Please feel free to distribute this call for participation to any who you think will be interested.
Our research into the impact of library workers with disabilities is expanding. Some of you will remember our previous survey. “Claiming Our Space” will be published by Library Trends (67:3, Winter 2019). While working through the first pass, several questions came up that we wanted to address. So the survey has been revised and expanded.
We are welcoming all library workers.
We are addressing the impact of the ADA.
We are addressing intersectionality. Drawing a strong portrait should include the extent that our respondents help us to see their multiple identities (race, sexual identity etc.).
We want to know more about navigating the library world with an invisible disability.
Will you help us continue to understand?
(Data will be aggregated. All direct quotes will be anonymous. )
Robin Brown, MLS, MA
Associate Professor
Information Literacy Librarian
Borough of Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street, Rm. S410L
New York, NY 10007
212-220-1445 (office)
732-266-7360 (cell)
Scott Sheidlower is a Professor and head of circulation and the archivist in the library at York College of the City University of New York [CUNY] in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. He has an M.A. in Art History from NYU; an M.A. in Arts Administration, also from NYU; and an M.L.S. from Queens College/CUNY. He is co-author of Humor and Information Literacy: Practical Techniques for Library Instruction (Libraries Unlimited, 2011). His e-mail is ssheidlower@york.cuny.edu.
While I was willing to take the survey, I take issue with my status as LGBTQ being considered an “invisible disability”. In fact, it is actually insulting. Also, the phrase “passing” is a trigger word for some folks in the community, so perhaps a head’s up that a trigger question was included would have been a good thing to do.
We had no intention of suggesting the sexual preference is in any way a disability. We were hoping to capture the fact that some of the people who self-identify as being disabled (for some other reason) also identify as LGBTQ. Passing refers to the fact that some people who have a disability are able to pass as able bodied.