GELS: Growing Equitable Library Services

A five-part training series, Decolonize This Space: Making Antiracism Real in Public Libraries will offer an intensive, dynamic learning community for librarians to 1 unlearn the mythology of US public libraries through in historical truth-telling, 2 engage in critical self-reflection as racialized beings, 3 connect the racialized self to individual librarian practice, 4 examine existing systems and processes within their libraries, 5 develop concrete strategies for anticolonial / antiracist intervention and action.

Wee the People

Wee The People (WTP) is a Boston-based social justice project for kids ages 4-12 and the adults in their lives. Launched in 2015 by two Black mothers, Wee The People designs high-impact, arts-integrated workshops and events that explore activism, resistance, and social action through the visual and performing arts: music, dance/movement, theater, graphic arts, spoken word, and storytelling.

Facilitators

Elyse Seltzer (she/her) is a school librarian, DEI practitioner, affinity and professional development facilitator, and presenter. She has presented locally and nationally on literature for culturally and linguistically diverse students and using books to create spaces of empathy. Elyse strives to be an anti-racist educator and is dedicated to empowering students through literature and resources that highlight agency in their daily lives. Her curiosity drives her to model critical thinking and the art of asking essential questions, fostering 21st century learners who are prepared for the future with empathy gained from engaging with diverse perspectives. Elyse received her MLS from Simmons University in 2009. She is actively involved in professional organizations such as the Greater Boston Cooperative Library Association, Massachusetts Library System, Massachusetts School Library Association, Elementary Independent School Librarians, the American Library Association, and the American Educational Research Association. Elyse is a doctoral student at UMass Boston in the Urban Education, Leadership and Policy program.

Francie Latour (she/her) is a racial justice educator, children’s book author, and group facilitator whose work focuses on equity, access, inclusion, and belonging, with a special interest in the educational experiences of historically marginalized groups in predominantly white institutions. Since 2012, she has led and collaborated on equity and inclusion initiatives at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Boston University, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Middletown Racial Justice Coalition, the youth literacy and publishing nonprofit 826 Boston, and dozens of school districts and public library systems across Massachusetts. In 2015 Francie co-founded, and now leads, the racial justice education project Wee The People. Wee The People designs high-impact, arts-integrated programming for students K12 and antiracism training series for educators, administrators, parents, and a wide range of community stakeholder groups.

Decolonize This Space: Making Antiracism Real in Public Libraries on Niche Academy 

The CT State Library Niche Academy is available to all CT library workers and contains self-paced trainings and webinars. You can now access the Reimagining Library Outreach and Access with Libraries Without Borders in CT State Library Niche Academy.

Any CT library worker can create a free account in Niche Academy.  Once you have an account, all your trainings and progress will be saved to your profile. 

The Racial Equity Institute (REI) is an alliance of trainers, organizers, and institutional leaders working to create racially equitable systems by helping organizations develop tools to challenge patterns of power and grow equity. The Groundwater Institute - a partnership between REI and Impactive - assists leaders in the corporate, nonprofit and government sectors apply information gleaned from racial equity analysis for strategic action to impact change.

The groundwater metaphor is designed to help practitioners at all levels internalize the reality that we live in a racially structured society, and that is what causes racial inequity. The metaphor is based on three observations:

1. Racial inequity looks the same across systems;

2. Socio-economic difference does not explain the racial inequity; and,

3. Inequities are caused by systems, regardless of people’s culture or behavior. (Source)

The below redacted, REI slides provide data-based information that shows the vast systemic inequity in everything from child welfare, education, juvenile justice, and more. According to REI racial inequity isn't caused by individual "bad decisions" or a bout of bad luck. Racial inequity is systemic and prevalent in all aspects of society on a massive scale. 

While the data available from REI doesn't specifically provide information that pertain to the working of public libraries, systemic inequity saturates all institutions. 

In the state of Connecticut, some of the richest people in America live a community away from some of the poorest people in America. In the fall of 2020, Tracie D. Hall, Executive Director of the American Library Association, shared information and issued a call to action to the library residents of Connecticut via a presentation to the Black Caucus of the American Library Association- Connecticut Affiliate. Tracie takes listeners through information on:

• Information poverty
• Information redlining
• Banning African Americans from public libraries
• Libraries' role in inconsistent educational access