ODLOS Town Hall at Midwinter to explore identity and healing in challenging times

CHICAGO — Numerous shootings, sexual assaults, attacks in the legislation against the rights of GLBT communities and an election that continues to challenge our identity as a country have defined these difficult times. As librarians, we continue to advocate and fight for the communities we serve, but we need to recognize how our personal identities impact our work and our profession. Following an extraordinarily hard year for communities of color and marginalized identities, the ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services (ODLOS) will host a town hall meeting during ALA's Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits in Atlanta from 12:30 - 2 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20 in room B203 of the Georgia World Congress Center. 

The town hall will be an opportunity for Midwinter attendees to connect and reflect on how our personal identities impact our work and our profession and how we can come together and start some healing within our organization. We will review the progress of initiatives within the Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services and across the association and then open the floor for attendees to speak. 

Coffee, tea and light refreshments will be served. The Town Hall is open to all attendees of ALA's Midwinter Meeting; for more information, please visit www.alamidwinter.org. 

The ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services supports library and information science workers in creating safe, responsible, and all-inclusive spaces that serve and represent the entire community. To accomplish this, we decenter power and privilege by facilitating conversations around access and identity as they impact the profession and those we serve. We use a social justice framework to inform library and information science workers' development of resources. We strive to create an association culture where these concerns are incorporated into everybody's everyday work.