Labor in Academic Libraries
Library Trends Special Issue
Library Trends Special Issue
CFP URL: https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/library-trends/call-papers-july-2018
Guest Editors
Emily Drabinski, Long Island University, Brooklyn
Aliqae Geraci, Cornell University
Roxanne Shirazi, The Graduate Center, CUNY
The topic of labor in academic libraries has emerged as an area of critical interest in both academic library and archives communities. Library workers have long been at the center of labor struggles in higher education. Additionally, librarians and archivists have worked against the relative invisibility of their work within an academy that centers the concerns of disciplinary faculty who often see knowledge workers as adjunct to the scholarly enterprise. We believe the time is right for a collection of essays that can frame the work of librarians, archivists, and library workers within the broader workplace issues of the university.
We invite contributions in the form of qualitative and quantitative research, analytic essays, and historical explorations that address the broad range of issues facing information workers in the academic setting. Potential essays and articles within this theme might address the following:
Contact the editors at academiclibrarylabor@gmail.com.
Timeline:
Abstracts and proposals (no more than 500 words): July 1, 2018
Notification: July 15, 2018
Initial drafts due: October 15, 2018
Guest Editors
Emily Drabinski, Long Island University, Brooklyn
Aliqae Geraci, Cornell University
Roxanne Shirazi, The Graduate Center, CUNY
The topic of labor in academic libraries has emerged as an area of critical interest in both academic library and archives communities. Library workers have long been at the center of labor struggles in higher education. Additionally, librarians and archivists have worked against the relative invisibility of their work within an academy that centers the concerns of disciplinary faculty who often see knowledge workers as adjunct to the scholarly enterprise. We believe the time is right for a collection of essays that can frame the work of librarians, archivists, and library workers within the broader workplace issues of the university.
We invite contributions in the form of qualitative and quantitative research, analytic essays, and historical explorations that address the broad range of issues facing information workers in the academic setting. Potential essays and articles within this theme might address the following:
- the impact of unions in academic libraries, social justice unionism, relationship between union activists and progressive/left circles in librarianship
- university library leadership and participation in shared governance models
- discussions of hierarchies, divisions, and power dynamics between and among library workers
- affective labor and its value in academic libraries
- corporatization of the university and libraries
- the growth of contract, part-time, contingent, and student labor in library staffing models
- labor side of educational technology and the adoption of corporate platforms
- the pitfalls of pipeline and residency programs as a strategy for diversifying professions
- revisiting debates around faculty status and tenure for librarians
- the implications for full time labor of casualization--for workers and the profession as a whole
- faculty and academic worker organizing
- the roles of librarians and archivists as scholars and knowledge workers in the academy
- the changing structures and relationships in the higher education workplace
Contact the editors at academiclibrarylabor@gmail.com.
Timeline:
Abstracts and proposals (no more than 500 words): July 1, 2018
Notification: July 15, 2018
Initial drafts due: October 15, 2018
