The University Libraries' Diversity Advancement Committee invites you to attend this year's lecture series titled Weeding out Neutrality Lecture Series: The Past, Present, and Future of Social Justice in Libraries. We'll explore these accounts, hosting scholars and librarians from across the country that will address their respective work to transform our institutions.

For our third and final lecture, we look to the future. A growing corps of activist librarians are fusing their work with their particular social justice concerns and values, ready to break apart the old myths about libraries and neutrality. In this panel, we hear from several librarians about their current activism, and how they hope to transform our understanding of libraries and the role they play in destroying unjust and unfair systems.

This is a virtual talk. Please register, and a Zoom link will be sent to you 3 hours before the event (registration closes 3 hours before the event).

If you require an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), please contact Marisol Moreno at marisol.moreno@library.tamu.edu to communicate your needs by March 29 to allow us to facilitate a reasonable accommodation.

About the Speakers:

Zakiya Collier is a Brooklyn-based, Black, queer archivist and memory worker. Her work with African-diaspora and community-based collections includes leading the #SchomburgSyllabus project as the Digital Archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, designing, co-leading, and securing grant funding for the Linking Lost Jazz Shrines project at Weeksville Heritage Center, and consulting on the organization and preservation of Marilyn Nance’s FESTAC ‘77 collection. Both in her research and in her work, Zakiya explores the archival labor, methods, structures, and poetics necessary to preserve and access both the material and immaterial artifacts of quotidian Black life. She holds an MA in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University, an MLIS from Long Island University, and a BA in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina. Zakiya is an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies (CR+DS) at New York University, an Interim Board Member of the Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI), and a guest editor of a forthcoming special issue of The Black Scholar on Black Archival Practice.

Jenna Freedman is the Curator of the Barnard Zine Library and a co-founder of Radical Reference, which was established in 2004. She is also a zine maker. One of her recent projects was Unprecedented, a 14-issues zine that documented her experiences of the pandemic. Another is a zine called Jury Duty for Abolitionists. 

Kalani Adolpho (they/them) is a hapa (mixed native Hawaiian), trans non-binary, and queer archivist living in Miami, FL. They are the Processing Archivist for Manuscripts and Archives Management at University of Miami Libraries, where they are responsible for processing archival collections for the Libraries' Distinctive Collections, including the Cuban Heritage Collection, Special Collections, University Archives, and branch libraries. Kalani received their B.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as well as their MLIS with an archival studies concentration in 2017. Their professional interests include: ethical, inclusive, and reparative metadata; trans and gender diverse inclusion in libraries and archives; trans and gender diverse cataloging and metadata best practices; resident-centered diversity residencies; and Indigenous issues in libraries.

Additional Information about this Event

Can't attend the live event? All registrants will receive a link to the recorded event for later viewing at their convenience.

TAMU Students: You can earn MaroonBase points for attending this event. Use the MaroonBase App to check-in and check-out to earn points for this event, then use your points to win up to $2,000. For a complete list of prizes, rules, FAQs, and how to redeem your points for prizes, please visit the MaroonBase Student App page.