Abstract:
In this session, presenters will share the findings of the recent Abolition in Special Collections survey and analyze what the results can reveal about the state of special collections practices. We will grapple with what the survey uncovered about how administrative policies valorize the security of objects at the expense of users and staff; promote the use of carceral technologies like surveillance; and advocate police interventions for so-called ‘problem’ communities. Panelists will address how harmful policies arise and provide pathways to pursue alternative tools that better meet the needs of our communities and our workers whenever harm is caused.
Description:
Objectives:
1. Reflect on how the social changes of the past year have drawn attention to the everyday ways that inequity pervades the lived realities of special collections workers and the communities we serve
2. Analyze data gathered from special collections workers about how unjust systems, particularly ideologies that promote carceral logic and mass incarceration, are at work within our special collections and archives administrative policies
3. Reckon with the uneven impacts of how such policies are created and enacted, particularly the ways security and safety policies can be harmful
4. Explore how we might recover trust among both special collections workers and the general public by imagining alternatives that promote the safety of both our workers and the communities most impacted by the prison-industrial-complex
