'In a way, the archive may act akin to the institution itself, dressing harm and isolation in the language of “care,” and participating in epistemic injustice against people with disabilities and their many “ways of knowing.”' #CripLib
on archival death
We've published some exciting archives-related articles this year and would like to accept more submissions like these, but we need your help!
Please share this call for volunteers to serve on the editorial board with your #archives colleagues
Hot. Library. Scholarship. 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Equity > "neutrality"
(scare quotes mine, but "neutrality" really must always be in quotation marks, amirite?)
📚
"Even when disabled people appear in the archive, they appear as objects of intervention rather than witnesses to their own lives. When disability materials are [viewed] according to the medical model, the archive reproduces the very framework that justified confinement and cure" #CripLib
In Brief: How do information workers resist the creation of archival “deathworlds”? With rising eugenicist rhetoric in the United States, sites of cultural memory face devastating impacts. These consequences are particularly felt by Disabled and multiply-marginalized communities. This article draws on Disability Justice principles and necropolitical framings to investigate how processes of erasure can be interrupted through active collaboration and critical reevaluation of power-sharing. By supporting alternative forms of knowledge sharing and honoring the lived experience of historically marginalized communities, especially those who have faced forced institutionalization, we hope to craft alternative methodologies that center community involvement and self-determination.
Another Way of Knowing: Resisting Eugenic Propaganda Through Community Archiving by Jess Petrazzuoli-Gallagher and Ashten Vassar-Cain
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2026/resisti...
Re-reading this piece helped me think through some things today. I'm sharing in case it can help someone else.
"... being committed to ongoing engagement with Māori knowledge can be personally rewarding as well as contributing to creating a more welcoming profession for Māori librarians. Creating opportunities for non-Māori librarians to share those positive experiences ... could be a really powerful tool"
@libraryleadpipe.bsky.social has been straight up cooking lately
Super proud to be the publishing editor of this article!
"concern about being qualified... was not the main barrier to [non-Māori librarians' willingness to engage with Māori issues]... much of the time, the knowledge required was at the level of attempting a basic reference desk request or consulting an online dictionary."
In Brief: This article presents some findings from a study of non-Māori librarian engagement with Māori knowledge. I asked non-Māori librarians (who predominantly identified as New Zealand European, a local synonym for White) about their journeys of learning and engagement, and Māori librarians about their experiences with their non-Māori colleagues’ engagement (or lack thereof). A key theme was fear on the part of non-Māori librarians. This acted as a barrier to engagement for non-Māori participants and created extra work for Māori librarians who were expected to pick up tasks related to Māori people and culture that their non-Māori colleagues declined to undertake. I suggest that when it comes to Māori knowledge, non-Māori librarians need to feel the fear and persevere, as well as being proactive to act as good allies to their Māori colleagues.
Fear and Burnout At the Interface of Librarianship and Māori Knowledge in Aotearoa New Zealand by Kathryn Oxborrow Vambe
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2026/librari...
"While it is important for learners to understand AI, I feel that it is also key for learners to be able to reflect upon and identify how AI is making them feel and how they are responding to AI, increasingly important given how persuasive AI hype and personalization can be."
"What does it mean to critically engage with something in the midst of being inundated with outlandish propaganda? ... Within a hype cycle, embracing a critical approach involves not just information and understanding but the confidence and knowledge to make and share critical views and arguments."
In Brief: Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy frameworks emphasize the importance of understanding Generative AI (GenAI) technologies. But our collective and individual understanding of GenAI is heavily shaped and mediated by the hype narratives that surround it, where GenAI is depicted as powerful, magical, and inevitable. Amidst such compelling narratives, we can face challenges in navigating narrative extremes and exaggerations and in making informed decisions about using GenAI tools. Alongside AI hype, we are also experiencing AI personalization features which encourage trust and positive feelings towards GenAI tools. Taken together, AI hype and AI personalization can challenge and even hinder our ability to engage critically and thoughtfully with GenAI. In this article, I will explore how our understanding of GenAI is influenced by AI hype and AI personalization and consider how hype narratives and personalization features fuel one another and encourage trust in and awe towards GenAI. By centering AI hype and AI personalization as key components to understanding and exploring GenAI, and by incorporating critical media and information literacy skills into AI literacy, I feel that we can develop an AI literacy that better contextualizes GenAI and encourages reflective and critical approaches that can help learners make sense of their emotionally complex experiences with and reactions to GenAI.
Making Sense of GenAI Amidst AI Hype and AI Personalization by Sarah Morris
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2026/ai-hype...
From Sarah Lamdan and @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social: "Librarianship at the Crossroads of Ice Surveillance" (2019): www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-sur... #indielib26
Call for editorial board members We have received a substantial increase in archives-related submissions over the past year. We are currently seeking editorial board members with archival experience and knowledge of current conversations in archives. We invite archivists who are able to meet deadlines, participate in a thoughtful manner in the peer review process, and creatively contribute to the journal to apply. Please submit the following to itlwtlp AT gmail DOT com by May 1, 2026: Letter of interest CV or Resume In your letter, consider answering the following questions: What do you see as the direction for the journal? What is your publishing experience, as an author, reviewer, and/or editor? (We welcome applications from people who want to develop their skills in this area but recommend that you have at least some experience with academic publishing in one of these areas prior to applying.) About Lead Pipe + Vision In the Library with the Lead Pipe is an open access, open peer-reviewed journal founded and run by a team of library workers working in various types of GLAM environments. Lead Pipe believes libraries and library workers can change the world for the better. We improve libraries, archives, professional organizations, and our communities of practice by exploring new ideas, starting conversations, documenting our concerns, and arguing for solutions. We encourage creative thinking, envelope-pushing, and constructive criticism.
Call for archives professionals
Link to full call: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
"DigitalArc (DA), was designed to support the creation of low-cost sustainable digital exhibits and archives built by and for communities who want to control how their histories are presented online."
Part 2 is out! Big hugs to my friends & coauthors, @kalanicraig.bsky.social & Sean Purcell. We grow so much from @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social 's open peer review process. Big thanks to @quinnanya.me @plach.bsky.social & @schomj.bsky.social for being awesome reviewers & editors.
Big thanks to @acls1919.bsky.social's Digital Justice grant for supporting DigitalArc and giving us the space to publish one of what we hope will be a few more articles/presentations focusing on the DigitalArc toolkit & platform.
It was a joy and honor to serve as the internal reviewer for this thoughtful #DigitalHumanities piece by @kalanicraig.bsky.social @mdalmau.bsky.social and Sean Purcell
In Brief: This article explores how minimal computing principles guided the parallel web development of two related but distinct publishing platforms, DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher. DigitalArc, a community-driven digital archive and exhibit platform, was developed in response to principles governing post-custodial archiving, taking it one step further to ensure communities maintain ownership of their materials and their digital artifacts. The Opaque Publisher, originally developed in support of a born-digital dissertation, adapts DigitalArc to support refusal theory for scholars who have to negotiate the tensions between using unethically obtained evidence in support of their research with moral objections to a lack of informed consent. At first glance, the use cases for each platform seem different, but both are providing mechanisms for individuals-by-proxy and communities to assert control over how their respective stories are shared.
Operationalizing Minimal Computing Values Through Shared Computing-Platform Development: A Case Study of DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher by Kalani Craig,Michelle Dalmau and Sean Purcell
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2026/digital...
"... the neutrality justification appears to be a smokescreen to cover up discomfort with a term that called out white racism; mandating neutrality in this case meant privileging being inoffensive to white people over acknowledging a widely accepted critique of systemic racism." #CritCat
"The definition of neutrality that LC, and by extension LCSH, seems to favor is one of passivity. Neutrality as indifference to social realities..." #CritCat
Terrific new article about how the idea of "neutrality" has been used for decades to deny the approval of #LCSH relating to marginalized people. Great description of how subject headings are created and how inordinate scrutiny is given to certain proposals in order to appear "unbiased." #critcat 📚
In Brief: This study examines the concept of neutrality in Library of Congress Subject Headings and the subject approval process by analyzing proposed headings that were rejected over a nearly 20-year period. It considers the place of neutrality in libraries more generally and argues that equity, rather than neutrality, is the appropriate lens for judging subject heading proposals. Finally, it recommends several reforms that could improve the subject heading process and make it more equitable.
Seeking Approval, Confronting Objectivity: Neutrality in the Library of Congress Subject Headings Approval Process
by Allison Bailund, Deborah Tomaras, Michelle Cronquist, and Tina Gross
www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2026/seeking...
Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal during our January open submission window. We look forward to reviewing all the proposals!
For our next open submission window: we will decide that based how many proposals we accept from this round. Based on previous years it is likely to be August 2026.
"Disabled patrons often engage in labor to manage others’ discomfort, navigate inaccessible environments, and advocate for their needs. This labor includes emotional and cognitive efforts to avoid being perceived as disruptive or burdensome, to explain one’s disability, or perform normativity..."
"This paper specifically reports on how dysconscious ableism affects disabled patrons in public libraries, using firsthand accounts to explore how ableist norms inform library environments and interactions."