HEIDI ESTRADA CURRENT POSITION Digital and Maker Services Librarian, Indian Trails Public Library, Wheeling, IL DEGREE MLIS, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, 2014 Photo courtesy of Heidi Estrada

SOPHIE KENNEY CURRENT POSITION Youth Department Assistant Director, Glen Ellyn Public Library, IL DEGREE MLIS, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, 2015 Photo courtesy of Sophie Kenney

Support from Scratch

In late 2020, Sophie Kenney founded the Reaching Across Illinois System (RAILS) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) Library Workers group. At the first meeting, Kenney opened the floor to anyone who wanted to be a co-leader, paying forward the leadership opportunities she’d received. Heidi Estrada stepped up. “The rest is amazing history,” says Estrada. 

The group’s goal is to “foster connection, share resources, and discuss specific experiences in a safe, welcome, and open space for BIPOC library workers,” and it has more than 70 members.

Kenney says the challenge is in breaking new ground on everything. “There aren’t a lot of groups that exist like ours, so we are building practically everything from scratch; there really isn’t a template.” But Kenney and Estrada can shape the group to its members’ needs, though these vary—some want community and support, others want professional development and networking. 

What they built serves as the template for others who want to replicate their idea. They’ve been contacted by library workers who want to create something similar and presented at the Public Library Association conference on the topic. 

While there’s volunteer work involved on top of their day jobs—managing the listserv, member vetting and onboarding, providing support and feedback to members, and attending board meetings—both estimate the labor at a manageable handful of hours a week. Estrada adds, “You can start small. Little bits and pieces add up to a lot.”

Among their accomplishments is convincing the RAILS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion board to add a new seat reserved for a member of the BIPOC group, and encouraging another group member to start a subgroup focusing on mental health. Future plans include a mentorship subgroup, private channels of communication for members that aren’t tied to their workplace, and changing the group’s model to include more people in decision-making.

Two consistent themes emerge among everyone who speaks about the group: the emphasis on supporting all BIPOC library workers, not just degreed librarians, and the value of the community to staffers who may be the few or only BIPOC workers at one of RAILS’s 1,300 member libraries.

“You don’t have to introduce or explain, you are surrounded by people who know,” sums up Kenney. “We are all there to uplift and empower each other in ways that may be missing in our individual organizations because of the demographic makeup.” Estrada agrees. “That sense of community is so important to making sure that we retain the staff of color in our libraries.”