Ep. 22 - Anti-oppressive Librarianship & Access to Information ft. Kristyn Caragher

GUEST
Kristyn Caragher is a public librarian and a two-time graduate of
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of
Information Sciences. She is the creator of Infollectuals, a
discussion series that focuses on pressing societal issues and
their relationship to libraries and social justice.


OVERVIEW
BrownTown and Kristyn discuss the role public libraries, other
institutions, and the people that populate them play in providing
community access to information and resources. Enter
Infollectuals: Kristyn’s discussion series and
graduate/professional work that started it furthers this dialogue
by challenging her field through programming and workshops,
asking (and answering) the question, what does white anti-racist
librarianship look like? How can those with privilege who also
serve as gatekeepers to publicly funded resources use them more
responsibly and intentionally under an anti-oppressive,
liberatory framework? Kristyn also brings up the tension in the
current “free speech” debate particularly between libraries and
hate groups in regard to physical space for programming. The
group also shifts the site from institutions to the digital
sphere noting Safiya Umoja Noble’s book Algorithms of Oppression:
How Search Engines Reinforce Racism.


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You can learn more about Kristyn's work at KristynCaragher.com.
Follow Kristyn and Infollectuals on Twitter!
Read her contributions in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping
Whiteness in Library and Information Science.


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CREDITS: Intro/outro music by Fiendsh. Audio
engineered by Genta Tamashiro. Episode art and Bourbon 'n
BrownTown logo by Desirae Gladden.


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