Library Instruction West 2020

Recently libraries have experienced intensified relationships with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). From canceled immigrant rights programming due to uncertain threats of ICE raids in libraries to the revelation that major library vendors such as LexisNexis, Thomas Reuters, and Elsevier supply data to ICE surveillance programs, there has been an increase of uncertainty around emerging levels of data surveillance in the library. As undocumented people, refugees, DREAMERS, and permanent residents experience increased targeting, surveillance, restriction to resources, and the threat of deportation, public and academic libraries become a space that must toe the line in favor of immigrant rights.

By looking at the ways in which information technologies have been redesigned around immigrants, this lecture encourages direct action against agencies that are enforcing violence on immigrants, advocating for justice as a verb in the library, The library has traditionally been argued as a neutral space, and the librarian a neutral actor in that space. This lecture focuses on the history of direct action in the library that leads to social change, and the importance of those tools in contemporary forms of surveillance in the library. I advocate for tangible modes of resistance as a necessary model of justice in the library.

Dr. Melissa Villa-Nicholas is an Assistant Professor at the Harrington School of Media and Communications and Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (LIS). Her research interests include the history of Latinxs with information technologies and information spaces, Latinx socio-techno practices, and critical information and technology studies. Dr. Villa-Nicholas teaches LIS students on inclusion, race and racism, intersectionality, and use and users of information.