BIPOC Library Careers Conference

The BIPOC Library Careers Conference, held on the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus in the Spring of 2024 will provide a forum for community networking, sharing successes and challenges particular to being BIPOC in the Library Science field. People of Color are underrepresented in library sciences and we want to change that. Building off of nationwide efforts to educate and recruit more BIPOC librarians, the conference will focus on inclusion and retention. Aimed at students of color, it will increase awareness, and thereby participation in, library science classes, certificates and degrees available in the UMaine system, Simmons College and elsewhere in New England. We want to include on the panel a diverse array: public children's librarians, immigrant librarians, college librarians, and other library workers of color. The round table discussion will also feature people in other library related fields, such as cultural heritage digitization to show that there are a wide range of library careers out there. The conference will also raise awareness of USM Libraries & Learning’s Students of Color in Libraries project -- funds generated by donations over and above the cost of hosting the conference will go to that project.