ABSTRACT
This chapter is an autoethnographic recount of a queer librarian’s diversity and inclusion advocacy at her university, specifically on behalf of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) people. In this chapter the author uses this experience to dissect and analyze the events that occurred from the standpoint of memory and evidence and how it can be twisted, corrupted, weaponized, and finally, freeing. This chapter provides recommendations for how information science workers, librarians, memory workers, archivists, and museum curators can be proponents of the truth by collecting, recording, and documenting such controversies in their organizations, institutions, and localities. Those who have power over information, media, and institutions have traditionally decided which stories are told and what evidence is preserved. Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) professionals in academic settings can begin to correct this by integrating social justice agendas into their everyday work. The chapter concludes with ten strategic actions that GLAM workers can do to prioritize oppressed communities in their decision-making.
