We are looking to add a presenter to our panel at ARLIS/NA in Salt Lake City. The session is titled
Social Justice Frameworks and Special Collections in Practice and will take place on March 27 at 1:30pm - 2:50pm. If you’re attending ARLIS and would like to present during our session (see abstract below), please send me an email at
[log in to unmask] with a short description of your topic or case study by January 15th.
Please feel free to participate if you don’t work in Special Collections. Everybody involved at the time of writing the abstract was doing work related to Special Collections but the focus of the session is on social justice frameworks and inclusion strategies.
Kind Regards,
Cristina Fontánez
Abstract: This session explores how two academic libraries have approached issues of equity and inclusion in their Special Collections and what steps they have taken to ensure representation in digital curation, collection assessment, and recruitment processes. Presenters will expound upon two approaches: inclusion of marginalized artists into the library’s public domain visual resources platform (“Does Copyright Prevent Diversity?: Examining Representation in the Public Domain”), and the creation of a fellowship program to address issues of marginalization within the context of collection building and workforce recruitment (“Raising Consciousness & Empowering Undergraduates: Creating Meaningful Outreach Through Special Collections Mentoring”).
The Visual Resources Center at the University of Delaware analyzes the intersection of digital collections online, copyright law and the public domain, and how to better incorporate more marginalized artists into everyday use of images in library and visual resources materials. With several major institutions making vast sections of their online collections available for download and restriction-free use, we have more images at our fingertips than ever before, but whose artwork is represented in these collections of public domain artworks?
As a second example, Special Collections at the Johns Hopkins University has created an outreach program targeting undergraduate students, with the initial focus on introductory events meant to raise awareness about the library’s collections. As the outreach program grew in popularity, it became apparent that there was an opportunity to use the department’s raised profile to encourage students who may feel that they do not belong in the “rarefied” world of rare books and manuscripts to meaningfully engage with primary sources. Thus, Special Collections Freshman Fellows was born to engage students in critical librarianship and encourage them to take active steps in addressing issues of marginalization via scholarly discourse, such as selecting materials for acquisitions by authors or social movements that were in the past deemed outside of the collection scope.
Learning Objectives
Provide strategies for integrating social justice frameworks in collection development, outreach, and mentoring in libraries
Facilitate effective dialogue on social justice issues in visual literacy
Provide strategies for engaging in Special Collections critical librarianship
