Harrison W. Inefuku: Voices of Color and the Scholarly Record

Abstract

Scholarly communication has been shaped by professions that are overwhelmingly white–academia, publishing, and librarianship. Gatekeeping practices, from peer review to library collection development, have marginalized contributions by and about communities of colour. This talk will examine how scholarly communication has excluded voices of colour from the scholarly record and explore the responsibility libraries have in centring the voices and stories of communities of colour.

In addition to this public-facing talk, Harrison will also be doing a more casual Q&A about his experiences as a racialized person in the profession with members of IDEAS. The club is open to any iSchool student who self-identify as IBPOC, and we welcome new members to join if they are interested in this Q&A. More information will be provided on discord. Any questions can be directed to the IDEAS organizing team at their email, ideas.ubc@gmail.com

Speaker Bio

Harrison W. Inefuku (he/his) is the Scholarly Publishing Services Librarian at the Iowa State University Library. He directs the Iowa State University Digital Press, the library’s publishing program. Harrison advocates for diversity, inclusion, and social justice in libraries and archives and has published and presented on systemic racism in academic publishing. He graduated from the University of British Columbia iSchool’s Dual MASLIS program in 2011.

About the Series

The IBPOC Voices Speaker Series is a series jointly hosted by the UBC School of Information and IDEAS@UBC. Held in place of the school’s usual in-person colloquium, the series offers a platform for IBPOC information professionals to share their valuable experience and research on a range of topics related to library, archival and information studies.