librarypunk - 045 - Madam President? feat. Emily Drabinski

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

https://twitter.com/edrabinski Getting Organized | American Libraries Magazine Meet the Candidates for ALA President: Emily Drabinski | American Libraries Magazine   Media mentioned Jane McAlevey | No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age The Revolution That Wasn't — Jen Schradie | Harvard University Press Gary drink of water video: https://twitter.com/edrabinski/status/1501673661522141196?s=20&t=jBBe27AjLRkj5geTMBOfGQ

Happy St. Patrick's Purim. It's library punk. I'm Justin. I'm a Skalkan-Com librarian. My pronouns are he and him. I'm Sadie. I work IT in a public library. My pronouns are they them. I'm Jay. I'm a metadata and discovery librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. My name is Emily Drabinski. I'm the interim chief librarian and critical pedagogy librarian at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. My pronouns are she, her. standard disclaimer if Justin hasn't already given it to you he will interrupt you with drops so just talk through them steamroll him I will never remember to warn someone I will every time okay so if you're listening to this episode and have read the title then you'll know we're probably going to be talking about ALA a lot today

so that means we need to bring back a segment what's wrong with ALA? The critlib chat last night really that was all it nothing was wrong actually. actually. I just wanted to use the drop. But Critlib Chat last night just happened to be about the role of the ALA in doing anti-racist work and specifically the ALA president or the ALA council in critically sustaining context. I didn't see like a huge amount of interaction with it, but the ones I saw were pretty good. And so I think we might bring those up again as we have our conversation. But for example, one question was, what is the role of ALA president and or ALA

council in a critically sustaining context? What should it be? And I had one response here, which was, I still don't understand what the ALA council does, not really sure what the president does beyond making statements, which could be useful. My sense is that council makes resolutions, question mark. I think that pretty much summed up most of the responses I saw. Did you guys get a chance to look at any of them? I kind of added them late.

I wasn't paying attention to the Critlib last night. I really don't ever. Sorry, I'm a bad critical librarian person because I don't do the Critlib chat. Shh, don't tell. Well, I mean, it's been a while since we've had a Critlib chat.

I couldn't do it because I just, my brain is so full of ALA at this point that I wanted to take a little break and did some other things. Yeah, taking a break by coming on here to talk about it. Yeah, I mean, it's like also the only thing happening in my life right now. I mean, of course, there are other things happening in my life right now, but mostly, at least in my off hours, I'm running for president of the American

Library Association. The Tim Hydecker thing was cool. I watched that. Right? I was so nervous. And you know, I've given a ton of public talks and I'm pretty used to being like, you know, chatting about how I feel and think about the world. But wow, I was super terrified. Comedians are scary. But he was so nice. He was such a nice guy. I couldn't believe it. Yeah, no. He was a like really cool. I was just like wanting to scream free real estate the entire time though I was just so distracted. I'm like that's Tim Hydecker. Yeah. So that was the ALA segment. I mean do you want Are you like interested in my answer to that question like what I what ALA council does and what aLA president does? Yeah. I could share my thoughts if you're interested. I'm interested because I don't know either.

So yeah. Yeah. I've never been a member of ALA. Well, first I, I want to wanted to introduce you. We're here to talk with Emily Drowinski about your plan, how best to pursue the abolition of the American Library Association. And as I understand, your campaign slogan is the necessity of the abolition of ALA and a movement towards communism. So we're going to sort of theme tonight's episode around that campaign promise. So yeah, go ahead and take it away. You know, I actually really believe in institutions and I believe in them. And so, yeah, I won't be abolishing them, but I would not be opposed to communism. But I think actually institutions are how we get there.

Institutions are the places where power accretes and how we, you know, all the tools we need to build it and wield it, which is what I'm interested in. I'm going to have to change a lot of my notes on the fly then. Sorry. Institutions aren't states. So there you go. I mean, I'm not an anarchist. That's what's true.

I just came out about it. Sorry, everybody. Well, we got to get her off here. anti-state pure bureaucracy. Every man of king, we all have a no-show job that pays us $80,000 a year. Well, I kind of do. Yeah, so did you want to answer that question about what the ALA president and council do? Yeah, so ALA Council sets the policy of the American Library Association.

It entertains resolutions that do, I think, pretty cool things. Like a few years ago, ALA Council passed a resolution sort of on the side of fine-free libraries. So there's nothing automatic about like ALA passing a resolution for fine-free libraries, right? Because like it's not a magic wand, it doesn't do anything automatically. We're all fighting our sort of local struggles. But what it does is it gives librarians across the country a thing to point to when they make the argument to their legislators, their city council people or their library administration that we ought to be fine-free. You can point to that and say the weight of American sort of trends in libraries.

is on my side. So I think that's something that ALA Council does that I think can be useful. But it is, you know, it depends on your theory of power and how you think things get done, you know, and I think that can be meaningful for people doing activist work on the ground around, and around libraries. What does the president do? I don't know. I haven't been the president, so I can't really say, but I do think they can play a role in setting agendas for council in producing public conversations about libraries that I, I think, you know, I'm a true believer in the library project and in the projects of collective, you know, sharing of resources. And so I think having a president who really believes in that talks about it all the time can't be anything but good for the public conversation around public goods.

So that's sort of, that sounds kind of bumper's degree. But I have to say, I really, I think we could do something cool if we wanted to. Yeah, I think it's like a really good figurehead position to say like, oh, the president of the ALA says something. It's just that it's never really been wielded as a very. public, broader public sort of image, at least in my perspective. Yeah, I mean, it has in my lifetime, right? Or in my career time. You know, I was in, I started library school in 2001, you know, a couple of weeks before September 11th. And then I watched ALA be like kind of badass in in terms of it's the positions that took around maintaining privacy and the importance of the sort

of privacy of rewrite to read. And that was like really inspiring to me when I was in library school. I was like, this is badass. This profession is badass. I'm excited about it. I want to be a part of it. I want to be a member of ALA because that's a mission I believe in. And I want to lend my name to it. So I think we could we could do that again. There have been other moments in time when that's been meaningful to me. And probably, you know, the sort of direction of ALA has been going in the last few years is probably serves that role for people who aren't me. But I'm, you know, I want to tell the stories I want to tell about what we do for a living. Yeah. I was actually looking a little bit into the history of the role, not to get off topic,

but I was trying to start from the beginning and like ask questions that you hadn't already been asked like four different times. And so I surprised the, there's a roundtable in ALA for like their history. They need to really get on filling out that website because there wasn't a whole lot of information. But I saw it was basically dominated by male academics early on. There was one who was also president of the American Historical Association. So, you know, a long trend of that when we talked about library and stereotypes a long time ago, the academic one was the male scholar who hides the collections from others. And so it seems like a lot of the early ALA presidents fell into that stereotype. Another thing about, so ALA is founded by Melville Dewey, who at the same time that he is inventing the Dewey decimal system,

He's running a company that sells you cards for card catalog and the card catalog itself and the like supplies to make the system run. So I think we also have to think about the roots of ALAs and the roots of the sort of commercialization of knowledge organization, right? Like that's a piece of it too that I think it's interesting at least for me to think about like that library and vendor piece, like the inner relationship between librarians who I see as sort of socialist figures and vendors who I see as part of the profit machine. So how do these two things, being square. And I think that's the struggle within ALA and probably within the field. Yeah, like with the discussions recently about like who controls metadata, like who owns it

between OCLC and us. So like, you know, the whole problems we've had about controlling the, I guess it's just the catalog, the union catalog to use an older term. But that's kind of the idea is like it's owned by somewhere else and we pull from it. And now it's more. We pay subscriptions to both pull from it and write into it, even though all this works being done by institutions. Same issue also with lots of other things in academia that we don't have control over, like, publishing. Yeah, I mean, I think, like, I saw my hand being raised and I lost my train of thought. I'm going to put my hand down. What's your cat's name?

This is Patsy. Hi, she wants to be held, I think. She just doesn't know it. Arthur's somewhere. So we have a question here, which is, you know, we already kind of talked about like what can the ALA president actually do. But I think a deeper question is, and we've got different aspects to it, is who is ALA for? And I didn't really have time to pull up member statistics. But, you know, we've got these contradictions of library workers versus their employers versus library directors. And, you know, libraries themselves are members of of ALA. And I was also really curious of how. involved are non-library, non-librarian library workers in ALA, like, statistics-wise, like, are most, I imagine most people are overwhelmingly librarians, but that's not the whole of the employment situation in libraries. So doesn't that, doesn't that affect sort of the

organizing issues? Yeah, so like, for example, ALA Council is meeting tomorrow to deliberate on sort of a, like, moving forward with changes in the governance structure of ALA, that meeting is on Zoom at 4 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Mountain, 1 p.m. Pacific. So who can attend that meeting and participate in that governance process? It's certainly not anybody on the West Coast in a school library, right? It's not most of the people I know who work in public libraries. It's not even most of the people in academic libraries, right? Because the only people who can really attend at that time are people who have a lot of control over their own time, right? And a lot of control over their own working conditions. So I can go, because I'm not.

the boss right now. And so if I say I'm busy at a meeting at four, like, I'm busy at a meeting at four, and you can find another time to meet with me, right? Like, I get to decide that. But so it definitely those, those voices are the ones that shape the direction of ALA. And that's kind of unavoidable. Like things are scheduled on Saturdays, right? So that's the Sabbaths for a lot of people. The things are scheduled in the evenings. If you have small children, how are we going to do that? You know, I might have to get off this podcast at any moment. moment, you know, if I hear something happening in the other room with my own kids. So it's like definitely, you know, the agenda is shaped by who can attend. And so when you're thinking about who is going

to lead the association, that's going to got to be somebody who knows that that's happening and knows who's shaping the conversation and knows who's excluded. And, you know, not that I have like some special line on what excluded people want, but I'm aware that, that who I'm aware of who's allowed to speak in that in those contexts and who is systematically excluded and has been excluded since the beginning. So like, I don't know. I take it really seriously. Would I be able to fix that problem? Probably not. You know, I don't know, but could I talk a lot about how that was a problem and raise that as a problem in it on a public stage? Yeah, I think I could. And I think that's important to bring out and have us not just like an undercurrent of all the angry those of us who can't or are excluded,

right? But to have that be an open conversation that everybody's having to reckon with, I think could be useful. But it's like a gamble, right? I have no idea. Can't see the future, but I can tell you it's fun to think about trying. Yeah. I mean, would it be possible to like consider changes to the fee structure, changes to the membership structure, you know, like I'm just thinking, okay, if we wanted Sadie to be involved as a public library worker who is not a librarian in ALA, what's got to happen for them to get to that position, right? So does their library have to become a member? Do they have to become an individual member? how much does that cost? How is that relative to their salary?

Like, there's a whole lot of things that I feel, we had this whole session of interviewing people who work in libraries who are not librarians because I feel like the library community is really clicky and is really dominated by librarians. And so I always ask them, how involved do you feel with the profession? And most of them, I mean, we're thinking about becoming librarians and making it their career. So they're pretty involved. but, you know, it's just something it's been rattling around on my head quite a bit over the past couple months. Yeah, and I was the one who put the question in just because that's something I had heard around, like, Twitter or just, you know, anytime I went to conferences, like, and something I've been thinking about a lot recently, like, I didn't renew my ALA membership the last time I was up for it because it's like I wasn't seeing any benefits for me.

Like, what was I getting out of it besides, like, oh, I could start. serve on this committee and it looks good on my CV, right? But what's it doing for me personally joining? Whereas like a library joining it might get different benefits. And then I also hear a lot about like, oh, well, ALA does a lot of advocacy like at like a federal level and like those kinds of more abstract bigger profession things that do benefit me. And so that was sort of another way I was addressing asking this. It's like, is it for the individual librarian besides just getting to present at conferences and do free labor in committees? Is it more for those advocacy issues? Like, that was sort of my train of thought when asking that, if that makes sense.

And I mean, I guess I would sort of push back on, well, I'll say two things. First is that the membership committee of ALA has been working hard on the fee structure of the ALA council just this last, at the last midwinter convening that wasn't called midwinter, they raise the income cap for low-cost membership. They're redesigning the membership model. Like, people are working on that. So part of it, I think, is a communication problem because a lot of the things we want out of our professional association, there are many, like, it's just made of us, you know, like it's just made of library workers who decide they want to spend their time there. And so a lot of them share those concerns that are working hard on those issues. And so part of it is making

sure that people know that, right, and telling a story about the association that's about that, about the things that we actually care about, which are maybe, you know, the ways that we make it accessible to people from across race, class, and gender lines. And that's the work we have to do. But the other thing is like, you know, I want to push against a little bit, the transactional relationship, right? Like, that I need the association to give me something like it's not a, you know, it's like, we're not buying anything. So like, I'm a member because I believe that the association can, can sort of push public conversation harder than it has, maybe in the recent, in recent history about things that I actually really care about,

like the work it did in the Patriot Act, I was happy to pay my fee to be a part of what I felt was an association that was advancing sort of big goals that I care about politically and socially. So, like, I think, you know, we could, like, ALA is who we decide it's for, because it's just it's ours, you know, it doesn't have, like, rigid structures. So it takes a lot of work to change it. Yeah, but, you know, I think you talk to a lot of ALA members

and they get a lot out of their committee work. They get a lot out of the, you know, connections they make to other people and the sort of things they can do together. And, you know, it's not for everybody. Absolutely that kind of work. But it's for some of us. And I also, you know, where else are we gathering together to have big conversations and grapple with big questions? And maybe we're not doing it enough in public, you know, or maybe like we want more. And I think we could use some sort of bigger public engagement with those issues. Because like, what if what if ALA was a mighty fighting social justice machine that was like all about equity and reinvestment in public institutions? the library, the parks, hospitals, roads. Like, what if it was a voice on behalf of those things? It has almost 50,000 members, been around forever. It's the fifth largest trade association in the United States. Like, there's power there.

It's just like up to us to figure out how to wield it. And, you know, it's totally, I understand. People are like, I'm never giving money to ALA. People are organizing with encounter institutions. I have a ton of respect for that. This is just like one avenue where we could organize and do work together. But it's by like no means the only one. it's not morally superior to be a part of it or not a part.

It's not a moral question. It's like political question. Do you think that there's value in organizing it within this structure? I happen to think right in this minute that there is and maybe I'm wrong. But that's okay. I've been wrong before. It doesn't matter. I'll just try something else.

And I think that's how we have to think about political work when we look at what we're up against, right? Like we've got to be throwing everything against the ball because the right is, it's fighting, you know? And it's on the march and I'm really worried. And I think we've got to be there. We've got to be as organized as they are. Yeah, I like you reframing my concern as whether or not it should be transactional or not. That actually doesn't mean a lot to think about. It's like, oh, do I view or should other people, like maybe that will also help other people view or reframe what they, how they want that relationship to work.

Should it be a transactional relationship or should it not be? Like, I'm a member of my local multi-use public park. Yeah. Why? Yeah. I just walk over there. What am I getting out of it? Well, I'm getting a park and, like, a stake in it, feeling like it's important to me.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a helpful reframing. Thank you. Yeah. And it's, I think it's the labor union problem as well. It's, you know, the first person to join a labor union gets nothing out of it. It's only when you have a plurality of people when you start to see a benefit. And so I think that, you know, the first person to join a labor union gets nothing out of it.

So I think that's the question is, do people think ALA is going to be responsive to a large number of librarians coming in and library workers wanting it to focus on social justice? Is the organization ready to do that? And I have some serious... But like, it's not a phantom. It's just people, you know? It's just people. It's like, you know, would we be up against bureaucratic structures? Absolutely.

But a bureaucracy can be a ladder, you know? It doesn't have to be a wall. It can be a ladder, you know? It's just do we want to do our work here or not? And, you know, do I think ALA would be responsive? You know, and like, I don't know. I guess I also would say that the first person in the union gets a lot from it. They get the feeling that you get when you decide you're going to fight.

And that's a really good feeling, you know, changes your orientation to the world, gives you like some hope when you wake up in the morning and give you some stuff to think about that's not the drudgery and pain of some of our everyday life. And it gives us like a reason to talk to one another. And right now I could use some reasons to talk to people. about good things and about what we might do together in a positive way. And I think, you know, that's like how I'm trying to run my campaign, not to get all like t-shirt on it. But like, it's been really nice to sort of have conversations with tons and tons of people about how

important we think libraries are and how much we think if the state would invest in them, we'd have a better world. So those are the conversations I've been having over the last few months and they're better than the conversations I was having the previous few months, you know, which were about, are we all going to die? No, yeah, I don't really disagree with what you're saying about making a, it's a political decision and that it's, you know, if it doesn't work here, it might work somewhere else. It's something I've thought about several times in the past, you know, could there be, you know, sometimes I'm like I'm a wobbly. So sometimes I see things like the freelance journalist union

in the IWW and I go, oh, that'd be a really cool option to do for librarians. And it's, it's explicitly based around like a radical agenda. And so, you know, I have no thoughts that that's going to be as influential as the ALA could be, but I also know where it's coming from right away. I guess that's the difference I'm having here. But so can I, you're right. We should be talking. I don't know. Can I ask you a question? Like, where do you, where do you see yourself sort of doing organizing work that's meaningful? It's in the, in the sort of wobbly area or like how do you, I mean, how are any, I'd be interested in all three of you. Like, how are you thinking about how to do good political work in this very difficult moment, either as library workers or otherwise.

Yeah. When I. came when I moved here about three and a half years ago, the Wobiles weren't all that active, but they have more or less moved over to other local labor unions, which, because my communities are well on the Hispanic, so like the Union de Pueblo and Threro is more involved. So I'm actually more involved with them than the Woblies at the moment. It was just one where I was thinking, oh, could we have like a subsection of the IWW. But I'm more focused on, you know, when I'm organizing within the community of the colonialism of SpaceX in this area, the violence of police, the violence of Border Patrol,

the violence of the National Guard coming into our community. And those are the things that take up my main thoughts, because also I work at a university that churns out those Border Patrol agents and those police officers. And, you know, every single time we can convince one of them to switch to anthropology instead of criminal justice, that's a win. It's a pretty good win. But I'm not under any, you know, illusions that the numbers are going to swap overnight.

But I know that it's making a difference in the day-to-day work. And in terms of, you know, my, I also have membership in the Texas State Employees Union, which, you know, does the general kind of making sure pay raises happen for state employees and making sure that retirement funds are there. And, you know, it's not a, I don't get a union contract out of that. But they lobby straight to the Texas legislature and they win. They get stuff. So those are the two levels I'm kind of operating at.

Yeah, I mean, we've got to organize where we are, right? It sounds like you're organizing where you are. Yeah, I'm on, so at University of New Hampshire, the faculty and also the lecturers, I believe, I have branches of the AAUP, so we're unionized. And it's not like the library and faculty are included in. So it's all faculty, AAUP. And I grew up,

my grandpa was a coal miner, and he was in the United Mine Workers of America. So I went to like union picnics and shit as a kid. And so like my grandpa would like boycott gas stations who like wouldn't let him put up like unionizing propaganda. kept in the windows. He was pretty cool dude. And so the fact that this is my first union job, I was so excited. Day one, I emailed the union people. Like, how do I get involved and whatnot? And I became the library's, like, rep for the union. And then they were like, oh, hey, by the way, will you be on the executive committee? Like, they, like, invited me onto it. They always come for the

librarians. They always do, because we're, like, so organized. Yeah. And also, there weren't any junior faculty on the executive committee and also like no like younger people in general. And one of the, so the contract is expired right now and we've gone 700 days without a new, like over 700 days without a new contract. We're still operating under the old one. But yeah, like mediation and negotiation have failed. And one of the things that the university's not budging on is cuts to retirement, which would affect me more than would affect the other people on the executive committee. And so I've been getting involved just with like our university, like union work and stuff.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was doing like digital privacy workshops for local like leftist groups as like a form of mutual aid. But then like I got really burnt out on life and haven't been able to do much mutual aid besides like, you know, donating strike funds here and there. But yeah, outside of that in librarianship, not much. Well, I'm on the homosaurus. That's something, I guess. Oh, I have to talk to you about that then, because I've got a project going with a, and I need to email somebody involved with the homosaurus. It's you.

Thank you. Okay. But yeah, so that's, I've mainly just been doing like union stuff right now. Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at, too. This is my first union position. And I recently became a union steward, or very small, union because we're a very small library and it's just our employees. So, but yeah, like Jay, I grew up going to like union picnics and stuff because my dad worked

at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. So he was part of the union there. And yeah, it was like, I grew up not even knowing that there were ununionized positions because it was so like ubiquitous in the culture in that area. So I'm hoping we can do more of that. We were were recently talking about being more present in the community as the library union as opposed to the library. So like sponsoring things and that kind of thing and yeah, having some sort of picnic and that kind of thing. So that's, yeah, mainly where I'm at and hopefully doing something on the privacy front with the Library Freedom Project trainings that I've been through. So, but yeah, the question of organizing is a good one. And I actually have.

a question about that. I remember seeing a tweet. I think it was on your Twitter where you said that you love to have conversations about organizing with people who are thinking about organizing. And I was just kind of curious, like, what's the number one thing you tell people when you have that conversation? Like, what's the first thing out of your mouth when somebody's like, I'm thinking about unionizing. What is, yeah, what's the first thing you would tell them? Tell me what your problem is. What are you mad about? What are your colleagues mad about? Are they mad about that also? Do you think all of them are? Are you sure? Have you talked to all of them? You should make a list. So here's what you want to do. You want to set up a Google sheet. You want to write down every single person in the unit. Write down their email address. That's not a work email address. Write down their phone number and write down their t-shirt size. You're write them all down and you're going to have a conversation with every single one of them relative to the demand. So what's the demand? What did you say was the problem? Is it low wages? Okay. Yeah, that's common. I hear that a lot. Low wages. Okay. So how many people do you, when you talk to them, find out, would they be willing to sort of meet with you to figure out how you're going to fight together

for better wages? Like, you're going to have a meeting. So I want you to talk to every single person and I want you to rate them on a scale of one to five. Are they going to go to the meeting that you're about to call for everybody who's mad about low wages, right? The ones are going to be people like you, people who would be willing to schedule a meeting and people who'd be willing to talk to other people about the meeting. And then on the five, that's going to be everybody who's like, no, my tower is fine. I don't want to organize collectively for it because I have a good salary because I'm really good of my job and the rest of you, whatever. And I'm going to make sure that we don't have a union because I want to have special access to high wages, right? So you've got

your ones and five, everybody's in between and you got to talk to every single one of them, write down their number. The twos agree with you, but they won't do anything about it. The fours agree with them, but they're not going to do anything about it. They're going to bring anybody else along. And our sweet spot is those threes who are like, I don't know. I feel like I can negotiate myself for a better salary because I talked to Sally and she did it. But I can also see the point of a collective agreement where all of us, they're born, because we're working together and that's the person you want to move. So you're going to have a conversation with everybody. Tell me what time that meeting is, where it's going to be. And you're going to find out who, when they said they come to

the meeting, actually showed up. That's how much power you have right now. And we're going to build from there. So that's the first thing I say. Damn. Okay. Yeah, nice. Very succinct. And I want to have that conversation with every single library worker in the United States. And of course, I can't do that. Like, that's ridiculous. I have a 13-year-old and a bunch of cats and I'm taking a synchronized swimming classes. But I want to, I want you to have that conversation with the people in your part of the world. And I want everybody to have that conversation because it's the only conversation we should be having right now. I swear. Every other one, I'm like, are we done yet? Let's talk about how we're going to get what's ours. Yeah, I've definitely done that ranking exercise

with the Texas State Employees Union. So we went around and started doing some updating. And COVID really threw them for a loop. Also, staffing down here, I guess for the union has been not great because whatever reasons, people don't want to move down here usually is the one. But, you know, when we were tabling and thanks to Texas law, which was made so that everywhere on campus is a free speech zone, that means the union can table wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as it's outside. So they had been sort of been pushed off for years and years and years in the moment that new policy went into place. They had a table and I said, hey, I didn't know there was a union. And then, you know, I was handing out flyers the same day for people to sign up for the union.

Unfortunately, no one has really pushed for a unionizing vote. It's something I would really like to happen because I think that galvanizes people more when you're like, we're going to have a vote. But, you know, I think if we were to go that route, we would have to start all over again and start getting that mapping. who's our ones, two, three, four, fives, start fresh because the data's old now. We've got new people and then decide, you know, who are we going to organize with, I think, would also be kind of an issue like the American Federation of Teachers. Is that the right one? They do organize universities. And they're pretty strong down here.

So I would think that would be an option. Yeah, I love the AFT. Having figured out how to get that going. Very proud to have Randy Weingarten's endorsement for the campaign. she sees like I do that the everybody in the public sector libraries education healthcare parks and all of us um yeah our our fights are the same fights I think right now but like to that question like how am I going to get that started yeah I mean that's the question you know and uh we got to make time to figure out the answers together so before we went off on that tangent you were saying you wanted

to focus on positive things about libraries things that we like about libraries so I'm happy to do that because I know we started off just sort of making fun of the ALA a little bit. So we recently spoke with Alan Wiley just a couple weeks ago about outsourcing and then particularly this thing that's happening with volunteers taking over paid positions, which I can't imagine how awful would be in that position. I have to train a volunteer, you know, is going to do this work and fuck it up and, you know, it'd be awful. And I imagine we're going to have some of that imported here.

in some places. But when we're talking about libraries, and when that situation happens, I mean, how can we mobilize ALA membership to go, I don't know, maybe just send a bunch of, just do a phone zap or something

and be like, don't run the library this way. Hang up. You know, I mean. I find this distinction that Jane McAleavy makes. Do you know Jane McAleve's work? She's got a book called No Shortcuts.

Go check it out from your local library. Read it. It's like crystal clear. analysis of worker power and I just, it's brilliant. And there are critiques of it, but I think it's, I think it's totally spot on. Anyway, she makes a distinction between organizing and mobilizing. So organizing is the work that we do to keep ourselves connected and knitted together, right? The conversations that we're always having to sort of keep ourselves going. So for example, my ALA election campaign team meets every Thursday. And those meetings, we talk about what we're

going to do in the campaign, but we also talk about what's going on in your library, what's happening in the mind, what are the issues that we're talking about. I've been talking to a million people and every person I talk to is like blowing my mind with what amazing work they're doing and the amazing shit they have to deal with. And so we talk about that, talk about that, talk about that. So we're organizing, right? We're learning to trust each other, to agree, you know, to know each other in ways, to feel intimate, to feel connected because we feel like there's something at stake here and we're doing it together. So we're really well organized. And that means that we can be mobilized, right? So one of our members was facing a workplace issue and we were able immediately

to like be there to listen and it's still sort of unfolding. So it's unclear how exactly we're going to be sort of deployed. But we're mobilizable the minute she has a plan to sort of go out and make the phone calls that she needs made and to have the conversations that she needs us to have. So we're mobilizable because we're organized. Right. And so I think this country does a really good job of disorganizing people, atomizing people so that we don't feel like connected, right? That we don't see the stakes that we have in each other's lives. And so that makes it hard to mobilize, you know, and we don't have a whole lot of practice at doing things that are scary, which is like standing up to power. So you actually can't tell everybody to just like strike,

right? You've got to build towards that. It's a shit ton of work. You've got to have button campaigns and petition campaigns and you got to like, how am I going to convince everybody in this unit to trust each other more than they trust the boss or trust each other more than they fear the boss. Like that's the calculation. And it's just so hard. It's so much work. It's the only work worth doing. But like if we got to get ready, you know, and be ready. And that's the only way. And it's like Jane says the title of her book. There are no shortcuts. So we got to do it. And then I hear people like, I've burned out. I don't want to do that. I already have a full-time job. But like, it's so sustaining to have close connections to people who share your commitments

and are willing to sort of have your back in a fight. It's like, I don't know. Like, it's better than a bubble bath for sure. Like solidarity is sort of where it's at for me, like what we need right now. More feelings like that. You know the rights producing those feelings for each other. We're out there getting wins every day, getting a book off the shelf together. So we need to be producing those kinds of situations for each other and experiences for each other.

Solidarity is self-care. I even watch the movie Pride and I cry the whole time because it makes me feel so good. And I'm not even involved in that. What other positives do you want to talk about? Like maybe I think in your other interviews you've talked about like libraries is good, what they're good at and things like that. But what about like what the ALA is good at? Like do you want to talk about any campaigns like write to read or you just mentioned the book challenges? Yeah.

Do you want to talk about the good work that ALA is doing there? Yeah, like the Office of Intellectual Freedom is really like taking people's calls and giving people money and connecting them to resources. I don't know, I've been visiting a lot of roundtables where really, you know, I visited the government documents roundtable. They're planning a program in Washington, D.C. at A.A. Annual about the difference between organizing and advocacy work. That's a conversation we need to be having and it needs to not just be like on left podcasts, but it needs to be in the mainstream of our association. And it is. They throw a great party, too. Yeah. They seemed awesome. They were like, I loved meeting with them. They were just terrific.

You know, and yeah, you know, I think we like, it's sort of popular in some ways to sort of shit on ALA, but the people who are, you know, making meaningful connections there, it's not, it's not silly. And, you know, book award committees that sort of remind us that reading's important and that books are important. You know, those are like huge deals and sort of, you know, figuring out policies to serve children, you know, that's like, I don't know. That's good, that's good civic work. And we need to be telling better stories about all the work that good work that people are doing. Because it's like, it is us. You know, your unions, you guys. It's like, it's yours. You know. And if you want it to be better, you can just make it be better. Or you can walk away from it, which I also, I also. I also want to reiterate, that's a totally fine decision to make. I understand it and have done it at points in my career also. Yeah. And I mean, there's definitely times of my career where the membership was just unaffordable to me for various reasons. even how the fee structure is being fixed, you know, I would have to double, you know, you're being very convincing about why I should be in ALA, so I have to double check my finances, but see if I can swing it. But also, you know, I haven't gone to the ALA midwinter or anything ever. I've only gone to ACRL once.

Because before this job, I never had a travel budget. I was an emerging leader when, uh, in 2018. So I, I, I was actually pretty much better. Did it work for you? How was the program for you? It was okay. My little group, I got put in with a really good group. My little group worked with the American Indian Library Association,

and that got me more involved with, even if I'm not directly involved with the day-to-day in my work, but just like indigenous librarianship and issues in indigenous librarianships. We worked on a website for, like a tribal libraries and museums, like interactive map for the United States. And we, you know, you had to present it at ALA, but we also presented it at like the tribal college librarians Institute in Bozeman that year. And so I don't know if it gave me the leadership experience, but it gave me good connections. And just because of the group, I was in like,

Netanel was in my group as well. Shout out to Netanyl if you're listening. So, yeah, like it was more like those connections that I made in that program. It's like a meaningful experience for you. You learn some stuff. Some friends. I don't know. It seems to me like that's kind of enough and that like that's a lot actually and pretty cool. We've talked. We've got some time. So I wanted to bring up like a couple issues that maybe aren't just like fun things, but that I wanted to get your read on, especially I guess one thing I've always wondered is if a library has a membership or if a library has done something we would consider more or less egregious or against the professional code, could the ALA theoretically sanction

that member? I've always wondered this and I've always wondered why it's never happened, like a member institution, not like a member individual. It's a good question. I mean, I think people tell me that there's something in the tax code and the sort of status of the association that it cannot advocate on behalf of its members. But I'm not sure what that means and, you know, how I feel about laws, right? That they're things, they're just constraints and we're going to figure out how they're actually going to work in real life. So I don't know. You know, could it do that? Well, we'd have to find out, you know, probably it would be difficult. I don't know if ALA would do it or ALA APA. There's a sort of side, there's a parallel association

that's supposed to take on these sort of workplace worker issues, the Allied Professional Association that I think is underutilized, and I'm not quite sure how you like would utilize it, but I'm interested in finding out. But again, like, how are we going to fight back against that? Well, we'd have to just, this gives us the opportunity to get together in groups, and there's a staff that can set up the meeting and convene us so that we can sort of talk about whether or not we think that's a good idea.

And I'm not sure how, you know, what other national sort of, There are all kinds of national associations and other kinds of networks and ways of approaching out. So maybe it's not ALA that does that. But, you know, again, like I keep saying, we would just try and see, we could try it. I'm in a like, let's try it mode, as you can tell. Yeah. Related to a lot of the discussion of, like, labor and organizing and unanizing we've been having tonight, I hear a lot, like there's like this discussion of should ALA function like a union for library workers or shouldn't it?

and I don't know if it should because I don't know if it would be able to at that scale, but I guess how could, if it could, what might that look like? And if it couldn't, how could it support library workers unionizing and those kinds of efforts? Like, should it play a role in that? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, right? So, you know, should it? I think like, I think when we make a mistake when we ask moral questions of our institutions. Like, should it?

Like, should it? Like, I don't know. Should it? or shouldn't it? And it's like you want to try to figure out the answer in advance. We're like, I'm a materialist, right? So we're going to figure out the answer as we do it. So we're going to try it. And if we're going to learn from that, the constraints and the affordances and the extent to which it is malleable, right? So if I wanted to make ALA a union on behalf of all of its workers, that's a big ask. We're not going to do it right now because like there are plenty of people who are not in libraries because they're socialists that are not in libraries because

they want worker power and they want to build that and wield it, but are in the association for other reasons, right? So I think we make a mistake when we ask if it should, right? So I hear all the time, well, ALA is the American Library Association, not the American Librarian Association, and therefore it cannot work for librarians and library workers. And like says, who? Like, says we? Like, Why would we say that? Why would we leave the incredible number of resources inside that association on the ground? Because we were like, it shouldn't do that for workers or it can't or it won't. It's like millions of dollars, you know, like a ton of people and a ton of infrastructure. And it's so hard to build infrastructure. So like if you've ever tried to build something like when people are like, we should burn it all down. I'm like, well, the Tinder is wet. I don't have any match. I don't have any experience setting fires. I don't know how to set a fire. And if I set it, I can't keep it going for very long.

Those are hard things to do, you know. And so, which is not to say that they can't be done or they shouldn't be done or that that's not what we want to work towards. But like we have to, we have to walk there. We don't like show up and start a bonfire. We have to like figure out where the matches are. And that's the sort of explicit work that I'd be interested in doing. So could it be a unit for everybody?

Probably not in the next three years, which is what my experience. leadership piece would be if I was elected. But, you know, I get a little pot of money, but President gets to spend a little bit of money on something, and I would just spend it to do sort of organizing trainings for people. Just take them, you know, just like at every event, you know, every conference, there's also a labor organizing training. Pat Schumann did this when she was president with media training.

Like, she was like, we got to be better at talking the media about who we are. So at every single ALA sponsored event, there was a media training session for people who were interested. And you didn't have to apply. You didn't have to be special. You didn't have to be sponsored or picked. You could just go. So that would be another principle that I would sort of try to put in place that like if you're

interested, you can come. Because there's a bunch of stuff where you send in an application. And I'm like, who's got time to send in an application? Let's just give it to the people who show up and want it. Would this be like conferences or would it just be like Zoom trainings? Oh, conferences. I mean, we could do Zoom trainings. But I'd like, I don't know.

I'm like, you know, there's probably you could do both. But I think every Zoom I'm in, I'm doing two other things. Even when I'm talking. Yeah, I only say that because, like, I don't have my email open right now, but it's tempting, you know. The three of us have ADHD. We get it. Okay, you get it. Yeah.

On Twitter, like, or like, yeah. Yeah. I just placed a hold on the no shortcuts. Yeah. Overdrive while we're talking. Which is like totally fine. But I also think like there's nothing can stand in for the sort of connections we can make with each other when we're together. And I think we can do that safely within the.

in the era of mass vaccination. It's just, can we get together? I don't know. That's the question. Who can afford to go? Right. That was my thing is who can afford to go? And also, like, when I was doing like OT 101 with the IWW, like just getting people in like the same room was so tough because like Sarasota didn't have a branch.

And I was living in like Fort Myers. So it was like an hour and a half drive. And then when I did an OT 101 here, it was, uh, or was a. It was a different training. But it was like, yeah, people are in Brownsville. People are in McAllen. It's an hour and a half between them for doing this on Zoom. And so it was.

Yeah, I mean, Zoom has a forward. That was why I asked. Yeah. Another great, since you're placing hold, Sadie, another great book is Jen Schrades, the revolution that wasn't. And look, I think didn't get read as much as it should have. And I reviewed it and tried to like get everybody, all of my friends to read it. And no one's taking me up on it.

So I need somebody on the podcast or a listener to please read it. me. But it's a, the first chapter, the intro is about, uh, uh, the challenge of handing a flyer to a worker in rural North Carolina. Just how do you get a flyer into somebody's hand, you know? So when I say I'm interested in organizing, like I talked to a friend today who was like, oh, I heard, I was talking to some friends about your campaign and they said you were radical, but I looked at your Facebook and it doesn't look like you're a radical, you know, and so like you also have to like not be a radical. the people who need you to not be a radical, you know, so that you can, it's like many, many conversations.

And, you know, my other MAs in rhetoric and composition. So thinking about the rhetorical situation, what story do I have to tell in a given context to get people in the room? Because for me, like, we're going to get together and learn how to have an organizing conversation. I'm totally there, you know, but I've tried to hold these sessions at conferences like on the side, like without institutional support, which means you doing it at like a round table in the lobby or in the lounge, So part of why you want to run ALA is because they have access to meeting rooms and that's like no small thing. But trying to get people through the door, how do you get people energized? How do you get people hopeful?

Like I don't know. I talked to so many people who feel so hopeless right now. So could the association like show up with a couple of clipboards and some spreadsheets, handouts and a bullseye and a sort of big comical thermometer where we, you know, designed a bunch of rising actions to turn up the heat on the boss? You know, like that could be fun to do together. And, you know, if I want, I would try to do that with everybody. Yeah. Like, don't you want to hang out, Justin, now that we've had this conversation, do you want to get together?

Like, I want to see the maps you made for your, you know, I want to see how you mapped your stuff. Like, it's just, those are fun conversations to have. Yeah, absolutely. I still happen somewhere, I think. If not, I can get him from the local rep. Arthur has joined the chat. Yes, Arthur's trying to get him to say hi.

Oh, big stretch. Big stretch. I dug up the salary sharing document, which looks like it's still going and still being updated. So I'm going to put that in the show notes so everyone can go and add their salary anonymously and their demographic information so that we have. You can find librarians in your area of your position and compare it and that way you know. So I'll be sharing that out again. And then I've kind of left the action-oriented question because we always try and have one at the end.

And I thought maybe you would like to ask us an action-oriented question. about like what concretely to do. It's a sort of a leading question we always try and throw it at the end. But I have a suspicion you might have one for us. Like the question is what should we do? What is to be done? It can be sometimes. I try to make it more specific, but it's more or less like, yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm asking for your vote for president of the American Library Association. That's the action I think that everyone should be taking, of course. But what do you all think we should do? Yeah. Back myself into a corner. You did. ask me what I should, what the small action is. So I did.

Do some consciousness raising, I think maybe. I think I should post on Twitter more. Definitely post on Twitter more. That can be a form of consciousness raising if you do, right? Like, what are we going to do? That's the question. What are we going to do? And I actually think it's a real, it's a gift to give somebody something to do.

So if you have something for me to do, I should pet Arthur. Let me know. My three are sitting over there on the bed looking at the door because they heard a sound. Yeah, I love my cat. I think there's a lot of parallel organizations that are still close enough to the ALA. I think people have mentioned things like Reforma and different roundtables that you might be sort of tangentially part of, even if you're not an ALA member, because I've definitely been taking part in some of those roundtables, have been led into those discussions before. I think if you feel like ALA membership isn't good for you, it isn't going to work for you right now.

you can still get involved in some of these tangential organizations, and that is probably one place where you can have one more say because it's a smaller group of people. But it's also a large enough group of people that it's going to catch the larger organizations' attention. And that's the best way to get the things that you care about noticed. So I guess that's what I would say is the action-oriented question about ALA. trying to keep it on topic. Jay, are you going to join ALA? Have I convinced you? I have to look at my finances because I have a lot of credit card debt from all the moving I've had to do in the past however many years because I haven't had a job that didn't end in two years ever until now.

Yeah. So, like, I have a very good salary and I live in New Hampshire, so I have to pay state income tax. But, you know, just credit card payments to get you. Yeah. Like a string of precarious positions. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I had moving debt for, I think, about three years. I've never left New York. So I finally got rid of it. Yeah, I was, like, homeless for a few months before I moved out here. So, like, I had debt from, like, living in an extended stay and everything. That's intense. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Don't want to end it on that moment. Yeah, I feel like I didn't make you all laugh. I feel like I try to be funny, but maybe it's the late evening. You have a very good dry sense of humor. I can. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Arthur likes it. He can't hear you, but he's up here. I'm so glad to hear it. He likes. He likes Twitter. Say, have them. Oh my gosh. Did you see that video I posted of Gary having a drink of water today? I have a good content. I strongly recommend heading over to Twitter to check that out. That's my action set for all of you. It's pretty priceless. Okay. I'll put that in the show notes too. I'm not a member of ALA, but Arthur endorses you. I endorse you too, but Arthur endorses you. Can Arthur join ALA?

Cat Cawcass. Yeah, we'll set it up. He's a king, so I don't know if, yeah. Isn't that right, bub? Yeah. Oh, he's stretching his leg out. Do it for the cat picks. We should, we should make. Organized for the cat picks.

We should make, like, an Arthur, like, campaign photo, poster op. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm Arthur and I, and I support this candidate for president of ALA. I endorse a picture like. Is he a natural leader? Like, do you think the other cats will go with him? He's literally, A literal king. He's King Arthur. So, of course.

So when he's in the, oh, sorry, saying like in the, in the shelter before I got him, they would put him in with the new cats and kittens who were scared because he's so gentle and calming. So yeah, people, he would, he'd be a good leader. Sorry, Sadie. Oh, that's okay. When does voting end? I've never been a member of A.A. So I assume that there is a deadline. Polls open on March 14th, and you will receive a, if you are an ALA member, you will receive a ballot in the mail. Polls close April 6th, with results to be announced April 13th. They're going to call me on the phone. And I tried to get out of it. I tried to be like, maybe you could call my friend, but they were like, we are going to call you. So I have to receive that phone call.

And I'm pretty freaked out about it. So if anybody wants to volunteer to receive that phone call, because, you know, I put a lot of energy into this and I really hope I win. I'll be pretty disappointed if I don't, you know. So when I think about looking at my phone that day, maybe I'll just turn it off. I don't know. It feels kind of high. Like, you know, I feel like I'm out on a big limb right now. It's like a little bit scary.

Make him go to voicemails. Yeah. Arthur, will you take the phone call for Emily? I'll have them call, Arthur. Thank you so much for volunteering. And thanks for having me on the show. I super appreciate the opportunity to chat about libraries with folks. Yeah.

Thanks for coming on. That's it, unless there's any final questions for anybody. Good night.