1) Number of participants?

9

2) Who was the audience for the class/workshop/activity?

An ex-college class; co-taught with Liz Settoducato

3) Describe your experience planning with the instructor.

I was invited to work with the class because of an existing relationship with the professor from our time at MIT. This allowed us to work closely together to identify content to cover, and gave Liz and me a lot of leeway to be creative. The professor agreed with our interest in active learning, and we were able to develop a robust lesson in part because both of us have a deep investment in the topics covered in the class.

4) What were your goals for the class/workshop/activity?

By the end of the session, students will be able to:

• Create a zine and participate in discussion in order to engage with the idea of libraries and archives as a queer space
• Use knowledge of cataloguing practices to develop a mind-map and research strategy for final projects

5) Describe the session(s) and the logistics of any hands-on activities.

We used a zine guide, several hands-on activities, and more didactic introductions to libraries and research tools. It worked well to introduce LIS concepts to a non-LIS audience.

As students are entering:
Have them draw a library (1st page of zine)

Welcome/introduction
-intro to us
-what we’re going to do today
-ask questions at any time, we’re all learning from each other
-introduce yourselves, get to know each other

Images of the library
-Fun Home panel (tie to Drabinski review), Ghostbusters, etc–popular culture/literary/visual culture?
-Gallery walk/share images with each other
-Whole class discussion
-What similarities/differences do you notice?
-What do we mean by libraries/archives/queer?

Hidden labor & structures of power
-Cataloging & labeling
-context
-activity/discussion: where would you shelve a copy of Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde?
-existing structures don’t account for intersectionality
-where does Tufts actually shelve it? PS3562.O75 S5 2007
-discussion
-Language
-Sandy Berman, LCSH, Emily Drabinski, controlled vocabularies
-Temporality
-How long are these structures supposed to exist for?
-Expectations and desires around futurity are contextual
-On Our Backs
-state’s expectations of lack of queer futurity
-haunted futurity/death/haunting

Planning your term paper
-Mind maps in the zine
-Finding things using Tufts library resources

Wrap up, Q&A
-How to get in touch/get research support

6) What went well? What might you do differently next time?

This sort of activity is discussion-heavy and in many ways personal, so it probably would also work well for other topics or classes where the librarian has a thorough knowledge and interest in the topic.