Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture

Dr. Nicole A. Cooke, Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and Professor at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina, will deliver the 2025 Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Presented by the ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services (ODLOS), the 2025 Lecture will take place on Monday, June 30th from 1pm - 2pm ET in Room 112 A B at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Dr. Cooke is a notable force in the library world. In 2007, she was named a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal. She has been awarded with the 2016 ALA Equality Award and was presented with the 2017 ALA Achievement in Library Diversity Research Award. She has also been honored as the Illinois Library Association’s 2019 Intellectual Freedom Award winner in recognition of her work in combating online hate and bullying in LIS and she was selected as the Association for Library and Information Science Education's 2019 Excellence in Teaching award winner. She was presented with the Martin Luther King, Jr., Social Justice Award by UofSC in 2021. In 2022, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association granted her their Advocate Award. More recently, the American Library Association presented her with the Lippincott Award in 2024. She was presented with an Outstanding Teacher award from UofSC’s School of Information Science in 2025.

Now the founding editor of ALA Neal-Schuman's Critical Cultural Information Studies book series, Cooke has published numerous articles and book chapters. Her books include “The Legacy of Black Women in Librarianship: When They Dared to Be Powerful” (ALA Editions, 2025), the second edition of “Information Services to Diverse Populations” (ALA Editions, 2025), “Fake News and Alternative Facts: Information Literacy in a Post-truth Era" (ALA Editions, 2018), and “Foundations of Social Justice (ALA Editions, expected in 2026).

Dr. Cooke is a 2012 graduate from Rutgers University with a PhD in communication, information, and library studies. She holds the MLS degree from Rutgers University, and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Cooke’s research and teaching interests include human information behavior, misinformation/disinformation/malinformation consumption and resistance, critical cultural information studies, and IDEAS (inclusion, diversity, equity, access, and social justice), with an emphasis on infusing them into LIS education and pedagogy.

Lecture Title: “We Will Not Be Erased: A Manifesto for Library Liberation”

Lecture Abstract:

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.