CFP: LIS Interrupted: Intersections of Mental Illness and Library Work

December 10, 2018

Call for Chapter Proposals
Working Title: LIS Interrupted: intersections of mental illness and library work
Editors: Miranda Dube and Carrie Wade
Submission Deadline: March 31st, 2018
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book Description
LIS Interrupted addresses the experiences of library workers with mental illnesses. Too often conversations about mental illness are pushed to the sidelines, whispered about behind office doors, or covered up for others’ comfort. This book draws these conversations into public view and in doing so brings the experiences of mental illness to the forefront, offering space for comfort, connection, and community. The intention of this work is to provide a collection of both personal narratives and critical analyses of mental illness in the LIS field. This offers a unique opportunity to explore the many intersections with labor, culture, stigma, race, ability, identity, gender, and much more to provide context for positive change. LIS Interrupted is geared towards library workers and students in a variety of environments.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
Section One: Personal Narratives of Mental Illness

This section will focus on exploring the first-hand narratives of library and information workers who experience mental illness in their lives as it relates to their work. Possible topics include:
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
• Bipolar and Related Disorders
• Depressive and Anxiety Disorders (including postpartum depression/anxiety)
• Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
• Dissociative Disorders
• Feeding and Eating Disorders
• Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
• Personality Disorders
• Non-neurotypical experiences

Section Two: Critical Analysis of Mental Illness and LIS
This section will center the role of mental illness and its many intersections with library work and education. Possible topics include:
• Mental illness and labor expectations
• Postpartum depression and maternity leave
• Reference services and mental illness
• Collection development/ LC and/or Dewey classification schemes and mental illness stigma
• Mental illness and critical disability studies
• Workplace advocacy for mental illness
• Mental illness acceptance through performed whiteness
• Mental illness as disability
• Accessibility services in Graduate School
• Mental Illness and the LIS job search
• Library design and mental illness
• Historical discourses of Librarianship, gender, and mental illness

Timeline
• CFP distributed:
• Deadline for Chapter Proposals: March 31, 2019
• Notification of Accepted Chapter Proposals: April 19, 2019
• First drafts due: August 2, 2019
• First draft reviewer feedback returned: September 3, 2019
• Final drafts due: November 15, 2019
• Final draft submission review: November 16, 2019- December 10, 2019
• Submission of final manuscript: January 1, 2020

Submissions
Please email abstracts of up to 500 words to LISInterrupted (at) gmail (dot) com in a .docx or .pdf format, along with a short author bio.

Abstracts should state whether you would like your work published as a personal narrative or critical analysis—while the editors acknowledge that there might be some overlap between personal narrative and critical exploration, we would prefer authors to identify their work on their own terms. Authors interested in publishing in section one who wish to use a pseudonym should include this in their proposal. You are welcome to submit multiple abstracts about different possible topics. If your submission is tentatively accepted, the editors may request modifications. Previously published materials will not be accepted.

Final chapters will be in the 2000-5000-word range and formatted in Chicago Style.

Please direct any questions to Miranda Dube or Carrie Wade, editors, at mirandaldube (at) gmail (dot) com or carriethewade (at) gmail (dot) com.

About the Editors
Miranda Dube is a Reference and Instruction Adjunct Faculty Librarian at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. She received her BA in Communication Arts from the University of New Hampshire at Manchester and her MLIS from the University of Rhode Island. Her research interests include library services to domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, as well as mental illness, and addiction in the LIS profession.

Carrie Wade is the Health Sciences librarian at the University of WIsconsin Milwaukee and a backpacking subject specialist at REI in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Her research interests focus on analyzing historical discourses in Library and Information Science and other fields as a means to plot out a more just, equitable, and liberated future for libraries and the people who work in them.