murmurations

Abstract This is the first in a series of three articles in which I aim to help colleagues in the library and information science (LIS) field, and in particular cisgender colleagues, understand what the current informational landscape looks like around transgender people and transgender identities. Having cultivated this understanding, colleagues will be able to more… Read more: A Library Worker’s Guide to Anti-Transgender Misinformation, Part One: Understanding Anti-Transgender Misinformation by Heath Umbreit

This essay originally started out as an explanation. In the spring of 2013, I was taking a course about problems in classification, where we were required to submit weekly reading responses, which I never enjoyed as either a student or an instructor. As a result of the problems in classification that I was personally experiencing at the time—namely, the ways in which my transness inexplicably led to medical issues and confused classmates—I became markedly unproductive and I was genuinely worried that I would fail the course. After talking about it with my truly fantastic advisor, I submitted an earlier version of this piece to the professor (who is most definitely not the professor described in this essay!) as an attempt to document the ways in which my body had been challenged physically and intellectually. I didn’t get any feedback on it, but I did get a decent grade in the class, so I suppose it met my initial goals.

This article explores the concept of trans information work within the broader context of library and information science. The article deploys both research related to information practices and a critical examination of the material and affective labor that trans information workers are asked to do within and outside their work. Through reflective anecdotes of the author’s own trans information work and their encounters with archival evidence of past trans information work, the article envisions a reparative and hopeful version of the inextricable connections between trans folks in the past and trans folks in the future. The article shares definitions of trans information work, considers approaches to trans information work within a library setting, and offers advice on how to ensure that the burden of trans information work does not fall upon trans communities. The article seeks to reframe the labor of trans information work towards a more collective and collaborative endeavor that helps protect trans communities in the present, while ensuring evidence of trans existence remains accessible now and in the future.

The Murmurations Editorial Board is excited to republish “Decistifying Trans and Gender Diverse Inclusion in Library Work” as part of the launch of the journal and our first call for proposals. We created Murmurations as a new publication space to begin filling some of the literature gaps that Stephen and Keahi identified in their article; its purpose is to encourage research and discussion on trans and gender diverse topics and deepen the community of trans and gender diverse folks in the library profession, writ large.

Welcome to Murmurations, a new journal for research and discussion of trans and gender diverse topics in the library profession. While we are busily working on our first articles for the journal, please take a look at some important information about the journal to learn more about who we are and what our publishing process… Read more: Enter Murmurations