critical librarianship

books touching on critical librarianship (CritLib) and other relevant librarian interests... designed from the lens of a current MLIS student! ~~ this is an ever-expanding list, so feel free to leave suggestions in the comments!

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created by lauraaaa.mercedes

last updated September, 2026

13 books

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Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators

Char Booth

Resisting Erasure: Libraries in Palestine and Palestine in Libraries

Nora Lester Murad

Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam (Asia Pacific Modern) (Volume 22)

Cindy Anh Nguyen

Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South

Mike Selby

Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship: A Marxist Approach

Sam Popowich

Class and Librarianship: Essays at the Intersection of Information, Labor and Capital

Erik Estep

Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science

Gina Schlesselman-Tarango

The Politics of Theory and the Practice of Critical Librarianship

Karen P. Nicholson

Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction (Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies)

Maria T. Accardi

Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory

Sofia Y. Leung

The Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium: Reflections, Revisions, and New Works

Yvonne Mery

The Power to Name: Locating the Limits of Subject Representation in Libraries

Hope A. Olson

Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods

Maria T. Accardi

Comments

literatedyke

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Edited

Not sure if this applies (if it doesn't, feel free to disregard!), but I recommend Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of Subjects by Melissa Adler. I'm reading it right now and it's really fascinating! It's broadly about how Thomas Jefferson's own ways of going about categorizing his library on his plantation influenced and acted as a foundation for how the Library of Congress categorizes books, their subjects, and authors – particularly those that are racialized, about racialized people, about liberatory movements and topics, etc.

I'm not sure of the extent to which the Library of Congress has been influential to libraries throughout the US and world and I'm still near the beginning of the book, but connections are made to how other libraries, archives, museums, academic institutions, etc perpetuate this colonial production and with/holding of knowledge under the shadow of Jefferson.

Great list, btw! :)