Welcome! I’m an academic librarian in New Jersey. This newsletter is intended as a space to share some thoughts about the many things I’m interested in or struggle with, namely information, culture, and education. I’m hoping to keep this up weekly as a main goal so as to understand and interpret how the real world is affecting these systems.
While I work in academia, I feel more comfortable on the outskirts of the formalities and systems that come with that space. I grew up a working-class, Latinx immigrant kid in Newark and Kearny, NJ — figuring out the world on the streets, libraries, and public schools,
The outskirts are where I search for meaning and definitions in cultura, music, art, el mundo, as well as la gente around us. Navigating through these geographies is not a means to enter the worlds that have kept me out but a way to create new worlds that are more inclusive, equitable, and free from exploitation. It may sound bigger than it is but we can create spaces with words, images, melodies, and love until we have a reality that is very real.
A couple of years ago, I was writing on my blog metaforhumans. It was a great place to work out some ideas I had about libraries and the information world I joined as an academic librarian. Now more than 10 years into the profession I’m finding myself having more thoughts about how everything ties together: education, imperialism, librarianship, pedagogy, Lizzo, Marxism, Roma, anti-racism, patriarchy, class struggle, futbol. I really mean, everything, and more importantly how I can relate it to how we access, consume, evaluate, and create knowledge and information in our world.
This is the new metaforhumans, an outskirt for struggle and change.
Gracias.
r.