Topographies of whiteness : mapping whiteness in library and information science

Exploring the diverse terrain that makes up library and information science (LIS), this collection features the work of scholars, practitioners, and others who draw from a variety of theoretical approaches to name, problematize, and ultimately fissure whiteness at work. Contributors not only provide critical accounts of the histories of whiteness - particularly as they have shaped libraries and archives in higher education - but also interrogate current formations, from the policing of people of color in library spaces to imagined LIS futures. This volume also considers possibilities for challenging oppressive legacies and charting a new course towards anti-racist librarianship, whether in the classroom, at the reference desk, or elsewhere.

Foreword / Todd Honma -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction / Gina Schlesselman-Tarango -- Part one. Early formations: Tracing the historical operations of whiteness. A revisionist history of Andrew Carnegie's library grants to black colleges / Shaundra Walker -- Interrogating whiteness in college and university archival spaces at predominantly white institutions / Nicole M. Joseph, Katherine M. Crow, and Janiece Mackey / The academic research library's white past and present / Ian Beilin -- Part two. Present topographies: Surveying whiteness in contemporary LIS. The weight of being a mirror: a librarian's short autobiography / Sarah Hannah Gómez -- Looking the part / Jessica Macias -- Nostalgia, cuteness, and geek chic: Whiteness in Orla Kiely's Library / Vani Natarajan -- White feminism and distributions of power in academic libraries / Megan Watson -- Who killed the world? White masculinity and the technocratic library of the future / Rafia Mirza and Maura Seale -- The whiteness of practicality / David James Hudson -- Part three. Fissures: Imagining new cartographies. Mapping topographies from the classroom: Addressing whiteness in the LIS curriculum / Nicole A. Cooke, Katrina Spencer, Jennifer Margolis Jacobs, Cass Mabbott, Chloe Collins, and Rebekah M. Lloyd -- Mapping whiteness at the reference desk / April M. Hathcock and Stephanie Sendaula -- My librarianship is not for you / Jorge R. López-McKnight -- Breaking down borders: dismantling whiteness through international borders / Natalie Baur, Mararita Vargas-Betancourt, and George Apodaca -- Disrupting whiteness: Three perspectives on white anti-racist librarianship