Why take this course: Take the next step in your antiracism journey and learn even more you can do to transform your library or classroom culture. In Antiracism 201: Digging Deeper in Antiracist Library Cultures starting May 8, you will learn tenets of antiracist theories and methodologies to inform and transform your external operations and your internal library culture.
Who should take this course: This is an intermediate/advanced course and is appropriate for anyone who already has a foundational understanding of antiracism and/or who has taken How to Build an Antiracist Library Culture. This course is for all levels of educators and librarians, from frontline staff to directors, and is intended for people who wish to go deeper into antiracist theories and methods.
Understanding Antiracist Theories for Your Library
This session will cover the fundamentals of antiracist theory. You will learn about theories of race, racial identity, and social constructions of power, all from an intersectional lens. You will learn how and why antiracist theories are important in a library context to strengthen your DEI work. This session will establish a foundation for the rest of this course and will provide you with the theoretical understanding to help you deepen your antiracism knowledge.
Session 2 | 3:00-4:00 pm ET
Antiracist Partnerships and Outreach Practices: Applying Antiracism to External Services
How can you apply antiracist practices in community services and outreach? This session will discuss ways to identify both internal and external areas that must be examined in order to make meaningful change to your public-facing work. You will leave with practical strategies for building trust with your community and implementing equity-centered approaches in your outreach practices.
Week 2: Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Session 1 | 2:00-2:45 pm ET
Changing Your Library’s Culture: Strategies for Meeting Resistance
What is ‘nice racism’ and how might it be impacting your organizational culture? How do you respond to the staff member or colleague who says they are ‘colorblind’? And how do you change the mindset of people who don’t think their minds need to be changed? This session will tackle these questions in an attempt to engage in a discussion about how to do effective DEI work when met with resistance.
Session 2 | 3:00-4:00 pm ET
Unlearning White Supremacy Work Culture in Your Library
What are some insidious ways that white supremacy might be impacting your organizational culture? This session will teach practical tools to unlearn work processes and behaviors that contribute to white supremacy work cultures, including preconceived notions of ‘professionalism’. You will learn about respectability politics as well as strategies for engaging with others at work in ways that center embodiment, emotional vulnerability, relationality, and other cultural ways of knowing.
Week 2: Wednesday, May 22, 2024
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Session 1 | 2:00-2:45 pm ET
Digging Deeper into Antiracist Hiring and Recruitment Practices
Recruitment, hiring, training, and retention are directly related to antiracism work and all impact the culture of a library. This session will build upon the foundations of antiracist/antibias hiring and recruitment practices to teach you new approaches to implementing antiracist practices. You will learn how to talk about your library’s DEI initiatives and priorities in the hiring process, as well as strategies for increasing diverse staff retention and promotion possibilities.
Session 2 | 3:00-4:00 pm ET
Leading Change from Where You Are: How to Guide Your Colleagues
Whether or not you're a library leader, you can still drive change for your organization. This session will teach you how to create and run caucuses to get your colleagues talking about antiracism in your library. You will also learn the tools for creating deeper conversations about change that needs to happen in your organization. This session will be modeled after a “train the trainer” session in order to give you tools to begin antiracism conversations and training in your library.
How to Build Inclusive Collections
March 13, 20, 27 2024
Library collections must be diverse and inclusive, offering windows into and reflections of the vast array of people, stories and experiences that make up our world. In this course, you’ll learn from an outstanding group of experts as they explore key concepts essential to cultivating and promoting inclusive and equitable collections.
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