Tag: political

Continue operating as normal?

Not a day goes by that I don’t read a headline, article, or hear about something that really just punches me in the stomach. It’s not an easy time to be somebody in higher education or a library, and my lucky self happens to be both. The systematic dismantling of higher education, as well as K-12, terrifies me in a time where hallucinating large language models are dominating the information landscape. Reading for pleasure is on the decline. There is an outright attack on our LGBTQIA, but especially our trans, friends and colleagues. Will I be able to afford basic items as tariffs trickle back to us, the consumers? Who’s to say, really.  

That’s the national landscape. What we’re facing in Maryland isn’t easy, either – the state has a huge deficit to overcome in the budget, and because of that, the higher education budget has been cut. What makes this even harder is that as federal employees are laid off, many of whom live in Maryland, this leads to less income tax revenue and makes the deficit even worse. As a public university employee, this has been dominating the conversation in the last few weeks. Per usual, those of us in the library are working our butts off to help make up the cut we’re now facing; everything easy is already gone.  

I have found it interesting the ways that different constituencies at my university have reacted to this news. A flat or shrinking budget is nothing new to those of us in libraries, so there is a certain grudging acceptance. That is not to say we’re not advocating for ourselves; that IS to say that we’re telling our higher-ups what exactly it means if we cut this resource or service. A cut here means this, and a cut there means that, and so on. Without getting too deeply into the specifics, that acceptance is not there for other populations at this university, and that worries me. I do not want the library to end up shouldering more of the cuts because we are cooperative.  

Finally, there are heavy personal things that cast a thick shadow over everything I’m doing. They aren’t my story to tell, but it’s incredibly hard to give a shit about the pettiness in academia when such dire things are happening. I am interested in keeping my job and my income in order to deal with said things. It’s also hard to not compare – I’m 12-month faculty, whereas a majority of our teaching faculty are a 10-month contract. That 10-month contract would be a godsend to me and my family right now. Perhaps that’s where the budget divide lies, too.  

What we’re all experiencing is not normal, but it feels like we’re pretending that it is when we go operate as usual. But then again – what other option is there? My dog depends on me for walks, food, and water. I have to take care of myself to even begin addressing everything above.  

I keep coming back to this Dan Savage quote: “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.”  

That joy is key in this long haul we’re facing. For me lately, that’s manifested in craft projects, binging the entirety of West Wing, and reading way more than I have in years. It’s the student thank you notes, it’s a snuggle with my dog, and it’s a weekend trip back home in Michigan to meet my new nephew. None of it is normal. But we’ll keep going anyway. 

Do not obey in advance

As I sit here in the deep dread and horror of the U.S. results we woke up to, literally fighting the urge to throw up, I am thinking about the National Archives. Why? U.S. Archivist, Colleen Shogan, appointed by President Biden, is a textbook example of obeying in advance. She has “sought to de-emphasize negative parts of U.S. history” (Wall Street Journal article by Ballhaus and Restuccia). References to America’s history of displacing indigenous people and the incarceration of Japanese Americans are just two examples of what has been removed from National Archive exhibits.  

We as a profession, especially those of us who are white, need to resist that urge with every fiber of our being, particularly with the pressure that will be applied to all libraries. If you’re white and straight passing, it would be easy to just take the books off the shelf, to leave out histories in exhibits, to fall in line, to no longer buy books with any inkling of a “woke” agenda. Do not give up something that hasn’t been taken from you. 

Academic libraries are not immune to the extremist hate that we are seeing in public and school library settings, though I do feel that some of my fellow academic librarians think that way. Books of any sort can be justified as “intellectual freedom,” right? In states like Texas and Florida, where the New College of Florida Gender and Diversity Center was shuttered and its collection of books, plus more from their Main Library, were thrown away, we see that is decidedly not the case. Academic libraries need to update their collection development policies and create ones that address challenges, because they’re going to come. With this coming administration, it is better to be prepared. Do not obey in advance, and do not leave things up to chance.  

Another item I keep thinking about is the literacy rates of America’s citizens. Not information literacy – though, as an instruction librarian, that will become crucial and is perhaps a post to be made in the coming months – no, I’m talking about reading levels. Half of all adult Americans are reading below a 6th-grade level. And what’s the first sentence of Project 2025’s section on the Department of Education? “… ultimately, the Department of Education should be eliminated.” So how are we to know our history, America’s real, gruesome, traumatic history, if it is written in books not only beyond someone’s literacy level but also a book that’s been removed from the library all together? We must know what happened in order to create a better future.  

Back in August, Amanda Jones wrote an essay for Time on the fact that this election will determine the fate of libraries – and unfortunately, we will be seeing that come to fruition in the coming years. I’m not writing this post to be all doom; I simply believe that time to grieve and feel the emotions that come is key to moving towards next steps. To be frank, this felt like something I could do rather than sit in my office, feeling the dread pile higher and higher in my stomach. I want to caution us as librarians to not seat ourselves as some last bastion of democracy – please be mindful of vocational awe. That’s also not just librarians; that is everyone doing the work and who will continue to fight.