LibVoices

Patty Wong has been the City Librarian for the Santa Clara City Library since October 2021. Her career includes leadership roles in diverse settings, encompassing urban, rural, and suburban communities. As a seasoned part-time faculty member at SJSU iSchool, she also held the position of ALA President from 2021 to 2022. Patty is recognized for her contributions to equity, diversity, inclusion, digital equity, and youth development.

In this episode, we interview Tiffani N. Carter.

Derek T. Mosley is the Archives Division Manager at Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta, Georgia. He has held this role since 2016. He has previously worked at the Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library and the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Mosley’s enthusiastic and engaged leadership has shaped the archival profession on local and national levels. He has served on conference planning committees, election committees, and scholarship committees for several organizations. He is a founding member of the Atlanta Black Archives Alliance, a group that strives to educate Black communities on the importance of documenting their stories, and he was a member of the 2019 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute.

In 2021, he received the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board Award for Excellence in Documenting Georgia's History. In 2023, Mosley was inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, the highest honor the organization bestows. In 2024 Derek was elected as the Vice-President and President-Elect of the Society of American Archivists.

He graduated from Simmons University with an M.S. in Archives Management and Morehouse College with a B.A. in History.

Anastasia is an academic librarian interested in inclusion, retention, and representation in library workplace cultures. They work as a scholarly communications librarian at NYU and were previously a metadata librarian. Their research includes multiple topics, including applying critical race theory and relational-cultural theory in librarianship, identifying how white supremacy manifests in library institutional work cultures, and residency programs in academic libraries. They enjoy coffee, cats, singing, and analyzing people's word choices.

Laquanda M. Fields is the Fabulous Librarian – mom of two amazing daughters & three classy felines, and Ms. L to her students. Becoming a librarian was Laquanda’s childhood dream and she took a leap of faith to follow that dream three years ago. She joined Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School #19 in 2022. In just under two school years, Laquanda has earned School Library of the Year from the Rochester Regional Library Council, was named Community Partner of the Year by the Rochester Imagination Library, and a 2023 Forty Under 40 honoree by the Rochester Business Journal.

In addition to fashionably spreading the love of reading, Laquanda is actively involved in her community. She’s Co-Chair of the Strong’s Play Makers Leadership Council, a graduate of the 2024 class of Leadership Rochester, and a member of the Corn Hill Arts Festival Planning Committee. She serves on the boards of the Rochester Imagination Library and the Junior League of Rochester.

Conrrado Saldivar is Past President of the Wyoming Library Association and Tech Services Manager at the Natrona County Library in his hometown of Casper, WY. He received his MLIS in 2021 from the University of Washington iSchool and is a 2019 ALA Spectrum Scholar. As one of the few BIPOC librarians in Wyoming and as a leader in the Wyoming library community, he has worked to support EDI efforts in Wyoming, both for library staff and his community. In October 2023, he received the Wyoming Library Association’s Outstanding Hero/Heroine Award (alongside the Legislative Committee Chair) for his work in fighting against adverse legislation that would target library materials written by and about members of the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities.

Denisse Solis is the Digital Collections Librarian at the University of Denver (DU). Prior to this position, she was DU's first residency librarian. She began her career in her alma mater of Florida International University as a cataloger and has since occupied both public and technical positions within academic libraries. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, her research is deeply personal and driven by a desire to effect change. She refers to her work as "me-search," as it revolves around seeking answers to critical questions related to representation, equity, inclusion, and organizational culture.

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is an assistant curator and associate dean for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement at New York University Division of Libraries where she serves as the Faculty Diversity Search Liaison. Shawn is also an adjunct assistant professor at Pratt School of information, teaching Reference & Instruction. Shawn is a co-coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, a co-convenor of the Reference & Instruction Special Interest Group at METRO where she co-curated the Critical Pedagogy Symposium and Case Studies in Critical Pedagogy series. Shawn is the co-editor of a two-volume series, Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations in Archives and Practice and Queer Conversations in Identity and Libraries expected 2024 from Litwin Books/Library Juice Press.

Treshani is a cataloging librarian at an academic library in the Southeast region and has been employed in academic libraries since 2014. Her research interests include critical cataloging and diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic libraries and higher education. Treshani enjoys mentoring students of color in LIS and higher education, in general.

Katrina Spencer worked as the Librarian for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She is also an active writer whose works include “Uprooted, Nomadic & Displaced: The Unspoken Costs of the Upward Climb,” “The Comprehensive Guide to Resisting Overcommitment,” and various contributions to WOC + lib and Hack Library School. For Katrina’s tips on navigating the academic librarianship job market, check out her content on TikTok channel @katleespe. Also, visit her personal website, www.katleespe.com, for even more.

Crystal Chen is the Digital Educator Support Manager & Archivist at Facing History & Ourselves. She received her MSLIS from Pratt Institute and is an active member of the Chinese American Librarians Association and Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association. She also serves as a community admin for We Here (wehere. space), a supportive community for BIPOC in LIS.

Nicollette M. Davis (she/her) is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is an assistant librarian. She’s a community admin for We Here, a supportive space for BIPOC library workers and archivists. Before becoming an academic librarian, she spent several years working in public libraries as a supervising Reference librarian and Circulation head. Her interests include critical librarianship, BIPOC community building, community engagement, and critical pedagogy in library instruction. All views and ideas expressed are her own.

Isabel Espinal is a Research Services Librarian for Afro-American Studies, Latin American, Caribbean, and  Latinx Studies, Spanish & Portuguese, and Native American & Indigenous Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was born in New York City, two years after her parents immigrated from the Cibao countryside in the Dominican Republic. She has an AB in Romance Languages and Literature from Princeton University, a Masters in Library and Information Studies from UC Berkeley, and an MA and Ph.D. in American Studies, English department, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a past president of REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, and has written and given presentations on whiteness and diversity in librarianship, information literacy, the climate crisis and libraries, Dominican women writers in the United States, and Latinx literature, among other topics. Her most recent publication is the book chapter “Microaffections and Microaffirmations: Refusing to Reproduce Whiteness via Microaffirmative Actions,” in the book Dismantling Constructs of Whiteness in Higher Education, edited by Teresa Y. Neely and Margie Montañez and published by Routledge in 2022.

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 University while pursuing her MLIS from the University of Alabama. Jina serves as an editor of both Women of Color and Libraries (WOC+LIB) and the new Library Diversity and Residency Studies journal. She is passionate about engagement and outreach to communities of color, as well as recruiting, promoting, and retaining library professionals of color. Jina was a 2018 ALA Emerging Leader.