At 11:15 CDT, my presentation with Robin Bradford will be running on the ALA Annual Virtual Conference site.
Our talk is about putting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the forefront of your Collection Development and RA Service. We recorded this presentation in early May, and thankfully, it has aged perfectly.
This is a talk both of us have been giving separately and together for years now. It has a blatant anti-racist message. It is a no holds barred, finger pointing, presentation where we tell our entire profession why we are failing in our service to readers when it comes to EDI. We have tangible things you can do immediately to stop being part of the problem, to stop holding up white, heteronormative, abled bodied books as the norm and everything else as other. We are done with excuses.
Again, this is a message we both have been promoting for years and have been frustrated by the fact that all you well meaning white folks in librarianship agree with us when you are listening to us say it, but then go back and do the same crap that we say not to right away.
I am feeling positive about this program actually making a difference for the first time. Normally, I know I reach 1 or 2 people out of every 100 [because they email me after about how I made them understand, finally], but today, our audience is large and I feel like people are ready to take responsibility for their actions in a way they haven't before. Well, let me modify that to say, more people are ready. I know we still have a huge uphill battle to wage.
This leads me to frustration too though. Normally I have an entire hour to yell at everyone, oh, I mean give this presentation, but Robin and I only got 15 minutes each. Now, I think we did a great job in those 30 minutes, but there is so much more.
Robin and I will be in the chat live to answer your questions. Also, the conference is taking questions through Friday and we will pop back in to answer those. You can also view the presentation all summer.
But if you want the most up to date longer version of my EDI and RA presentation, contact me. I can give the webinar anytime for your group and if you mention ALA Virtual I will give you a discounted rate of only $200, that's $150 off my normal rate.
Click on the RA for All logo to contact me.
I would also like to publicly thank everyone who worked behind the scenes to make this virtual ALA appearance possible. First the RUSA CODES RA Research and Trends Committee for sponsoring this program and championing it [something PLA refused to do]. Second, Victoria and Lori as representatives from NoveList for doing all of the technical work to record us and make it available to all of you. And finally, Susan Maguire [my editor at Booklist] for moderating our program today, but also doing a lot of leg work for us yesterday to make sure Robin and I were prepared for today's live Q & A.
Finally, I want to end with a coupon from our publisher, ALA Editions. Robin and I will both have new books out through them soon. Hint: you don't have to actually be an attendee to get this deal:
The ALA Store is offering a discount code for all ALA Virtual 2020 attendees. If you can find a way to share this info during your presentation, please do!
The code is: VIRTUAL15
Valid beginning 6/15/20 thru 6/29/20 for 15% off any online purchase of $40.00 or more at https://www.alastore.ala.org/. ALA Members receive 25% off with code.*
*Coupon cannot be combined with other coupon codes, bulk discounts, multi-level licensing on digital products, or already discounted items, including sets; offer good towards online purchases only and may be used a maximum of three times per customer.
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