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Author Archives: Anna Clutterbuck-Cook

Dear School Library Journal

04 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in Uncategorized

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Note: I wrote and sent this email to Kathy Ishizuka, Editor-in-Chief of School Library Journal on the morning of February 4th prior to the release of the “About Our Cover” statement. The statement is not an apology and outright rejects the widespread intepretation of the cover as blackface/minstrelsy. Creators of racist media, whatever its original intent, don’t get to adjudicate whether or not the impact of that media is racist.

Dear Kathy, 

As a longtime reviewer for Library Journal and facilitator for LJ professional development course, including Equity in Action: Building Diverse Collections, I am writing you today to add my voice to those who have critiqued the February 2021 (vol 67 no 2) School Library Journal cover story, “Why White Children Need Diverse Books” by Drew Himmelstein, and particularly the accompanying cover illustration. 

It is true that media created by people, and featuring characters, from minoritized communities should not be pitched by library workers as only for people from those specific communities. When I facilitate Equity in Action courses I caution my students not to assume that if they work in overwhelmingly white areas (for example) they are free to continue purchasing overwhelmingly white media. Or that media with queer characters is only enjoyed by queer people. The same is true for any marginalized identity or experience — we want our patrons to browse our collections and find as wide a range of identities and experiences as possible, inviting them to explore worlds both like and unlike their own. Marginalized people usually do this by default when navigating a world not organized around their experiences, needs, and desires. People whose identity and experiences align with the dominant culture often need more purposeful exposure; richly diverse library collections can create opportunities for that wide-ranging experience.

However, that does not mean that those around whom the dominant culture is already organized (in this case white children) should continue to be centered in these discussions. The SLJ cover illustration should never have made it past the concept stage. Minstrelsy and blackface — white people performing Blackness for white pleasure — are thoroughly racist practices with long, violently exclusionist histories in the United States. The SLJ cover evokes this history through the visual depiction of a white child casually trying on a Black child’s face by holding up the book cover to cover part of her own body. To place white children’s needs and pleasures at the center of a discussion about Black children’s stories — particularly during Black History Month — is an act of white supremacy. It asserts that the justification for stories about anyone other than white people is, first and foremost, about meeting the needs, or fulfilling the desires, of white audiences. That assertion does harm. SLJ owes the community an apology, and must take steps to address the harm you have done, as well as reviewing the process by which it happened, to minimize the risk of similar future acts. 

Sincerely,
Anna

UPDATE 2020-02-05

Dear [LJ/SLJ Professional Development Team],

It’s with a heavy heart that I write to you today in order to withdraw from facilitating the upcoming LJ/SLJ “Equity in Action: Fostering an Antiracist Library Culture” course. I have made this decision following yesterday’s statement from Kathy Ishizuka regarding the February School Library Journal cover story, “Why White Children Need Diverse Books” by Drew Himmelstein, and particularly the accompanying cover illustration. 

I wrote to Kathy yesterday morning [see above], before the “About our February Cover” statement was released, expressing my concerns about the timing and framing of the piece as well as the blackface implications of the cover illustration. Kathy’s statement compounds the harm done by the article and illustration in a number of ways. In it, she continues to center the priorities/perspectives of white librarians, asserts that encouraging white children to read about people and characters different from themselves is a “provocative notion,” and refuses to accept the validity of the blackface/minstrelsy interpretation of the cover illustration. The statement is not an apology, does not represent a first step toward accountability, and does not provide a concrete plan of action for ensuring this type of harm toward Black library workers and library users will not continue. In fact, it appears to reject the idea that this article and illustration are truly harmful. 

These actions do not foster an antiracist library culture. They are a denial that the library world, including School Library Journal,are systemically complicit in upholding white supremacy. I cannot ask students in the Equity in Action course to trust the guidance of LJ/SLJ in doing antiracist work when the School Library Journal leadership not only sees no problem with centering white anxieties during Black History Month, and approved a blackface cover illustration, but has also doubled down on those decisions when Black librarians and their allies pointed out these problems. This is the opposite of the kind of behavior we need in order for antiracist change to happen. 

In making the difficult decision to withdraw my labor from LJ/SLJ because of this situation, I am following the lead of at least two presenters, Dr. Nicole A. Cooke and Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, who yesterday withdrew from the Equity in Action courses in protest. I am willing to consider remaining involved in the “Equity in Action: Building Diverse Collections” course later this spring, as both a speaker and facilitator, but will need to see a meaningful apology, accountability, and a concrete plan of action from SLJ in order to participate. When it comes to assessing how successful SLJ is at meeting this criteria, I will be listening to Black librarians in the weeks ahead.

I realize this situation is not of your making, and am sorry that this impacts your work and our working relationship. I truly enjoy supporting the students in these professional development courses as they earnestly work to improve their practices and their collections. I hope that SLJ leadership takes action such that we are able to find a way to continue this work moving forward. 

Sincerely,
Anna

Correction 2020-02-05: In the original version of this letter I misidentified Dr. Nicole A. Cooke as Dr. Augusta Baker. Dr. Cooke is in fact the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, College of Information and Communications, University of South Carolina. My apologies.

dyke: the threads

28 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in my historian hat, think pieces

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Last week I saw a Twitter thread shared on my timeline several times that I didn’t understand, and when I clicked into the thread in an attempt to learn more I became even more confused. A bunch of queer women appeared to be arguing about whether bisexual women were “allowed” to use the word “dyke” — a slang term that’s been around since the early twentieth century , typically referring to queer women who are “mannish” in appearance. Think about the Dyke Marches at Pride and Dykes on Bikes, or the long-running cartoon serial by Alison Bechdel Dykes to Watch Out For which is how I, a teenager in the 1990s, first learned and grew fond of its warm, rebellious edges. Since going down the rabbit hole, I’ve been lurking and reading — on Twitter and elsewhere (Tumblr, reddit) — where these policing conversations are taking place and I’ve written a number of Twitter threads about the themes that I’ve seen. Below are those threads in blog post format. I may update as the dyke police watch continues.

Thursday, August 20th, 2020.

I think what I want all the babyqueers trying earnestly to police the use of “dyke” by people who identify as (among other things) as dykes is this: The language of gender, sex, sexuality, desire is not fixed. We are always becoming, and doing so in relationship with the world. The idea that our gender/sex/sexuality is super specific, innate, and fixed is a very recent and historically specific truth. That doesn’t make it less valid for those who find meaning in that paradigm. But it is not universal. It is not everyone’s truth. Yes, we want to be careful with our words. We want to use the language others choose for themselves and know the power and meanings of the words we use for ourselves. Those meanings may be multiple and contextual.

Words I have used to speak about my queerness that are all true: fluid, bi, gay, pan, demi, lesbian, sapphic, dyke, queer, not straight.

It’s particularly important to me — as a woman with bi/demi/pan desire, who for a full decade plus gaslit myself convinced I was not queer “enough” — to gently yet firmly remind folks that telling bi people they can’t identify as [insert queer term here] has a bad history. We do very real harm by telling bisexual people “you do not deserve these words” which is another way of saying to bisexual people “you do not deserve to be a part of our community.” So if you are being told somewhere by folks that “dyke” is only appropriately used by specific women (setting aside who polices on a case by case basis each person’s qualifications…) please stop and consider whom you are being asked to harm. And if you’re okay with that. And remember that it is OKAY to change and learn and grow and let go. The words you use, even for yourself, today may be different from the words you choose tomorrow.

All of the words can be true. Kiss mark

Saturday, August 22nd, 2020.

I honestly had no idea until two days ago this was a thing and now I can’t stop thinking about how fascinating and wild it is that there are people who’ve decided that bisexuals and lesbians are two circles on the Venn diagram that do not, and never have, overlapped. Just as one single example of how ahistorical that notion is, as recently as the 1970s historians have seen the use of lesbian/ism and lesbian desire to refer to (typically cis) women desiring women … the exclusivity of that desire wasn’t necessarily assumed. So many women who identified as lesbians / with the lesbian or gay community experienced bisexual desires during their lives. In some cases they also identified as bisexual, or shifted to using bisexual as their primary language of identity. But not uniformly so. So it’s fascinating to me, from a historian’s perspective, to see that there’s a cohort of people who’ve suddenly decided this group of jumbled-up queer women constituted two entirely separate groups with separate genealogies requiring a boundary that needs linguistic police.

I’m skimming through primary sources here on social media and so struck by the fact that a recurring definition used for “lesbian” by the people saying bisexuals can’t use “dyke” is “lack of attraction to men”. As a reader and writer of romance, I will say that a story about desire that is defined by what is not desirable rather than what is desired is always a huge red flag to me. Like … you can’t describe your attraction to women as attraction to women? You still have to define it in relation to men? That’s fucked up.

Another slippage that I’m seeing as a scroll through the primary sources here on social media is that there’s no distinction being drawn between hurling “dyke!” at someone as an act of aggression and someone using that word as a cozy self-descriptor. For me, in reference to myself, it’s like pulling on a fuzzy oversized sweater. But, like, dudebro hurls it out of his pickup truck at me and my wife on our walk to the grocery store — not fuzzy at all.

“Gay” is a totally mainstreamed word that bigots also weaponize. Context matters!

Wednesday, August 26th, 2020.

Continuing my adventures in reading the “bisexuals aren’t allowed to say dyke” corner of the Internet, here’s another slight-of-hand I’m seeing that is extremely red-flaggy from both an activist and historical perspective. The historical sources this crowd cite as origin documents all come from a period when “lesbian” was a term used both for behaviors (one engaged in lesbian acts rather than being a lesbian) and included women who might now identify as bi.

They acknowledge and/or are confronted with this historical context — that their argument (lesbians are the only people who can use the word dyke because it’s a derogatory term only used toward lesbians) is undermined by the documented usage of the term over time — but shimmy around the problem by arguing that now lesbians (the group against whom the word dyke was originally hurled) include a much narrower group of people, and that narrower group of people are the people who have the right to police usage.

This also conveniently ignores that dyke is a word that not only has associations with same-sex desire but has a strong historical association with gender presentation — so a case could be made it’s not primarily about whom you have sex with but that you present as a “mannish” woman.* So the self-deputized dyke police also put forward a fascinating (to this historian of sexuality) theory about community ownership of histories: that it is (a very specific) present-day definition of a community that determines who has the right to the community’s history. If we take as a given (which I don’t) that at some point around 1969 “lesbians” and “bisexuals” found enlightenment and became two wholly separate communities, when before they had maintained only one, who, then, has the “right” to the pre-history that included both? The folks currently defining “dyke” as the sole property of “lesbians” maintain the only people who identify as their particular, current-in-the-moment definition of lesbian have a legitimate claim to the pre-history of queer women. That claim situates this particular group as the most lesbian, because it places them in the position of continuity with lesbian forebears, while all other queer women must apply (to them) for the right to even speak the words of that shared past.

At this point, I’m not going to directly engage with these folks because 1) a lot of them seem to be quite young and I’m not parachuting into their timelines as a grumpy older stranger because that’s a shitty power move, and 2) they clearly don’t want to discuss this. But I do want to put out there, for any peers or younger folks they are currently bullying, from me and all of the other queer folks who feared for years we weren’t queer enough to speak the words: YOU ARE ENOUGH. You are queer enough. This is your history. Speak the words that help you make sense of who you are in the world & connect with people in the past & present who help you feel less alone. The people with delusions of grandeur telling you what you’re “allowed” to say are wrong.

*Remembering that all of this historical-contextual usage developed during a time when our understandings about gender and sex, and the relationship of gender and sex to desire, were very different than our understandings today.

Friday, August 28th, 2020.

So two items of note from yesterday’s dyke police watch. They decided to lose their shit over a man on a con panel who gave a shout out to a lesbian colleague’s podcast: “Desperate Housedykes.” There were, I understand, other content problems with the panel. It’s not my fandom and not my lane to speak to those. This thread is only about the dynamics around a man saying “dyke” as part of saying the title of a queer woman’s podcast.

The angry dyke police keep making, in this situation and others, comparisons between the word dyke and the n word which I think is a really noteworthy tactic. By claiming that anyone other than (their narrowly defined category of) lesbians uttering the word dyke under any circumstance is analogous to non-Black people speaking the n word they are elevating “dyke” to a potency level of universal hate that it never had, and certainly doesn’t universally retain today.

I would argue this move, and the rhetorical strategy of replacing dyke with “the d slur”, enlists the power of structural racism and anti-racist activism in a completely inappropriate way against a word that has had a much less violent, much more mixed-bag history.

Why? That’s my current question. Why take a word that the queer community has used creatively in a wide variety of activist and social ways since the 1970s and attempt to re-stigmatize it? Yesterday’s argument, that the word should be unspeakable, would make the creative work of many queer women difficult to promote, to recommend, to squee about, to share joyfully, to discuss in a class, or review comprehensibly. When we use “dyke” we use it for a reason. While obviously people who are uncomfortable with the word can choose not to say it, I am deeply troubled by the way they are trying to make our chosen words unspeakable by others.

#QueerJoyGiveaway Explainer Post

25 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in book reviews

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Week 50: Shortbread and Shadows by Amy Lane

 2020-03-07: On hiatus. I have had to take some unexpected medical leave for surgery and because of that am putting the Queer Joy Giveaway on hold until Saturday, April 3rd. Thank you for understanding! ~Anna 

On the first Saturday after Massachusetts declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19, in March 2020, I decided to give away twenty-five copies of R. Cooper’s A Little Familiar novella as a way to bring good cheer to people struggling with isolation admidst social distancing and stay-at-home directives.

Original Twitter thread here.

The giveaway has since turned into a weekly event as weeks have turned into months and we’re probably looking at a year and more of some measure of social distancing, quarantine, stress, and exhaustion.

How it Works

The giveaway guidelines are simple:

  • Each Saturday, I post the weekly title on Twitter with the number of copies available (generally ~$25 worth has been my budget).
  • Copies are given out on a first come, first served basis to those who email me at feministlibrarian@gmail.com.
  • One copy of each title per requestor. You can request as many titles as you want.
  • The default mode of delivery is Kindle e-book delivered as a gift via Amazon; if a reader doesn’t use the Kindle platform we work out an alternate method of delivery (I have learned a lot about how hard some platforms make it for you to buy e-books as a gift over the past four months!).

As long as our household finances can support this effort, I plan to continue this project. It’s a win-win-win as far as I’m concerned since I get to put books I love into the hands of readers, signal boosting talented creators and spreading rainbow sparkle happily ever after joy at a time when a lot of us need to be dreaming of queer futures filled with hope rather than despair.

I want to be clear, too, that this is a personal project. No publishers or authors are paying me or supplying these books in exchange for free advertising. These titles are all books I have personally read and loved, by authors whose entire body of work I encourage you to explore — most of them are wonderfully prolific and deserve all the sales! When I make my weekly selections I’m working to be mix it up in terms of relationship types and other kinds of marginalized identity rep — but I’m also sharing my faves so this list definitely skews historical, paranormal, and queer. Super not apologizing for that.

Co-sponsors: If you’re interested in sponsoring copies of upcoming titles, shoot me an email at feministlibrarian@gmail.com. I would be happy to be able to increase the number of copies of certain works, particularly since authors from under-represented communities often cannot afford to sell titles for really low cover prices — meaning I’m left to offer fewer of those works within my budget. Sponsors who donate $25 or more to the project get 1) a shout-out, 2) a copy of their choice of any title I have previously offered and 3) a copy of the title they sponsor.

The Titles

2020

March 14: A Little Familiar (Familiar Spirits #1)* by R. Cooper.

March 21: A Little Light Mischief (The Turner Series, #3.5) by Cat Sebastian.

March 28: Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin #1) by Jordan L. Hawk.

April 4: The Craft of Love by E. E. Ottoman.

April 11: Let Us Dream by Alyssa Cole.

April 18: A Lady’s Desire (The Townsends #2.5) by Lily Maxton.

April 25: Behind These Doors (Radical Proposals #1) by Jude Lucens.

May 2: Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure (The Worth Saga #2.75) by Courtney Milan.

May 9: Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch.

May 16: Briarley Aster Glenn Gray.

May 23: Untamed by Anna Cowan.

May 30: Once Upon a Haunted Moor (Tyack & Frayne #1) by Harper Fox.

June 6 & 13: Hamilton’s Battalion: A Trio of Romances by Alyssa Cole, Rose Lerner, and Courtney Milan.

June 20: Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (Reluctant Royals #2.5) by Alyssa Cole.

June 27: Holly & Oak (Familiar Spirits #2) by R. Cooper.

July 4: Lord of the Last Heartbeat (The Sacred Dark #1) by May Peterson.

July 11: Spellbound (Magic in Manhattan #1) by Allie Therin.

July 18: Starcrossed (Magic in Manhattan #2) by Allie Therin.

July 25: Lord of the Last Heartbeat (The Sacred Dark #1) by May Peterson.
Co-sponsored by Stephanie Richmond

August 1: The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics (Feminine Pursuits #1) by Olivia Waite.

August 8: Waiting for the Flood (Spires #2) by Alexis Hall.

August 15: He’s Come Undone: A Romance Anthology by Emma Barry, Olivia Dade, Adriana Herrera, Ruby Lang, and Cat Sebastian.
Co-sponsored by hazmatilda

August 22: The Mage on the Hill (Web of Arcana #1) by Angel Martinez.
Co-sponsored by Stephanie Richmond

August 29: Hexbreaker (Hexworld #1) by Jordan L. Hawk.
Co-sponsored by Lauren Leslie

September 5: Edge of Nowhere (Nowhere #1) by Felicia Davin.
Co-sponsored by Anoymous donor 

September 12: Proper English (England #2) by K.J. Charles.
Co-sponsored by Anoymous donor

September 19 & 26: Small Change (Small Change #1) by Roan Parrish.

October 3rd: The Mysterious & Amazing Blue Billings (Black & Blue #1) by Lily Morton. 

October 10th: Undertow (Widdershins #8.5) by Jordan L. Hawk. 
Co-sponsored by Anonymous donor

October 17th: Nine Years of Silver (Love Has Claws #1) by Parker Foye.

~ gap week 10/24 ~

October 31st: Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures #1) by Ella Stainton &
Nothing More Certain (Familiar Spirits #3) by R. Cooper.
Co-sponsored by PSMH and Ella Stainton.

November 3: A Little Familiar (Familiar Spirits #1) by R. Cooper.

November 7: Reverb (Twisted Wishes #3) by Anna Zabo.
Co-sponsored by Kayci Wyatt

November 14: Hold Me (Cyclone #2) by Courtney Milan.

November 21: Immortal City (Sacred Dark #2) by May Peterson.  

November 28: The Doctor’s Discretion by E.E. Ottoman. 

December 5: Iron & Velvet (Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator #1) by Alexis Hall. 

December 12: Corruption (The Bureau #1) by Kim Fielding.

December 19: Caroled (The Bureau #7) by Kim Fielding. 

December 26: The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish.

2021

January 2: Tit for Tat by R. Cooper. 

January 9: Eating Stars by Angel Martinez. 

January 16: Frostbite by J. Emery. 

January 23: The Engineer (Magic & Steam #1) by C.S. Poe. 
Co-sponsored by Anonymous.

January 30: Unhallowed (Rath & Rune #1) by Jordan L. Hawk
Co-sponsored by Anonymous.

~ gap week 2/6 ~

February 13th: Magic in Manhatten #1-3 by Allie Therin.

February 20th: Shortbread and Shadows (Hedge Witches Lonely Hearts Club #1) by Amy Lane.

*A number of these are part of a series, but if they aren’t the first books in the series I’ve been careful to select titles that may be read as standalones.

salary transparency

09 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life

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Last updated 9 July 2020.

Salaries and wages in the non-profit libraries/archives/museums field are — no secret — chronically low. Many staff in the field struggle to cover basic necessities like rent amidst a rising cost of living plus financial obligations like student loan debt and retirement savings — if that’s even something they can think about putting money aside for. (And that’s all without the context of a global pandemic.) Salary transparency is one way to hold employers in our sector accountable. During the annual Society of American Archivists meeting in Austin, Texas last year (2019) an impromptu Archivists Salary Transparency Open Survey was created that, as of this writing, has over 500 entries (if you work in the archives field and feel safe sharing some of your own salary details, please consider adding your job to the list!).

I’ve been writing about aspects of our family’s finances for a number of years now. I’ve shared our household income and taxes, how much we pay in rent, our student loan debt, and the fact that we have financial support from my parents to offset student loan repayments. But despite the fact that a worker’s right to speak about their own compensation is legally protected in Massachusetts, I’ve always found it difficult to speak about my specific salary. It feels awkward, socially taboo, and politically charged. However, I’ve come to believe that maintaining an air of secrecy around compensation both shames workers and discourages concrete, fact-based discussion about what we get paid and why.  When workers are encouraged through cultural conditioning not to speak about money matters, we might worry that we’re paid embarrassingly little — is that our fault for not being good negotiators? — or disproportionately more than our colleagues — would they be mad at us if they knew? I have worried about both of these things. In the absence of data — that clears the air and helps us understand the macro and micro conditions that have led to our salaries — shame and intimidation flourish.

So I have decided to practice my values and be transparent about what I make, and the history of what I have made in the library field. The more I practice saying the words, the more normal I hope it will become.

MY SALARY HISTORY in LIBRARIES

When I transitioned from part-time retail and office work to the library field in 2007, I was newly arrived in Boston from the Midwest. The Massachusetts Historical Society hired me as a part-time Library Assistant for the hourly wages of $14.00/hour. At the time, that was the highest hourly wage I had ever earned.

During most of my graduate school career (October 2007 to December 2010) I worked as a part-time employee in various part-time and stipended positions in Boston-area institutions; the hourly work was paid at $10-15/hour. On January 1, 2011 I was promoted to a full-time salaried position of Assistant Reference Librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society. This was my first professional (MLS required) position in the library field. My starting salary was $34,000/year.

The MHS operates on a fiscal year schedule so our annual raises typically kick in July 1st. Below are the salaries quoted to me in each of my annual salary and benefits statements as well as raises that came with promotions to new positions and salary adjustments that have come in the past two years in thanks to a salary study done by the MHS.

2011: $34,000 (promotion to Assistant Reference Librarian, 1 January 2011)
2011 (b): $35,020 (3% cost of living raise)
2012: $37,120 (6% cost of living raise)
2012 (b): $44,000 (promotion to Reference Librarian, 1 September 2012)
2013: $47,900 (2% cost of living raise + $2k deferred promotional increase)
2014: $48,860 (2% cost of living raise)
2015: $50,080 (2.5% cost of living raise)
2016: $51,080 (2% cost of living raise)
2017: $52,072 (2% cost of living raise) 
2018: $53,665 (3% cost of living raise)
2019: $57,453 (4% salary study adjustment; 3% cost of living raise)*
2020: $59,796 (3.6% salary study adjustment; no cost of living raise)

In addition to my salary, I currently receive:

  • A 4% match to my 403(b) retirement fund
  • Healthcare coverage, including dental and vision benefits
  • Short- and long-term disability insurance
  • Life insurance
  • Pre-tax monthly transit passes
  • Unlimited paid sick leave**
  • Twenty days paid vacation time annually

*In 2019 the MHS hired a consultant to do an in-depth industry salary study. Following the salary study, each staff member was told the midpoint “market value” for their position and put on a five year trajectory to bring their salary up to that level (in addition to any promotions and cost-of-living raises). The 2019 midpoint market value for my position was determined to be $65,900. The 2020 midpoint market value for my position was determined to be $67,416. Raises in 2019 and 2020 were calculated to accelerate me toward that target. 

**Until February 2019 the MHS provided 12 paid sick days annually to salaried staff (hourly staff earned according to hours worked). When the Covid-19 pandemic reached the United States, the paid sick leave cap was lifted indefinitely for both part- and full-time staff to remove a barrier to staff remaining home when ill.

Dear Library Journal

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life

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I wrote this email last week Friday and emailed it to Meredith Schwartz, who assumed the position of Library Journal‘s editor-in-chief this past January. I have lightly redacted some references to a specific project we were working on together but left the substantive critique of Library Journal‘s actions around the Library of the Year award intact. 

Updated 2020-06-11 in response to the second message LJ posted. See below the original email.

Dear Meredith,

This isn’t the email I wanted to write this morning. I was hoping to be able to touch base about [project]. Instead, it turns out I need to put my [participation] on pause. I’m sure you know why.

I learned yesterday that the 2020 Gale/LJ Library of the Year award has been given to the Seattle Public Library. As I know you are aware, based on the statement Library Journal issued in response to criticism, the SPL decision to create an unsafe environment for their trans/nonbinary staff and patrons by hosting an anti-trans group in the library this past February makes this award deeply problematic. Even if – as the LJ statement argues – the SPL is taking critique seriously, and working to make institutional change, this award would be (at best) premature.

It’s particularly difficult to stomach such an accolade during Pride month, when we remember the queer and trans youth of color who led the Stonewall uprising. You also made the decision to gloss over the February event during a historical moment when trans/nonbinary people in the United States are being targeted by organized, reactionary forces on the political right who feel emboldened by the Trump administration to pursue an aggressive anti-trans legislative and legal agenda (see for example here, here, and here). Context matters. It is also important to remember that trans and nonbinary people are part of the “vulnerable communities” that you argue in your statement SPL has “radically improved” services for. Trans and nonbinary people of color are disproportionately likely to experience homelessness and poverty, for example, and struggle to access trans-competent mental and medical health services. SPL should not be earning gold stars for “radical” improvements in addressing systemic racism while ignoring the experiences and needs of trans people of color in their community.

Your statement frames the backlash about the award as one that revolves around a harmful, imagined binary between “intellectual freedom” on one side and “equity and inclusion” on the other. Such a framing suggests that for libraries to be champions of intellectual freedom – a notion that makes most white, cisgendered, straight, middle-class, able-bodied liberal-identifying Americans feel warm fuzzy feelings – they must, sadly but necessarily, accept the cost of harm done to marginalized people. Freedom, after all, is supposedly an ultimate good. Where does this leave the freedom (intellectual and otherwise) of trans and nonbinary staff and patrons of libraries like the SPL that allow groups that jeopardize trans lives to convene? Where does that leave the freedom of the trans staff member who must welcome individuals who aggressively misgender them, or patrons unable to access the library’s resources because the presence of the anti-trans group makes the library inaccessible to them? True freedom requires equity and inclusion rather than standing in opposition to it. If an institution argues that maintaining the “freedom” of group A requires the continued unsafety or dehumanization of group B, that is a false freedom.

 My relationship with Library Journal since 2013* has been a long and rewarding one. I value my relationships with my editors, and the staff I work with on professional development courses, deeply. They have all helped me do better work as a librarian and as a human being who cares about justice and strives to do better. It is because of these relationships that I am taking the time to write this email at the end of what has been an exhausting week. 

 I sign this letter in hope that LJ will reconsider their decision and, as this open letter ** requests, chooses to donate the $10,000 award to the Seattle-based Gender Justice League.

Sincerely,
Anna

UPDATE: Library Journal has issued a second response to the criticism it is receiving. They continue to refuse to withdraw the award, arguing the racial equity work of the Seattle Public Library outweighs harm done to the trans community. They plan to, separately, donate $10k to the Gender Justice League and outline a series of things like trainings and special issues and forums they plan to host on queer and trans issues as next steps.

Hmmmmmmm.

First, I want to foreground the activism of both LJ staff who called out this problematic award and members of the broader library community who organized a swift response with clear demands. It is never without risk to stand up to your employer and we should remember those who did and continue to support them. And the $10k to the Gender Justice League is a clear win for those who crafted the open letter and identified concrete reparative action. You didn’t get everything you asked for, but this donation surely would not have happened without you. Organized activism works!

Second, I continue to be deeply frustrated by the way LJ is using racial equity as a shield to deflect criticisms about harm to trans people. This erases the embodied experience of trans people of color who were harmed by SPL actions, and for whom racial equity will not be effective in the absence of trans-inclusive practice. It’s also incredibly tacky and transparent to argue that work on behalf of marginalized group X makes you immune from criticism about, or cancels out harm done to, marginalized group Y. White queer folks don’t get a pass on racism because they’re queer; libraries don’t get a pass on trans harm because they do anti-racism work.

Third, a suspicious number of LJ’s promised “actions” rely on the labor of queer and trans people. While trans people are the experts on their own experience it is not their job to fix this situation. All that I can say at this point is anyone approached to provide labor for these action points should make an informed decision about participation, be clear in writing about what they will be responsible for providing (and make sure the intellectual rights remain with you), and ask for an abundant amount of money. This work should be well compensated, full stop. A company that can find $10k to donate in less than a week can pay queer and trans people well for their labor.

*In the email I mistakenly indicated I had been reviewing since 2014.

**I have signed this open letter (signature #1172) and by doing so indicated that if the award is not rescinded, with the award money going to Gender Justice League, by 30 June 2020 I will voluntarily rescind my 2019 Reviewer of the Year award due to “irreconcilable differences in values” (wording suggested by Fobazi M. Ettarh).

#WFHLibrarian: My New Normal

23 Saturday May 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life

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20200313_104507

Answering email on the couch, with Teazle as my lap assistant (March 2020).

I’ve worked in frontline reader services at an independent research library since October 2007, serving the public both in person and remotely at the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, Massachusetts) for nearly thirteen years. On Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 we learned that at the close of business that day the library would close to the public until further notice due to the covid-19 (coronavirus) public health emergency in Boston. By noon on Wednesday, March 11th, all staff had retrieved necessary equipment and personal belongings from the building so that they could transition to fully remote operations.

I haven’t set foot in our building at 1154 Boylston St. for over two months.

As a library worker, I’ve rarely been busier.

Across the nation, as pressure increases for libraries to reopen — and for staff to return to their physical spaces — the call #ProtectLibraryWorkers has grown louder. It has become clear that many people don’t understand that the work that library workers do carries on even when the physical library is closed for the health and safety of library staff and the many communities within which we are embedded as both members and service workers.

I want to be clear that it is morally abhorrent to expect library workers, at any level, to risk death to provide library services in the midst of a pandemic. If the choice is fewer — or no — library services, for a time, in exchange for the health and safety — the lives — of library staff (and of patrons who would enter unsafe conditions if visiting an open library) the correct choice is to protect your people and resume services when it is reasonably safe for everyone to do so. Donna Lanclos and Stacy (@DarkLiterata) break down how the push to reopen libraries without regard for the lives of workers fits into the deeply problematic narrative of vocational awe, and I encourage you to read their threads. The are absolutely right.

That said, the choice being presented is a false one because in most cases* no service is not what happens when the library’s physical doors remain closed to the public while infection rates remain high and a vaccine remains under development. So in light of that, I thought it might be helpful to provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what is actually happening in my own research library environment during pandemic times. To that end, between Tuesday, May 26th and Friday, May 29th I’m going to live tweet my work day at the hashtag #WFHLibrarian. At the end of each day, I’ll collate the Tweets and share them in narrative form below. I hope that others will join in as well, since my own experience is specific to my institution and my position within it. Continue reading →

Update: #AWEfund Now Open & Match!

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in Uncategorized

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awefund_organizersmatchRemember when I asked folks who would have donated to a birthday fundraiser to hold onto their wallets? Well today is the day! One week ago, on April 15th, the Archival Workers Emegency Fund opened for applications and today the AWEfund organizers have pooled our pledged donations to offer a $5,000 one day match challenge. Today, Wednesday, April 22nd, every dollar you donate will be doubled in its power.

If circumstances allow you to donate $5, $15, $25, or more please consider donating. We want to get cash in the hands of as many of our struggling colleagues as we can, as quickly as possible, and every dollar given will pass directly through our hands into the accounts of those in need. If you aren’t in a position to donate at this time (and I know many people are not, no judgement, please apply to the fund if you qualify!) signal boosting also helps us get the word out.

In gratitude. Stay safe. Ever onward, together.

Anna

Donate to the AWEfund now.
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it’s all a bit surreal: 39th birthday + #AWEFund

30 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life, life writing

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20200328_131959

So March.

March has been a helluva year, hasn’t it?

Today is my 39th birthday and I had hoped — last week — because this is the world we live in now — to launch a fundraising appeal for the Archival Workers Emergency Fund today. The fund isn’t quite there yet, because the AWEF planning committee members care about getting it as close to true north as we possibly can and that’s taken drafting and re-drafting and conversations with the leadership at the Society of American Archivists and then more drafting … We’re close! But it’s not quite open for business yet.

So.

So I would ask that if you would have pulled out your (virtual) wallet today and made a donation to the #AWEFund as a birthday gift to me, you mentally put that pledge aside for when we can gratefully accept that $5, $10, $15, $25 or more to support archival workers for whom this covid-19 (coronavirus) crisis has become a financial crisis.

In the meantime, have a beer or a glass of wine in my name, enjoy the sunshine at a social distance from other beings, have a cupcake, and let’s all pull together for a more just and sustainable tomorrow.

Stay safe, be kind.

Onward.

(one reason why) rwa matters to us all

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life

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I wrote a longer-than-intended Twitter thread about the Romance Writers of America (RWA) implosion tonight — I got a bit ranty — so here it is as a blog post, tidied up only a bit for blog post format.

I have no idea what percent of my timeline is #romance and romance-adjacent and therefore already tuned in to the RWA implosion. But beyond romancelandia, if you are in the nonprofit / membership organization world this situation concerns you.

Detailed timeline (currently being frequently updated):
The Implosion of RWA by Claire Ryan, Author.

A good summary: “Romance Writers of America cancels annual RITA awards contest amid racism controversy,” Entertainment Weekly (6 January 2020).

If you are on the staff of a nonprofit and/or volunteer on a board of a nonprofit, this cascade of events concerns you. Particularly (I believe) the way that efforts toward justice (diversity, inclusion, equity, access reforms via policies and processes) were used against intent. The labor of marginalized members, particularly women of color within RWA, who were fighting to make concrete changes in their national professional organization, was appropriated and used to destroy their work (and directly used to try and silence them).

This isn’t an isolated incident, either in RWA or in the world of nonprofit cultural institutions and organizations, where underrepresented people are fighting to re-center their own stories and voices in the face of the imperialist, white supremacist ableist cisheteropatriarchy. If you work and/or volunteer in any space of this kind — and you care about fighting for a more just future therein — be on the offensive. Think about how your policies and procedures could be weaponized. Think about who is most likely to weaponize them.

Build defenses, contingency plans.

We can’t stop the work.

We absolutely shouldn’t stop the work.

But be ever aware that there are people for whom the change we are fighting for is something they will literally put their entire career (hell, the very existence of RWA as an organization!) on the line to stop our success, our right to be and thrive, its tracks.

Ask who would rather your organization cease to be than become truly anti-oppression in its orientation and practices. And plan to cut them off at the pass.

One key vulnerability in codes of conduct, codes of ethics, statements of diversity and inclusion, and other policy instruments that we often turn to within organizations to work toward justice is that they too often rely on language of non-discrimination. They rely on the very (white) American belief that the solution to inequality is treating everyone equally. To be “colorblind” … to be proud that you couldn’t tell your colleague was queer … to “not notice” a disability.

When policies and procedures require treating everyone “the same” they are VERY VERY EASY to weaponize against those who name discrimination. Because it’s not the quiet white supremacist who broke the rules … it’s the mean black woman who called them names. Drawing attention to inequality, in effect, becomes equated with creating the inequality. IF YOU JUST DIDN’T NOTICE the inequality, you marginalized person making a fuss, everyone would be treated the same BUT NOW I (the person expressing bigoted opinions) am being treated badly.

So you get situations like this:

person expressing bigoted opinion
⬇️
files code of conduct violation complaint
⬇️
against the person who identified the bigotry

So ask yourself, your committee, your organization … what does your policy require you to do in this instance? If your policy is written as a “neutral” document (there are no neutral documents) then likely your policy encourages you to find fault with the person who used Mean Words against the person who had a Bigoted Opinion because, after all, we must be inclusive. Welcoming to everyone. And look, we haven’t been so welcoming to the person with the Bigoted Opinion have we? Clearly, something must be done to address their complaint. 

So.

Think.

And think DAMN hard.

About when push comes to shove who gets to be welcome in your space, who gets to be included, and who pays the price of that welcome by being excluded.

Because someone ALWAYS pays the price. And I, personally, would rather the shitty white supremacist grifters paid the price than the queer black lesbians writing me good kissing books. And I’d like organizational policy documents to back me up on that one.

the problem with being dumbledored: a thread

05 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in fandom

≈ Leave a comment

Yesterday, Twitter was buzzing with dirision aimed at J.J. Abrams and Disney for their coy teasers about the possibility of a forthcoming Star Wars franchise film having an “openly gay” character. The dynamic of powerful media P.R. machines queerbaiting is nothing knew, and it’s a bullshit move. It’s cheap, and also actively anti-queer. I wrote a thread about why, and I’m posting it here in slightly tidied-up form because I’ll no doubt need it again. 

This shit’s exhausting. That’s where I’m at.

The wages, the human cost, of this shit is to create and sustain a general public that finds queer people either unimaginable or only acceptable if you must be told they were queer (usually in retrospect, usually by straight people) because there is literally no other way to know.

Queer people, as a group, are EXTREMELY GOOD at excavating queer content from source material that looks super cisheteronormative. Why? Because for most of the 20th century, legally and culturally, that’s all we were allowed to publicly create and enjoy. So we’re incredibly dedicated and skilled at filling absences with rainbows. I mean, for fuck’s sake, how many explicitly queer fanworks are deliberately shaped to fill the cracks between scenes, episodes, seasons? Bajillions. Continue reading →

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