Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 112 A B
Direct Link to Share: https://cdmcd.co/D87Z84
Event Description: The Jean E. Coleman lecture series honors Dr. Jean E. Coleman, the first director of the ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services (now the Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services) for her leadership in focusing the associations attention on issues affecting traditionally underserved and underrepresented people in libraries. The 2025 lecturer is Dr. Nicole A. Cooke, who will lead through her lecture program titled “We Will Not Be Erased: A Manifesto for Library Liberation.” In an era of rising authoritarianism, systemic erasure, and relentless disinformation, libraries and the people who power them face a critical choice: uphold the status quo—or fight like hell for liberation. This keynote presents a radical call to action rooted in the Library Manifesto for Liberation—a collective declaration born from the lived realities, revolutionary traditions, and visionary imagination of BIPOC, queer, disabled, working-class, and abolitionist library workers. Drawing inspiration from the survival strategies of Octavia Butler, the radical imagination of Robin D.G. Kelley, the abolitionist tech justice of Ruha Benjamin, and the emergent philosophy of adrienne maree brown, this address dismantles the myth of neutrality and reclaims the library as a battleground for justice. It reframes information work not as passive service, but as insurgent labor in the fight against racism, capitalism, colonialism, and carcerality. Attendees will be challenged to reckon with the complicity of LIS institutions—and inspired to reimagine libraries as sites of care, resistance, and transformation. Through powerful storytelling, deep political analysis, and a vision grounded in community, solidarity, and survival, this keynote demands one thing: If libraries are to have a future, they must fight for it.
