We Walk the Walk, or Just Talk the Talk? Library Practices around Intersectional Needs,” which will be held on August 12 at 2:45 p.m.
This panel examines how library practices represent racial, gender, and sexual norms through core functions, including collections, instruction, and programming. The presenters analyze how libraries reproduce and resist racism and heteronormativity, and how those productions of knowledge reflect or reject the larger communities. How does your library approach immigrants'/migrants' needs? How do LGBTQ+ youth evaluate library materials specific to their experience and identity? How do you include the under-represented in your library's spaces, webpages, and publications?
In addition to her role as assistant professor, Cooke is a faculty affiliate in the Center for Digital Inclusion at the School. Her research interests include human information behavior, particularly in an online context, eLearning, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. She has published articles in journals including Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST); The Library Quarterly; InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information; Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal; Library and Information Science Research; Information Research; and New Review of Academic Librarianship. Cooke also coauthored Instructional Strategies and Techniques for Information Professionals (Chandos Press, 2012). She is the 2016 recipient of the American Library Association Equality Award.
Austin’s research interests include the provision of library services to youth in juvenile detention and the complex political and social systems that surround this work (especially the gendered, racialized, and ability-centric systems that affect youth and their overlap with publishing). Previously, she was the project coordinator for Mix IT Up!, an IMLS-funded project that recruits traditionally underrepresented students to work with underserved youth in a variety of settings. She is interested in the incorporation of critical praxis in LIS, in academia as well as in the library.