A Genealogy of Refusal : Walking away from crisis and scarcity narrativesMain MenuCrisis narratives frame our responseBartleby at the WallHow can fiction and popular culture inform the way we promulgate or refuse crisis & scarcity narratives in librarianship?Proud Descendants who "Prefer not to"Some recent gems from Bartleby's lineageA Kinship Diagram of Workplace RefusalSatire is richComedic instances of workplace refusal are especially powerfulDark side of parodyMore SatireWhen Expectations Cross the lineWhy don't librarians "Just say No"?Do we prefer to suffer in silence because its a vocation and not "just a job"Feminized LabourSaying Yes all the TimeSuperhero LibrariansIt’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a librarian!I am not your heroMurderbot: the alternate patron saint for librariansThe invocation of crisis narratives is relentlessNo individual solution to our problemsDebunking myths that hold us back to enable collective ways of moving forwardWhat refusal can we take up?A Cosmic GiftManifest NOBecoming fluent in hearing and saying NoAsset FramingBibliographyWorks cited, featured, mentioned and consulted for Genealogy of Refusal projectGlossary of Key ConceptsMultiple PathsA compendium of paths through the Genealogy of Refusal content: a choose-your-own-adventure approach to this companion piece.Genealogy of Refusal TimelineWe welcome contributionsLearn how to contribute to this projectAbout the AuthorsNatalie K Meyers4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22Anna Michelle Martinez-Montavon1459b2fc55591cd9b08a290af468d31b5dfe46a3Mikala Narlockdb843c923469f0dadab98d57ee053b00c88a64b1Kim Stathersb8f352d1ce6eb714d5242702eaa05362c8eae357Multimedia project for the The Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship Special Issue on Refusing Crisis Narratives
First Lady Nancy Reagan speaking at a "Just Say No" rally in Los Angeles, 1987
12021-02-05T12:49:53-08:00Kim Stathersb8f352d1ce6eb714d5242702eaa05362c8eae357339482Photograph of Mrs. Reagan speaking at a "Just Say No" Rally in Los Angeles - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration - 198584meta2021-02-05T12:51:08-08:00U.S. National Archives and Records Administration1987Kim Stathersb8f352d1ce6eb714d5242702eaa05362c8eae357
12021-01-09T16:02:31-08:00Why don't librarians "Just say No"?8Do we prefer to suffer in silence because its a vocation and not "just a job"plain2021-02-05T12:53:24-08:00In this page we explore why the librarian stays silent (sometimes can't even manage to say: "I prefer not to") connection with Popowich - dichotomy related to feminisation of labor, split personality created with the professionalizing of librarianship ? caretaker/conservator/servant versus canon maker/gatekeeper/guardian? discuss how roles and expectations align, how silence is complicit in feminized labor ?
Discuss Sacrifice and vocation : During the covid pandemic, as libraries closed to protect their patrons and their staff, the rationale for those that remained opened was somehow that the [librarians'] were up for the risk and that the sacrifice was worth it. But how could that be? A life for a video tape? Should a librarian really risk their life to help someone else get something they could buy on Amazon and have delivered to their door for less than $12? Is that what a librarian's life is worth? $12?
Even for libraries that closed the majority didn't come right out and say it, which is weird. Just as librarians are complicit in their own silence Have libraries organizationally removed their own tongues ? Hundreds of libraries were closed, yet only eleven said it on their websites. Instead libraries and librarians that closed their doors to patrons emphasized what they could "do" avoiding at all costs using the phrase "We are closed". Why?
Here cite distant reader and text mining COVID-19 “Distant Reading for Quick Insights,” April. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/DTZC8 ) and Hinchliffe, Lisa Janicke, and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg. 2020. “US Academic Library Response to COVID19 Survey.” Public Document of Links - US Academic Library Response to COVID19 Survey. 2020. https://tinyurl.com/covidlibrary.
Discuss images of the "ideal librarian"
Morgenstern's branded and de-tongued librarians - Reviewers describe it as a beautifully written and compellingly imagined book about a mystical library but in that library school at graduation the librarians hands are tied behind their backs, and they are are blinfolded and then branded, or have their tongues torn from their mouths BEFORE they can be trusted to do their jobs . . . why elinguation? because their role is to be caretakers not meaning makers?
Explicate the morgenstern pull quotes here about branding librarians and tearing their tongues out.
Because yep, that's beautiful?Startless Sea is a beautifully written imagining for physically manifesting the split personality of librarianship Popowich writes about in Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship : A Marxist Approach.
How does feminizing labor align with elinguation? The same way it always has?