Information, Power, and Reproductive Health

Number 17 in the Litwin Books Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies, Emily Drabinski, series editor.

“As a Black lesbian librarian and mother, I thought I knew all I needed to know about reproductive justice, but this text cradled my concerns and directed my focus. I’m excited for us to be armed with this text,  a testament and guidebook for how LIS professionals may engage in a national and statewide conversation of reproductive justice, from naming, dissemination, practice, and of course in considerations of labor. This groundbreaking text acts as a schism and call to action for how we ought to approach research, inquiry, and praxis in all facets of reproductive justice.” — Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, Dean of Barnard University Library

Information, Power, and Reproductive Health encourages readers to explore the inextricable intersection of reproductive health information and power. Rooted in a framework of reproductive justice, it explores the ways in which power plays a central role in how reproductive health information is created, controlled, withheld, and shared. Deeply entrenched ideologies about which bodies are deserving or undeserving of reproductive care, which facets of reproductive life are worthy of research, which issues are taboo or frequently dismissed, and how to control bodies considered unruly all affect what health information is easily accessible or perhaps hidden from those who need it. Legislative, bureaucratic, medical-scientific, economic, and familial systems and structures shape reproductive health information, and framing information production and consumption as a social act can help us to trace these structural and ideological forces in the reproductive health landscape and locate transgressive sites of information sharing that speak back to power. Chapters address the continued and more-urgent-than-ever interest in reproductive health, feminism(s), womanism, critical theory, and praxis in librarianship and information studies.

Gina Schlesselman-Tarango (she/her) is Associate Professor and Science Librarian at Grinnell College. She is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator who writes about critical information literacy in academic libraries and the gender and racial dynamics at play in information work more broadly. Her work has appeared in Exploring Equitable and Inclusive Pedagogies: Creating Space for All Learners, Critical Library Pedagogy Handbook, Communications in Information Literacy, College & Research Libraries, Library Trends, and Keywords in (Critical) Library Information Science/Studies (forthcoming). Most notably, she authored the widely cited “The Legacy of Lady Bountiful: White Women in the Library” (2016) and edited Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (2017).

Alanna Aiko Moore is the Librarian for Sociology, Ethnic Studies, and Critical Gender Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Alanna holds a bachelor of arts in Sociology/Anthropology and Gender Studies from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, and a master’s of Library and Information Science from Dominican University. Alanna has published book chapters and articles on queer parenting, cross cultural mentoring, emotional labor, activism, and issues affecting women of color librarians. She has worked in academic libraries for over 15 years and has presented at numerous conferences and organizations. Before librarianship, she worked at social justice-centered non-profits and community organizations.

Renée A. Rau is an Information Services Librarian at University of Southern California’s Norris Medical Library and the liaison to the Keck School of Medicine. She earned a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree at San José State University (SJSU), in 2020. In 2017, she earned an MA in 20th-century United States history, specializing in women’s and gender history, from Washington State University (WSU). Her current research interests include: Evidence Based Practice and information literacy instruction; Graphic Medicine and health humanities; and diversity, equity, and inclusion in health sciences librarianship.

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Acknowledgments