Written by Candace Jacobs (UNC Greensboro)
On July 18th, Giao Baker (Duke), Brandon Britt (Duke), Adebola Fabiku (NCSU), Candace Jacobs (UNC Greensboro), and Karina Soni (UNC) presented at the 2023 TRLN Annual Meeting. Their presentation was entitled, “Post Cards from Miami: Stories from the ASERL BIPOC Leadership and Networking Retreat.” During this presentation, they discussed the importance and impact of programming geared toward affinity groups, activities of the retreat, lessons learned from attending the retreat, and thoughts that fellow attendees shared about their experiences at the retreat. The impetus for the discussion can be summed up by this quote, ” To achieve diversity in substance as well as in form, libraries have to open their arms to all perspectives and experiences. That requires competency in matters of cultural pluralism that are not intuitive and must be learned, like any other essential skill.” (Diversity Standards: Cultural Competency for Academic Libraries, ACRL, 2021.)
