Community at Work: LAM Mutual Aid and Solidarity

The panel — hosted by the Archival Workers Emergency Fund (AWE Fund) Organizing Committee — will include Callan Bignoli of Protect Library Workers, John Chrastka of EveryLibrary's HALO Fund, and Paula Santos of Museum Workers Speak. Panelists will discuss mutual aid models of community care and community-building solidarity efforts.

This event is free to register, however, we are raising money for these collective efforts supporting LAM workers. All donations received through Eventbrite for this event will be distributed equally to:

• AWE Fund: https://awefund.wordpress.com
• HALO Fund: https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/halo
• Museum Workers Speak: https://museumworkersspeak.weebly.com
• Protect Library Workers: http://libraryworkers.net

About the Panelists

Callan Bignoli is the director of the library at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. With support from many others, she has been organizing resources to help with advocacy and safe reopening efforts at libraryworkers.net. She also co-manages the New England Radical Reference Collective and the LIBREV community (librev.info), is a member of Library Freedom Project, and serves on the executive board of the Massachusetts Library Association as the Library Information Technologies Section chair.

John Chrastka is a founder and executive director of EveryLibrary, the first Super PAC for libraries, and the EveryLibrary Institute, a public policy and tax policy think tank for libraries. Since 2012, EveryLibrary has provided pro-bono support to over 100 library communities with ballot measures and tax referendums, helping win over $328 million in stable tax funding. The EveryLibrary Institute supports individual library workers through the HALO Fund and libraries through the FundLibraries crowdfunding platform along with publishing the journal "The Political Librarian." He is a former Board President of the Berwyn (IL) Public Library and RAILS, the Reaching Across Illinois Libraries System.

Anna Clutterbuck-Cook is a historian, reference librarian, writer, and crafter. She works as a reference librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society and is a volunteer organizer with the Archival Workers Emergency Fund. She is the founder of Persistent Stitches, an all-volunteer an all-volunteer collective raising money for resistance, social justice, and anti-oppression work through crafting, and recently coordinated the Persistent Stitches #Auction4AWEfund event. As a historian, she is interested in the intersection of gender and sexuality, religion, and political activism. Michigan born, now Boston based she lives in Roslindale with her wife and two cats.

Paula Santos is a museum educator, cultural organizer and podcaster. She has held positions in major art museums in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. In addition to her museum work, she is the host of the Cultura Conscious podcast and a founding member of the Museum Workers Relief Fund. She is a graduate of the Leadership in Museum Education masters program at Bank Street College and earned her B.A. in Art History from Williams College. Currently, she is the Senior Manager of Learning and Engagement at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive Art in Chicago.

Moderators: Jessica Chapel and Alison Clemens.

Created in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Archival Workers Emergency Fund was established to provide assistance for archival workers experiencing acute, unanticipated financial hardship due to the crisis. The fund welcomes applications from all U.S.-based archival workers affected by the COVID-19 crisis and donations from all. For more information, visit the SAA website. The AWE Fund Organizing Committee coordinates ongoing fund support and development.

This panel is the first in a series of semi-regular panel conversations hosted by the AWE Fund Organizing Committee.

Note: This event will be held on Zoom. Unfortunately, live closed captioning will not be available during the event. We will be recording the panel and it will be released with closed captioning. We apologize for the inconvenience.

"Take Care / Care Take." Art by Peter Railand, sourced from Justseeds.