Surfacing Hidden Labor

Image by John Froschauer

On January 25, Christine Moeller and I had the opportunity to attend a workshop presentation hosted by the University of Puget Sound library. This workshop was lead by Emily Drabinski who talked about how critical librarianship disrupts existing structures within and outside the library.

In short, critical librarianship is a movement by library workers to incorporate social justice practices into their work in libraries. What that looks like in application, however, depends on the individual, their circumstances, and where they work. However, as Emily pointed out, one of the main goals of critical librarianship is to "surface hidden labor." I was never (or still am) a heavy library user, and it wasn’t until I worked at my university’s library that I got to see what went on behind the scenes to keep the library functioning. My duties included processing new books and shelving any books that were used or returned, but throughout my four years as a student worker, I got to see how the circulation, interlibrary loan, AV, cataloging, collection development, and instruction departments worked together to make it all happen.

Last year, four new people (Anna, Christine, Megan, and I) joined the Mortvedt Library team, and with that came a lot of learning. Over the past year, those of us had to learn a lot about PLU and its community, the library and its users, and what was being done before we arrived. Along the way, and as we got settled into our different roles, we began to make changes to processes, policies, and procedures. To quote Emily again, “disrupting begins with organizing.”

By starting a blog, we want to highlight and bring transparency to the work that happens in the library. Over the coming weeks and (hopefully) months, you’ll read about the work that is happening in circulation, the archives, library instruction sessions, and beyond. We’ll tell you about important events happening in the library and around campus. We’ll let you know about new resources. We’ll tell you about the great work our student workers are doing.

Thank you for reading. If there’s something you’d like to hear more about, let us know.

Roberto is an instruction and reference librarian. You can contact him or learn more about him in his profile page.