White spaces, Asian faces: Onboarding for racialized academic librarians

Panel Description

Racialized librarians experience vocational awe and the consequences of how vocational awe plays out with their white colleagues. Namely, racialized librarians witness the inconsistencies between library values and library practices (Ettarh, 2018). Through a series of vignettes, two racialized academic librarians, one mid-career and one early-career, will share their experiences and reflections on the hiring and onboarding of a racialized librarian at a predominantly white institution. These vignettes illustrate the gaps in the existing recruitment and onboarding processes and how these institutional failures cause harm to both new and existing employees. While libraries and librarians have made commitments to diversifying the field and decolonizing their teaching and external-facing practices, this attention has not been extended to inward-facing library policies and practices, as evidenced by the recent research on bureaucracy in libraries (Nataraj, Hampton, Matlin & Meulemans, 2020). The presenters pose areas for further investigation into onboarding practices for racialized librarians and propose that libraries treat onboarding not as a checklist but as a practice to intentionally retain BIPOC librarians.

Speakers

Sabrina Wong

Scholarly Communications and Copyright Librarian @Capilano University

Sabrina Wong (she/her) is the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Librarian and Tourism & Outdoor Recreation Management Liaison at Capilano University. She is interested in how equity, diversity and inclusion practices can guide our work in libraries. She holds a MLIS and a BA from the University of British Columbia.

Ashley Manhas

Community Engagement Librarian @Capilano University

Ashley Manhas (she/her) is the Community Engagement Librarian and Social Sciences Liaison at Capilano University. She is a first-generation university graduate who is invested in inclusion in academic spaces. She holds an MLIS from the University of Alberta and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.