There are three faculty librarians involved with the creation and upkeep of this libguide. Soph Myers-Kelley (MILS) is a white, transmasculine, neurodivergent, queer, and disabled person from Minnesota. Jamie Bloss (MLIS) is a middle-aged, cisgender, white woman who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and then ventured to work in libraries in Ohio; Suva, Fiji; and Greenville, North Carolina. Heidi Reis (MLIS) is a white, cisgender woman from an upper middle class background born in Cleveland, Ohio.
All the involved contributors are white medical librarians from East Carolina University. We are all members of the Laupus Library DEI committee. We all come from a background of enough privilege to be able to obtain master's degrees in library of information science and medical library positions. While we each have minoritized identities, we ultimately receive much privilege because of the way we look, the educational background we share, and the way we engage with the world.
As white people, we would like to acknowledge that despite good intentions and our support of the dismantling of systemic racism and oppressive forces, our efforts to conduct or support the research listed above and gathering the resources presented in this guide may risk being patronizing, imperialist, or recolonizing based on the viewpoints we were raised with and as white academics with master's degrees. We are not full-time DEI experts and this work is meant to make anti-racist resources more broadly accessible. Like what adrienne maree brown writes in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, we are conduits for this information, not proprietors or owners. Not all voices and viewpoints are accounted for and we are outsiders in doing this anti-racist work, so please help us build, lovingly critique, and evolve the ideas in this guide by emailing us or filling out the qualtrics survey.
Anti-Racism - is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably from https://www.aclrc.com/antiracism
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The guide is divided into the following sections:
The faculty authors recognize that racism and other modalities of oppression result in negative outcomes, especially for minoritized populations, both in the world of healthcare and medicine as well as in other areas of life. Working towards anti-racism, while a project that can never be complete, is worth pursuing to create a more equitable world. This is why we've created an anti-racist-focused libguide- to offer guidance for those who are working, be it within the studies of the ECU health sciences campus or beyond, on thinking, speaking, and acting from a place of intentionality and knowledgeability.
Anti-racist learning (and unlearning) is a continuous, lifelong process, and we hope these resources will guide you on what can at times be an uncomfortable journey. Anti-racism is not just the acknowledgment of racist systems or statements of positionality, or just recognizing social determinants of health and the impact they have. It is a process of deep self-reflection, conversation, and change in behavior resulting in changed or entirely new systems of being. Remember that you are not alone; contact the library faculty authors, esteemed colleagues, or friends to walk with you on the path. Anti-racism is a community effort and we are here with you!
