In this intermediate/advanced course, you will learn tenets of antiracist theories and methodologies to inform and transform your external operations and your internal library culture. Over three weeks, you’ll learn about successful partnerships and outreach practices, hiring and recruitment techniques, strategies for meeting resistance, and more. This course will end with a ‘train the trainer’ session so that you can feel prepared to begin leading important conversations about antiracism in your library, regardless of your position.
Want more DEI courses? Check out our new course: How to Build a Library Culture of Belonging starting Sep. 17.
Course Program
Week 1: Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Dr. Sara Kaplan,
Associate Professor and Executive Director of Antiracist Research and Policy Center, American University
Session 1 | 2:00-2:45 pm ET
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.
LaKesha Kimbrough,
Owner of LK Consulting & Coaching and Senior Director of the Seattle University Youth Initiative
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
Mia Henry, founder and CEO of Freedom Lifted
Session 1 | 2:00-3:00 pm ET
Changing Your Library’s Culture: Strategies for Meeting Resistance
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.
Christina Fuller-Gregory, Assistant Director of Libraries, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville
Session 2 | 3:05-4:05 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 3: Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Tarida Anantachai
(she, her) Director, Inclusion & Talent Management, North Carolina State University Libraries
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.
Dr. Shindale Seale,
(she, her) CEO, SEADE Coaching & Consulting
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.
Offer Details
Purchase one seat to any of our Spring 2024 courses and receive 50% off the price of one seat to a Fall 2024 online course.
Why take this course: Through this course, you’ll learn about the concrete actions library experts are taking to help cultivate belonging in their libraries. You will also be guided through sensitivity training to help better equip you to serve your local community with cultural humility and compassion.
Who should take this course: This course will be relevant for all librarians generally, and will be most specifically relevant for those who are newer to concepts of belonging and inclusion.
