by like_any_other | 2025-12-19 14:54:03+00:00
> There is a difference between a professional academic librarians managing a collection and political activists suppressing societal critiques and marginalized identities.

Yes, the difference is the political activism of librarians is institutionalized [0]. You don't view the absence of Jared Taylor's "White Identity", or any similar book, from school libraries, as "suppressing societal critiques", do you? Why, because it's done quietly and tacitly?

It's so funny seeing the same people complaining how every institution is systemically racist or whatever-ist (including math [1,2] - I made sure links are for the US, since apparently that is such a special case that critiques of institutions in even the most closely related countries are completely inapplicable to it), then turn around and claim that "no, this institution that does what I like is beyond politics, driven by pure expertise", even in a field as fuzzy and political as child education.

> The reference you posted is about collection management at libraries London School of Economics in England.

Thank you for this uselessly reductive interpretation. While yes of course libraries in those other, lesser countries are politicized and in need of correction, libraries in the US are objective and beyond reproach - unless [3] that [4] reproach [5] comes [6] from [7] the [8] left [9,10,11].

When activists lobby to change institutions how I like, this is good and necessary - those institutions are systemically racist, colonialist, and biased!

When activists lobby to change institutions how you like [12], this is bad and political - those institutions are dispassionate, apolitical, objective experts!

[0] https://libnews.umn.edu/event/librarians-and-social-justice-...

[1] https://www.clrn.org/why-is-mathematics-racist/

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematic...

[3] What It Means to Decolonize the Library - https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/l...

[4] Interpreting decolonization in academic libraries - https://www.ala.org/news/2021/12/interpreting-decolonization...

[5] Decolonizing the CSW Library - https://library.csw.org/home/decolonize

[6] Taking Steps to Decolonize Library Collections, Policies, and Services - https://serials.atla.com/proceedings/article/download/3336/4...

[7] Over the last decade, there have been increasing calls to “decolonize” the archive. - https://whc.yale.edu/what-colonial-archive

[8] Diversifying the Curriculum & Decolonizing the Collection - https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2022/04/11/diversifying-...

[9] Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-howard-un...

[10] Diversifying Collections - https://www.wocandlib.org/features/2022/5/11/diversifying-co...

[11] Anti-Racist Collections Workbook: A Tool for Building Inclusive Library Collections - https://www.journals.ala.org/index.php/lrts/article/view/855...

[12] I don't actually like it, I just don't fool myself into thinking what librarians are doing is any different. If anything, it is worse, since it is invisible and unchallenged.