LibVoices

Jennifer Brown is a Black speculative fiction writer & Undergraduate Learning & Research Librarian at UC Berkeley. Critical pedagogies not only guide her day-to-day librarianship, but they also bedrock her work as one of the Community Managers for We Here, an organization that provides a safe & supportive community for Black and Indigenous folks, and People of Color, in library and information sci...

Madeline Peña is the Digital Content Manager at the Los Angeles Public Library. She comes from a background in graphic design, marketing, and TV production and has worked in public libraries for over 12 years. An active member of REFORMA, The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, she served as 2018-2019 President and was the recipient...

Nichelle M. Hayes MPA, MLS, is Vice-President of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and works as the Leader of the Center for Black Literature & Culture (CBLC) ~ Indianapolis Public Library. She is a lover of poetry and a lifelong learner, she blogs at https://thetiesthatbind.blog, where she discusses genealogy and keeping families connected. Hayes is a native of Indianapolis and...

Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies, where she serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She also holds appointments in African American Studies and Gender Studies. She is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the Unive...

Natalie + Mieka are two black cis women who are mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends to many.  We both work + live in North Philly and absolutely love connecting with the patrons within the library in authentic and transparent ways.  We truly believe that at the heart of library work, there is learning and growing with the community we serve as well as our fellow co-workers!

Ziba attended graduate school at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, receiving a Master of Science in Library and Information Science, 2012. In graduate school, Ziba received a certificate of specialization in archives and special collections while interning at the American Film Institute's Louis B. Mayer Library Special Collections and the University of California in Irvine's Special Col...

Holly A. Smith is the College Archivist at Spelman College. She received her B.A. in History and Black Studies from The College of William and Mary, an M.A. in History from Yale University, and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College. She co-authored the article “This [Black] Woman’s Work: Exploring Archival Projects that Embrace the Identity of the Memory Worker” (KULA Jou...

Shannon Jones (she/her/hers) is the Director of Libraries for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Prior to her arrival at MUSC, Shannon worked as the Associate Director for Research and Education for Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Shannon focuses her research on staff recruitment and retention, diversity, equity,...

LaQuanda T. Onyemeh is from Western New York and currently resides in Houston, TX. She is a Training & Consulting partner at ProQuest.  LaQuanda is the Co-Founder of WOC+Lib and serves as the Director of Marketing & Outreach. Prior to her current roles, LaQuanda was employed as a mental health professional, teacher, and academic librarian. LaQuanda’s academic accomplishments are just as varied as...

Jina DuVernay is the Program Director for Engagement & African American Collections at Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library. Jina was the Collection Development Archivist for African American Collections at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. Prior to that, she was the Special Collections Librarian at HBCU, Alabama State Universi...

April M. Hathcock is the director of scholarly communications and information policy at New York University on Manhattan, an ancestral island of the Lenni Lenape. Her work involves educating the campus community on issues of ownership, access, and rights in the research life cycle. She has a JD and LLM in international and comparative law from Duke University School of Law and, before entering lib...

Joyce (pronouns: they/them) is the brand spankin' new Head Archivist of Lambda Archives of San Diego, a community-driven organization that preserves and shares LGBTQ+ history. They co-created and are an inaugural editor for up//root, a new publication/media space for Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color (BIPOC) to share research and meditations on knowledge, systems, experiences and/or ways of bein...

Rose L. Chou (she/her/hers) is Budget Officer at the American University Budget Office, where she works with academic and administrative units on budget oversight and development. Previously, Rose worked in a number of roles at AU Library: Budget & Personnel Manager, Budget Coordinator, Reference Librarian, and Circulation Specialist. She was also Reference Archivist at the Smithsonian’s National...

Dr. Renate Chancellor is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science at the Catholic University of America. Her research focuses on human information behavior, organizational leadership, and social justice in LIS. She has presented her research in both national and international venues. Her recent publications include: Struggling To Breathe: COVID-19, Protest...

Eboni Henry was born and raised in New York City. She attended Tuskegee University and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English, as well as Clark Atlanta University where she received her Masters in Library Science and Information. She has worked as a librarian for sixteen years and is an active member of ALA, BCALA, DCLA, AASL, and ALSC. She currently serves on the ALA Executive Board, ALA Internat...

Laura Tadena (she/her/hers) is an Inclusive Services Consultant at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin, Texas. She is Tejana from South Texas and a former school and diversity resident librarian. She is also one of the site admins of a national resident Slack Workspace that provides a safe community space for individuals currently or who have previously been in resident libra...

Lalitha Nataraj is the Social Sciences Librarian at California State University San Marcos. She holds an MLIS from UCLA and a BA in English Literature and Women’s Studies from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include: feminist pedagogy, relational-cultural theory in LIS, South Asian Americans in librarianship, mindfulness practices and contemplative pedagogies in the IL classroom, as well as th...

Nisha is a South Asian American librarian, writer, podcaster, and coach. She is a Chicago native and LA transplant. Nisha has also worked as an IT consultant, IT recruiter, voiceover artist, and speech therapist. She writes creative non-fiction and is a host of MigrAsians, a podcast that invites creative and political Asians to talk about their story of migration and how it informs the work they d...

Dr. Raymond Pun (he/him) is an academic/school librarian in the Bay Area, California. He has been in the profession for over 15 years. He is an active member of ALA and the ethnic affiliates. He is currently a member of the ALA Policy Corps., and has published and presented extensively in the field. He holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership, MA in East Asian Studies, and a MLS in Library Scie...

Nataly Blas is a Latinx librarian, first generation student, and coffee enthusiast. She is interested in mentorship in LIS and women of color in leadership. Nataly is currently the Business Librarian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA.  Jennifer Masunaga identifies as a mixed race, Mexicanese (Mexican American-Japanese American) librarian. She recently became an Instruction and Refe...

Derrick Jefferson is a member of the library faculty at American University in Washington, DC. His research is focused on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion issues, specifically in higher education libraries, and mentoring new librarians to the profession. Representation matters and he is keen on encouraging marginalized and underrepresented people of all walks of life to librarianship. Born...

Trevor A. Dawes is the Vice Provost for Libraries and Museums and May Morris University Librarian at the University of Delaware. In this role, he oversees the operations of the campus libraries, museums, and the University of Delaware Press.  Prior to assuming this post, Dawes was an associate university librarian at Washington University in St. Louis. In this role, he had responsibility for the w...

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick earned her MSLS from the historic Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information Studies. She is co-editor of The Small and Rural Academic Library: Leveraging Resources and Overcoming Limitations (ACRL 2016) and the author of two annotated bibliographies: The Kaleidoscopic Concern (ACRL 2009) and Global Evolution (ACRL 2007). Kendrick also offers professional de...

Our next voice is Dr. Nicole Cooke! Dr. Nicole A. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina. Her research and teaching interests include human information behavior, mis/disinformation, critical cultural information studies, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. She was the 2019 ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award recipient,...

Our first voice is Jennifer A. Ferretti!  Jennifer A. Ferretti (she/her/hers) is an artist and Digital Initiatives Librarian at the Maryland Institute College of Art on Piscataway Land (Baltimore, Maryland). She is a first-generation American Latina/Mestiza whose librarianship is guided by critical perspectives, not neutrality. With a firm belief that art is information, she is interested in the r...