The Fresno State Library is pleased to present its first Womack Webinar in addition to the Library’s spring in-person Womack Lecture Series. The Womack Webinar focuses on a topic of direct library and bibliographic importance in the world today.
The topic for the inaugural Womack Webinar is “Critical Cataloging & Librarianship Today: Ethics, Power, and Possibility,” exploring the myriad ways in which librarianship, cataloging, social justice, and ethics intersect and why it is important work to pursue.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 (10:00 AM Pacific / 11:00 AM Mountain / 12:00 PM Central / 1:00 PM Eastern) for an exciting two-hour discussion with four nationally-recognized librarian leaders in the critical cataloging/critical librarianship movement. They will discuss how we might continue this important work in the face of a changing political landscape. The panel will also examine why it matters in higher education and in society now more than ever.
What is critical cataloging and librarianship? Simply said, it combines cataloging and librarianship with social justice and ethics. It encourages catalogers to eliminate prejudices in the language they use to describe materials and to utilize clear and unbiased descriptions and informed language.
Spend time with these engaging speakers to reflect on their experiences and research on this movement, and discuss where we go from here.
Register for the Womack Webinar today!
Panelists:
Emily Drabinski is Associate Professor and Chair of the School of Information Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. Her most recent publications include Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create (2025), coauthored with Amanda Belantara, (Litwin Books) and Organize Your Library! Developing the Collective Power of Library Workers, (2025) coauthored with Angelo Moreno, Meredith Kahn, and Kelly McElroy (ALA Editions).
Drabinski sits on the board of Invisible Histories, a community-based archive of southern LGBTQ+ history. Drabinski served as 2023-24 President of the American Library Association and is currently completing a book about the power and promise of the library as a public institution.
She writes regularly for the progressive news publication Truthout.
(Photo by Alisha Jucevic, http://www.jucevic.com)
Violet Fox is a cataloger and library metadata expert. Violet is the creator of the Cataloging Lab, a wiki designed to encourage cooperation in improving cataloging and classification standards.
She has also been a part of cooperative projects such as the LIS Mental Health project, 23 Linked Data Things, and the SACO Medical Funnel.
Violet is an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University and loves learning new things from her students.
Karen Snow is a Professor and the Ph.D. Program Director in the School of Information Studies at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. She teaches in the areas of cataloging, classification, and metadata, and her main areas of research interest are cataloging ethics, competencies, and education. Dr. Snow is the co-chair of the Cataloging Ethics Steering Committee and serves as a Trustee on the Board of La Grange Park Public Library.
In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Snow has published three books with Rowman & Littlefield, A Practical Guide to Library of Congress Classification (2017), A Practical Guide to Library of Congress Subject Headings (2021), and A Practical Guide to Dewey Decimal Classification (2024). Dr. Snow co-authored the Core Competencies for Cataloging and Metadata Professional Librarians (2017 and 2023 revision) and the Cataloguing Code of Ethics (2021).
ORCID
Research Gate
Billey Albina (FKA Amber Billey) is a master’s student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto where she is focusing on clinical psychotherapy using mindfulness-based and trauma-informed practices. Prior to social work, she was an academic technical services librarian for 14 years at Bard College, Columbia University, and University of Vermont.
Billey was Chair of the Leadership Team for the ALA Core Metadata & Collection Section and Past-Chair of the Core Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Billey was a member of the PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and was Chair of the PCC Ad Hoc Task Group on Recording Gender in Name Authority Records. She was the founder and member of the Open Rules for Cataloging project. She was also on the Advisory Board for the Digital Transgender Archive and the editorial board for the Homosaurus.
She co-edited the volume Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches (2024) now available through ALA Publications. [This webinar’s speakers and host contributed chapters to this book.]
Host: Julie Renee Moore is the Special Collections Catalog Librarian at California State University, Fresno. She is the Executive Board President of the Open Rules for Cataloging (ORC). She also serves on the Rules Committee of ORC.
She has held catalog librarian positions at the following institutions before Fresno State: Rutgers University (Piscataway, NJ), ARLIS (Alaska Resources Library and Information Services) (Anchorage, Alaska), Stetson University College of Law (Gulfport, FL), and Saint Leo University (St. Leo, FL.)
Moore received the ALA ALCTS Margaret Mann Citation, OLAC’s Nancy B. Olson Award, and the CLA TSIG Award of Achievement. Current research interests: critical cataloging; toxic books; social justice; Japanese Americans during WWII
Moore and the Special Collections Team co-created an exhibition on critical cataloging: “Words Matter! The Inclusive Cataloging Movement Takes Flight” (SCRC Exhibition), August 28, 2023-May 17, 2024. Events Photo Album
Her favorite thing she has ever cataloged was a black bear in Alaska. In her free time, she enjoys visiting natural history museums with her son, Samuel, who is studying to become a paleontologist.
ORCID
Webpage
Follow on Linkedin
This webinar is sponsored by The Womack Lecture Series, named for late librarian emeritus, Printise J. Womack.
Fresno State Library News 