Supporting ethnic studies is an opportunity to uplift diverse stories and perspectives and to build and affirm such communities and their voices, experiences, and histories. Ethnic studies librarianship requires engagement, a desire to listen and engage with one’s constituents, and a focused approach to re-humanizing and emphasizing the voices of those who are being studied. Race and ethnicity, despite their abstractness, have real, concrete meaning and consequences in American society. Being able to see who speaks and who is silenced matters, and ethnic studies librarianship supports the intellectual journey of students in becoming aware of the various ways we see the world and the numerous stories we tell and come across in our lifetime.
 
Ethnic Studies in Academic and Research Libraries serves as a snapshot of critical work that library workers are doing to support ethnic studies, including areas focusing on ethnic and racial experiences across the disciplines. Other curriculums or programs may emphasize race, migration, and diasporic studies, and these intersecting areas are highlighted to ensure work supporting ethnic studies is not solely defined by a discipline, but by commitment to programs that uplift underserved and underrepresented ethnic communities and communities of color. Twenty chapters are broken into three thorough sections:

1. Instruction, Liaison Engagement, and Outreach
2. Collections Projects and Programs
3. Collaborations, Special Projects, and Community Partnerships

Ethnic studies programs, faculty, and students can lack visibility in librarianship, though there are many opportunities to engage with and support these interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs. Ethnic Studies in Academic and Research Libraries captures case studies, programs, and engagements within the field(s) of ethnic studies and how library workers are creating and documenting important support services and resources for these communities of learners, scholars, activists, and educators. We need to think critically about how we support ethnic studies and our faculty colleagues in these departments, especially during challenging times in fiscal crises and the systemic violence and oppression that occurs in higher education, in our institutions, in our communities, in our profession, and in our histories. What we collect, preserve, share, and uplift reflects who we are and our priorities.
 

Melissa Cardenas-Dow is a social sciences librarian at Sacramento State University, responsible for the subject areas of psychology, ethnic studies, women’s and gender studies, and education. She is currently a Councilor-at-Large of the American Library Association. Most recently, she worked with the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) as the Graphics Design Coordinator within the JCLC 2018 Public Relations Committee. She is active with the California Faculty Association (CFA), the labor union representing teaching faculty, librarians, counselors, and coaches in the California State University System. She is currently the tenure-track faculty delegate of the Sacramento chapter of CFA and is a member of the CFA system-wide Librarians Committee.

Kenya S. Flash is the Librarian for Political Science, Global Affairs, and Government Information at Yale University. She also supports the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and the Ethics, Politics, and Economics majors. Kenya earned her MLIS from Drexel University, her MA in Political Science from East Stroudsburg University and her BA in Government and Law from Lafayette College. She has written and presented on a number of topics in librarianship, and is passionate about working with faculty and students.

Raymond Pun is a librarian in the Bay Area, CA. He is an active member of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) and the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA). Along with Laurie Bridges and Roberto Arteaga, he is a co-editor of Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project (published by Maize Books, an imprint of Michigan Publishing).