1,000 Subscribers

Celebrating a Milestone

Where We’ve Been

About five years ago, a group of librarians formed to discuss heterodoxy in libraries via Google Group emails and informal Zoom meetups. One thing kept itching at us (or at least, me) throughout these conversations and lengthy email threads: there had to be other people who cared about these things, right?

Lo and behold, Heterodoxy in the Stacks was born in May, 2022. It turns out that yes, people are interested! There are at least 1,000 of you who want to receive the heterodox perspectives on critical librarianship, ideology in libraries, privacy, and more in your inbox, plus quite a few more who hit “follow” in Substack instead. We want to thank you all for reading, subscribing, sharing, and contributing to this space.

Where We Are

As of this writing, there are over 200 published posts on HiTS. If you’re new here, some of our greatest hits (sorry) include:

Manifestos on institutional neutrality and truth

Personal stories about libraries and library faith

Explorations into censorship, book banning, and more book banning

Historical perspectives and current events

Discussions about conspiracies and psyops

Podcasts and satire

Our contributors' backgrounds are just as varied as their interests. We’re pleased to have a retired public library director, an LIS instructor, a former city planner, archivist, and scholars throughout academic libraries.

We have also posted guest posts from library workers outside of Heterodox Libraries, including anonymous posts. Do you have something to add to the conversation? Submit your article in our Guest Post Submission Form.

Where We’re Going

Coming up over the next few weeks, we’ve got a series for Freedom to Read Week, more in-depth examinations of media and censorship, archivist perspectives, and library culture. Plus, tomorrow, February 12 at 1PM Central Time, our very own Michael Dudley will be presenting about Heterodoxy in the Stacks to the Montana State Library Commission. The virtual meeting is free and open to the public, no registration required.

In standard librarian fashion, we want to hear from you, our readers. What made you click Subscribe? What do you like best? Where can we improve? Please complete this short, painless, anonymous survey. Think of it as a way for you to have a direct impact on shaping the profession you’re a part of!

Thank you all for joining us as we continue to reflect on our chosen profession, what librarianship has meant, and what possibilities await us.

We hope to continue providing quality articles about library neutrality, intellectual freedom, and libraries in democracy for a long time to come.