idea-webinars
IDEA Webinar Series
From the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee
2026 Diversity Webinar Series
Session Title: Relational, Not Extractive: Indigenous Research Methods in Libraries
Overview: Melissa Stoner (Dine), the Native American Studies Librarian at the University of California Berkeley, draws on professional experience as an Indigenous librarian and archivist to explore the possibilities and constraints of applying Indigenous Research Methods in librarianship.
Date: March 11, 2026
Time: 11:00AM (PST)
Register for FREE here: https://sjsu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ED5eW21sQHuMfHqqNK5TsA#/registration
2025 Diversity Webinar Series
Spring 2025 Diversity Webinar
Session Title: The Power of Community: Fighting for Women’s rights & Becoming a Writer
Overview: Joan Gelfand, women’s rights activist and the award-winning author of “Outside Voices: A memoir of the Berkeley Revolution” discussed her book and her life experiences and the 1970s women’s rights movement in Berkeley, California in conversation with SJSU student journalist Madison Wilber. Book signing followed.
Co-organized with SJSU King Library. In-person, King Library
Fall 2025 Diversity Webinar
Session Title: Celebrating Indigenous Bridging Knowledge Scholars
Overview: In this symposium honoring Native American Heritage month, Kate Price, Brandon Castle, Taylor Hummel, Melia Kalawe, Keau George, Diana Terrazas, Marcus Ortiz, and Alyssa Hanna, share recent work experiences, reflections on the SJSU Masters of Library and Information Science program, and challenges facing Indigenous libraries today.
An iSchool Culture and Community symposium. Virtual
2024 Diversity Webinar Series
Fall 2024 Diversity webinar
Session Title: Information Warfare in Ukraine: Conversation with Volodymyr
Overview: Ukrainian film director Volodymyr Sydko discusses his experiences of the ongoing war in Ukraine in conversation with Ulia Gosart (iSchool) and Jonathan Ross (Department of History). Conversation focuses on the history and means of the Russian information attacks on Ukraine that proceeded the full-scale invasion that began in February 2022; film making during wartime, and the significance of the stories of ordinary people who have suffered from the war.
Co-organized with SJSU Department of History. Virtual
2021 Diversity Webinar Series
Fall 2021 Diversity Webinar
Session Title: Collaborating for Success: A Hispanic Heritage Month Case Study
Overview: Guest speakers Nadia Rendon and Nicanor Diaz chat about how to successfully leverage collaboration to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. They showcase the work that they did this year along with some pictures of their programs. They talk about how they planned the events, and the importance of partnering with other departments in the library and community organizations to ensure the success of the program.
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/collaborating-success-hispanic-heritage-month-case-study
Session Title: Humble Leadership as a Humble Practice
Overview: This 60-minute webinar introduces the concept of humble leadership. Humble leadership is a leadership style developed by Dr. Edgar Schien, MIT emeritus professor of organizational psychology. This webinar introduces the idea of humble leadership as a pathway to engage in leadership as a librarian. Our guest speaker shares her thoughts about humble leadership using a framework of cultural humility to situate humble leadership as a humble practice within a developing framework of cultural humility for librarianship.
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/humble-leadership-humble-practice
2020 Diversity Webinar Series
Spring 2020 Diversity Webinar Series
These webinars are brought to you by the SJSU School of Information’s Diversity Committee.
Session Title: Librarians being open-minded professionals: fostering diversity, inclusion, & equity
Overview: Librarians are the gateway for change in our communities, in corporate America, and educational systems. In 2020, our society is still attempting to find ways to include all individuals by fostering the awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The problem with this notion is many fail to conquer the first step, which is being open-minded. In a profession where we reach doctors, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and most importantly our youth, we must step out of our comfort zones to learn beyond our educational practices. To truly assist in our profession, we must accept a new proposal: dismiss preconceived notions and practice “open-mindedness,” which is the first step to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Presenter: Kiera Vargas
Bio: Kiera Vargas is an educator who realizes that one of the key components in life is to love. This same key component is needed to educate our children. Within this profession, we as educators, parents, and stakeholders must realize that this is one of the secrets to improving so many things in education. With my diverse educational background, practical experiences, and most importantly love for our students, I have experiences, stories, and tools to assist with the plight of our educational system. Kiera has taught grades from K-12- college seniors. She has taught in North Carolina, she was the 2019 Teacher of the Year for Madison Florida, and she recently taught for a Department of Defense Education Activity School. Currently she also conducts professional development for a novel company (www.epifhanyshappen.com) that she created centering on exposing students and assisting educators from less diverse backgrounds with understanding the importance climate and culture in the school house. Kiera holds a BS in Journalism and Mass Communication concentration Public Relations & MS in English Education from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a Juris Doctorate from Charlotte School of Law, and an MLIS from Drexel University. She has one son; Anthony Davis.
Session Title: What is mindfulness, anyway?
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/what-mindfulness-anyway
Overview: Everyone’s talking about it as a way to de-stress, be more productive, and improve mental health. It’s now a billion-dollar business that includes corporate trainings, apps, products, and online courses… but what actually is mindfulness, anyway? This webinar will examine the recent popularity of mindfulness in Western society, as well as its history and tradition as a Buddhist spiritual practice. What parts of mindfulness have been embraced and adopted by our culture, and which portions have been ignored? What do its proponents rave about, and what do its critics argue? Is mindfulness a cultural movement, or is it a fad? Is it a spiritual endeavor, or an intellectual one? Is it political or apolitical, activist or apathetic? Is it an example of globalization, or is it cultural appropriation? These are some of the questions that will arise during the exploration of this topic. You’ll come away with a greater understanding of mindfulness, be able to detangle the ongoing conversations surrounding it, and perhaps develop a curiosity to learn more!
Presenter: Jamie Lin, MLIS
Bio: Jamie Lin is a librarian, educator, and designer living in Southern California. She’s a graduate of SJSU’s library and information science program, and practices Vipassana meditation.
Session Title: Beyond routine library services to immigrants: A discussion on the role of information in migration
Overview: Library services to immigrants have historically followed a narrow service provision model that overlooks the broader role of information and libraries in migration. In this presentation, Dr. Ndumu will discuss the cross between libraries, social inclusion, and push/pull migration factors. The presentation will end with two initiatives that are transforming library ideology on immigrants.
Presenter: Dr. Ana Ndumu, Assistant Professor, UMD College of Information
Bio: Dr. Ana Ndumu is an Assistant Professor at the UMD College of Information. Her research and teaching center on libraries and immigrants and achieving racial realism and representation in LIS. Her forthcoming edited book is entitled, “Borders and belonging: Critical examinations of library approaches toward immigrants.
Session Title: The Publishing Librarian: becoming a publisher, starting a printing press, & creating content!
Overview: This webinar will discuss the “pocket” economics and history of publishing; participants will learn the advantages of an ISBN, how to buy a stack of ISBNs, and receive guidance about whether print-on-demand or going with a smaller printing house benefits your bottom line.
Presenter: Yago Cura, President, REFORMA/LA & Bilingual Outreach Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library
Bio: Yago S. Cura is a Bilingual Outreach Librarian with the Los Angeles Public Library and President of the Los Angeles Chapter of REFORMA (www.reformala.org). Yago runs HINCHAS Press which publishes the Librarians with Spines series with the help of Max Macias and Autumn Anglin, and the online literary journal, Hinchas de Poesia (www.hinchasdepoesia.com), with the help of Jim Heavily and Jennifer Therieau. Most recently, Yago contributed a chapter, “Senior Citizen Zinesters” (HINCHAS, 2019), to the second volume of Librarians with Spines and was interviewed by Stacy Russo for her book, A Better World Starts Here: Activists and Their Work (Sanctuary, 2019). In 2018, Yago published “Hoisting the Disenfranchised Over the Digital Divide in South Central Los Angeles” in the anthology Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel: Innovative Meditations on Librarianship.(Library Juice, 2018)
Fall 2020 Diversity Webinar Series
These webinars are brought to you by the SJSU School of Information’s Diversity Committee.
Session Title: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion as Action: Designing a Collective EDI Strategy
Overview: Will the next decade of EDI initiatives and research in LIS address what works, rather than what is missing? Social justice requires librarians to transition from simply discussing these values to embedding them through strategic action in a manner that is accessible and reproducible by the average LIS employee. Participants will be introduced to the EDI@OSUL project, an action-based tool for libraries (co-developed with Sandra Enimil) to explicitly determine how to approach EDI at the individual, unit and organizational level. Learn how to design an employee-driven EDI action plan for an organization while simultaneously developing in-house EDI leaders who can lead from where they are.
Presenter: Pamela Espinosa de los Monteros, Assistant Professor, Latin American Studies Librarian University Libraries, The Ohio State University
Bio: Pamela Espinosa de los Monteros is an Assistant Professor and Latin American Area Studies Librarian at The Ohio State University (OSU). As a bilingual/bicultural information professional, she has supported international research initiatives, developed award-winning educational curriculum, and served as senior project manager in corporate, private, and higher education settings in the United States and Mexico. She has more than 15 years of experience developing leadership and educational programs that promote global citizenship and intercultural exchange. Her research focuses on the internationalization of the curriculum as well as knowledge equity in the context of library instruction and collections. In her current role, Pamela liaisons for students, faculty and staff of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU -Latino/a Studies Program, and the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). Pamela is the recipient of a Fulbright Garcia Robles Binational Business Fellowship, University Libraries’ Teaching Award, and Ohio State’s Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award. Her most current project is as a co-principal investigator for the K’acha Willaykuna Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Arts and Humanities Collaborative.
Session Title: Beyond Platitudes: Making EDI Actionable
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/beyond-platitudes-making-edi-actionable
Overview: Diversity and equity are fundamental values of librarianship. How can we take these values and make them actionable at our respective organizations? Learn how to create and sustain an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) committee at your library, including how to set goals, write a charge statement, and strategies that can be used to promote continuing education for staff on topics related to equity, indigeneity, accessibility, and inclusion.
Presenter: Mimosa Shah, Adult Program Coordinator (she/her/hers), Skokie Public Library in Skokie, IL
Bio: Mimosa develops, manages, and evaluates informal learning opportunities for adults at Skokie Public Library. She works in collaboration with colleagues across departments to provide a robust slate of events geared toward cultivating curiosity and growth. Her interests include digital and media literacy, photography, zinemaking and paper arts, and space-making for and with underrepresented communities.
Session Title: Integrating Cultural Humility into Librarianship
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/integrating-cultural-humility-librarianship
Overview: In this session, participants will learn the concept of cultural humility, the difference between cultural competency and cultural humility, the rationale for integrating cultural humility into librarianship, and the several recommendations on how to do so.
Presenter: Twanna Hodge, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Librarian, University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries
Bio: Twanna Hodge graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 with her master’s degree in library and information science. She is currently the co-chair of the National Conference of African American Librarians XI Conference Programming Committee, co-chair of the ACRL 2021 Scholarships Committee, and more. Her research interests are diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility issues and efforts in the LIS curriculum and workplace, library residencies and fellowships, cultural humility in librarianship, and the retention of minority library staff in librarianship. She is a 2013 Spectrum Scholar and 2018 ALA Emerging Leader.
Session Title: Moving Beyond Diversity to Anti-Oppression
Recording: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/webcasts/moving-beyond-diversity-anti-oppression
Overview: A presentation on how to incorporate anti-racist ideas, concepts and actions that can act as a model for anti-oppression library practices. Participants will be able to:
- explain the concept of anti-racism
- identify racist policies, procedures and practices in their library
- apply anti-racist concepts in the library
- critique current library policies with an anti-racist analysis
Presenter: Max Macias, Part-time Instructional Librarian, Portland Community College
Bio: Max Macias is an independent librarian who teaches information literacy part time for Portland Community College. He grew up in San Jose, CA, but has lived in the Northwest since 1992. Macias’ love of fiction, philosophy, art and ideas led to him becoming a librarian after working in libraries for more than 20 years as a technician. His intellectual interests include Information and Hip-Hop, Whiteness in Education, Racism in the US, Colonialism, Cannabis Resources for Librarians and Education and Policy Analysis. His recent primary focus has been on Whiteness in Education and in Libraries.