Disability, Identity, and Professionalism: Precarity in Librarianship

Moeller, Christine M.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/104670 Copy

Description

Title

Disability, Identity, and Professionalism: Precarity in Librarianship

Author(s)

Moeller, Christine M.

Issue Date

2019

Keyword(s)

• Disability
• Identity
• Librarianship

Abstract

Although the field of disability studies has examined disability across many contexts, the experience of library workers remains largely unexamined. Library literature tends to focus on the experiences of library users, rather than address the structural inequities in the profession itself. In the United States, current conversations within higher education and academic librarianship around resilience and professionalism create additional barriers to inclusion and exclude the lived experiences of those with disabilities. Additionally, existing processes designed to address disability treat its existence as a problem in need of a solution, and in doing so, further contribute to the workplace precarity experienced by library workers. Instead of maintaining existing systemic barriers and perpetuating an ableist professional ideal that places responsibility on the individual to be resilient, libraries and library workers need to redefine professionalism, minimize the stigma associated with any type of disability, and reduce precarity for disabled library employees. Only then can libraries and library workers focus on equity and inclusion for all.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press. The School of Information Sciences at Illinois. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Library Trends 67 (3). Winter 2019

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104670

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0006

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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