This is the text I read for the recording of my Ignite Talk on #OccupyLibrary conference. Check out the slides here and a selection of banners from the library program (in Spanish) here.
Starting from the shared notion of the Library as a Social Infrastructure and gathering point, I also acknowledge Libraries as care places because they provide support for people’s lives.
During the lockdown because of Covid-19 pandemic, calls to domestic and gender violence hotlines have raised up to 60% in most countries. Women and children, among other specific groups of people, have been kept inside with their abusers. There’s no safe place to go and little help has been provided.
The American librarian, R. David Lankes, affirms that the librarian must “be an agent of radical positive change within his community”. It is one of the main voices that warns about the non-neutrality of libraries.
If you want to design a program of activities that contributes to raising awareness about this problem, I must insist in recognizing that libraries are not neutral. Much of the relevance of public libraries lies in taking a decisive and often radical stance as a key public space for democracy that transform lives.
With this in mind, during my time at Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City as the Education Services Coordinator, I started a program that aimed to contribute to the elimination of violence against women. Of course, it is an effort that does not depend solely on a library program, but it certainly helps.
That said, to address violence against women, you can participate on at least five levels. The idea is to look at this broad spectrum of participation in order to create a work program that fits the context of the library.
· INFORMATION: it might be enough to provide brochures, paste posters, create directories of support institutions, bibliographic exhibition of materials on the subject, among other strictly informative and individual actions.
· AWARENESS: implement one-to-one or small group activities in which conversation on the subject can be encouraged. This has an Interpersonal reach and is made on a short term.
· TRAINING: programming of activities where the participants can receive some level of instruction on the subject, learn about women rights or the history of violence against women, participate in reading circles about feminism, among other opportunities to integrate an informed community.
· CONVERSATION: make space to address the issue through conferences, discussion forums, meetings with specialists. Everything that comes from an organization and has greater reach is an opportunity. You could even consider creating a touring cycle in various libraries.
· ACTION: although we would like to achieve a public policy, libraries can contribute with specific actions situated in reference to gender violence. You can take advantage of the framework of the most relevant dates, observe them through particularly visible and forceful activities.
Why the public library?
Following public sphere approach by Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition and Martin Buber’s Paths in Utopia community definition, I understand the library as public space where everything is performed in public and where the gathering of different people is the expression of community. The public library is a propitious setting for the meeting and the sustained exchange between what is different.
It would be good to keep this definition in mind when you want to develop projects that link communities. When libraries cling to neutrality, they are choosing comfort and are opposing confrontation. In this way, by default they encourage privileged groups.
It is absolutely necessary that the activities take place in the library space or that their participation be clear in the case of extension actions. It is intended to make the library visible as a community platform that accompanies the processes of change.
Public libraries cannot do it alone. It is important, almost vital, to build alliances with universities, research centers, civil society organizations as well as private initiative and public administration. Surely there will be projects that seek a space to communicate their message or that require facilities to train either professionals or the general public. Don’t waste the opportunity to be a platform that communicates a strong message.
You may need to justify the actions to be taken. As the emergency we are experiencing is not enough reason, you can support your actions in legal documents and current regulations on violence against women. IFLA has encouraged the participation of libraries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030. Goal number 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Take a stance, break the silence on violence against women.
