Actively Anti-Racist Service to Readers

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

Providing robust readers’ advisory service that values equity, diversity, and inclusion principles is essential to anyone working with readers. But moving from being a neutral, well-meaning organization to an actively anti-racist organization requires a deeper understanding of systemic racism. In this course, you'll learn the action steps needed to provide actively anti-racist reader services. You'll also come away with tangible skills to build enthusiasm for reading and discovering diverse books and to incorporate Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion principles in all interactions with readers.

Core skills and competencies:

• What it means to be anti-racist
• How to incorporate the concept of Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors in collection development
• Ability to discover, purchase, and promote diverse titles and decolonize your collection development
• Ten action steps your organization can take to become actively anti-racist in service to readers
• How to address bigotry directly in your work and interactions with community members

This course consists of three lessons: Two self-paced lessons (two hours each) must be completed before the third live session. You will have 24/7 access to the first two lessons in this course, and they can be completed at your own pace.

Presenters: 

Robin Bradford is a collection development librarian in Washington State. During her 30 years of library life, she has been recognized for service to readers, genre readers especially, from institutions like Library Journal to RWA’s Cathie Linz Librarian of the Year in 2016. Robin is a book addict and has a long-time dedication to helping others discover a love of reading. She has earned a BA and MA in English, an MS in Library Science, and a Juris Doctor, but has found a home in building reader-focused, popular collections in public libraries. She has worked with authors to help get their titles into these collections, with librarians to push for equal treatment of genre fiction, and with readers to find their favorite authors on their library's shelves.

Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Readers' Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All and is the author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021]. You can follow Becky on Twitter @raforall.

Download the NoveList User Guide

Note: This is not a NoveList product course. Your library does not need to subscribe to NoveList or its products to benefit from this training.