LINDSAY CRONK

Courage, Creativity, Community

Libraries are Radical and So Are you

  • One Last Happy Friday

    Cross Posted from ALA Core Connect Greetings from DC/ALA Annual, Core. I didn’t want to over-prepare my final Happy Friday because I have always thought one of the most important features of these posts was their connection to the current moment. So there is no escaping this important context – today is my last Happy…

  • A Year of Happy Fridays

    Reflection and my ALA Core Presidency I think some of you probably think you’re not good at journaling and reflection, so I wanted to start this post by revealing my best dirty secret– all of this is reflective journaling. My Twitter = concise reflective journaling. My blog = longer reflective journaling. My publications = formal…

  • Liberate Knowledge, Retire Neutrality

    While I am still hoping that The New York Times Opinion Section will provide the platform for a library worker to speak to Stanley Kurtz’s recent hit piece, The Battle for the Soul of the Library, I’m not waiting to respond myself. Please note, when they get Bharat Mehra or Kelly Jensen to do it…

  • Towards Antiracist and Antifascist Library Work: A Summary of the Design and Next Steps of ALA’s Resolution to Condemn White Supremacy and Fascism as Antithetical to Library Work

    Introduction A couple months ago, we all found out that another library had employed another white nationalist— he’d spoken at rallies– and I had just had it. It wasn’t a new problem or a new idea. Not for the first time, I thought “You can’t be this kind of jerk and do library work right.”…

  • Introducing CD #43, A Proposed Resolution Condemning White Supremacy and Fascism as Antithetical to Library Work

    This afternoon at ALA Midwinter 2021, ALA Council will review and discuss a proposed resolution condemning white supremacy and fascism that I co-authored. Below are my drafted opening remarks. Hi, everyone! It’s been an honor to help develop the CD#43, a proposed resolution to condemn white supremacy and fascism as antithetical to library work with…

  • Breaking Into ALA

    An Outsider’s Insider Guide These days, you might say ALA and I have a history. But not so long ago, I stared into the vastness of our national association with consternation and anxiety. Oh, wait that was yesterday. I’m not kidding. But I’ve spent nearly a decade finding my way through and up the American…

  • More on Core

    Hi again! To provide maximum transparency and help you make the right vote, here are the notes I made for the Core Candidate Town Hall on September 30th, 2020. I didn’t get to say all of this out of respect for time, so there’s some additional detail to these that may not be present in…

  • Directly, Forthrightly, and with Care

    Hey! I’m running for President-Elect of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures because I think I’d do a good job. Do you want a different kind of ALA experience? Do you want a division that understands and celebrates your work? That’s the Core we can make together. Remember to cast your vote October 5-25th! Here’s my candidate…

  • Defending Lending

    Here’s a post I shouldn’t have to write, folks, but libraries have every right to circulate materials. In non-library speak, we have the right to share the books you want to read, the films you want to watch, the music you want to listen to. We have the right to lend you the internet on…

  • Let’s Fix ALA.

    By “Fix ALA” I don’t mean the conventional *cough, boring* way that I anticipate ALA will be simplified to continue its usual operations. To truly #FixALA is to transform ALA- and I do have some ideas about this. Disclaimer: I lay these burns because I love. But seriously, I’m not going to talk about how…