Libraries typically get a lot of kudos. I remember a lawyer turned politician once telling me that he envied librarians’ social capital, our reputation in the community. As a lawyer and a politician, he had neither. We tend to be quite a self-congratulatory lot too.
For example, take BCLA’s keynote speech this year. Delivered by Emily Drabinski, ALA president, the keynote speech was the epitome of self-love. The backbone of her argument is that libraries do good work, actively improving the lives of our communities. She says that because libraries do not demand loyalty to any particular ideological commitments, they can be institutions for everyone, an anchor of stability within the changing winds of political fortune and partisan identity.
I am sure Drabinski, and many other librarians, are feeling for the need of some self-soothing. The attacks on libraries, especially south of the border, are unprecedented and deeply concerning. One can hardly blame them for searching out a bit of comfort.
But for the sake of conversation, it is an interesting experiment to place Drabinski’s keynote next to last year’s keynote, which was delivered by June Francis, chair of the Anti-Racism Data Committee and a professor of marketing at Simon Fraser University….i.e., not a librarian. The tone in each could not be more different.
Last year, Francis spoke on how libraries are historically institutions that hold power and privilege and were born out of white supremacy culture to support Indigenous dispossession and black subjugation. She would not agree with Drabinski’s claim that libraries are for everyone, rather she thinks it is a myth when libraries call themselves “free, accessible, and neutral.”
It was a powerful act of calling out that has not yet left me.
It’s not wrong to find comfort where we can, but to hold the challenge as well, is the real work as libraries move forward into uncharted territory.
Written by KLF staff.