Gracen Brilmyer and Lydia Tang eds., "Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession" (Library Juice Press, 2024)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Preserving Disability – Disability and the Archival Profession

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Gracen Brilmyer and Lydia Tang, eds., "Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession" (Library Juice Press, 2024)
Date: November 22, 2025
Host: Clayton Gerard
Guests: Gracen Brilmyr, Lydia Tang

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Overview

This episode spotlights the new book "Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession," edited by Gracen Brilmyr and Lydia Tang. The conversation explores disability's intersection with archives: challenging ableist practices, expanding accessibility, and uplifting the voices and experiences of disabled archivists and users. Through a mix of first-person narratives, case studies, and critical essays, the guests unpack how disabled knowledge and advocacy are shaping the archival world—past, present, and future.

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Guest Introductions

[02:36] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Disabled researcher
• Director, Disability Archives Lab
• Assistant Professor, McGill University's School of Information Studies

[03:04] Lydia Tang:

• Senior Outreach and Engagement Coordinator, LYRASIS
• Supports accessibility and leads archive space hosting
• Former archivist; current Council member, Society of American Archivists

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Origins of "Preserving Disability"

[03:44] Lydia Tang:

• The idea began in 2020 within the SAA’s Accessibility and Disability Section.
• Sparked by a recent revision of accessibility guidelines (the first update in 10 years) and collaboration among disabled archivists.
• The Call for Proposals opened the project to a wider, international community, including not just archivists but also students and disabled archive users.
• Publishers saw the topic as "niche" until Library Juice Press (Litwin) accepted it—helped by their focus on archival practice.

Quote:
"We were fresh off of building and refreshing the standards and just eager to continue the conversation about accessibility and disability in archives."
— Lydia Tang [04:37]

[06:12] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Joined the project to help it grow and facilitate its evolution.
• Felt a "critical mass of ideas" was emerging, making this book timely and necessary.

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Conceptualizing Preservation and Ableism

[07:38] Gracen Brilmyr:

• The book starts with the assertion that disability—and disabled people—are "worth preserving."
• Addresses ableist practices that have historically rendered disabled people as unworthy of preservation, from eugenics to exclusion from archival records and the profession itself.
• Emphasizes the "magic" disabled people bring through care work, storytelling, and memory-making.

Quote:
"The ways that disabled people get told that we are not worth preserving … and even through future imaginaries that write us out of the future through technology or other eugenics-esque solutions."
— Gracen Brilmyr [08:30]

• Cites influential work by Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Alice Wong in centering disabled voices and preservation as a form of care and advocacy.

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Critical Questions Driving the Book

[11:13] Lydia Tang:

• Key theme: Gatekeeping in the profession—“Are you the gatekeeper?”
• Barriers encountered by disabled archivists, including ableist job requirements (e.g. lifting 40-pound boxes), institutional lack of flexibility, and contingent employment.
• Challenges to what it means to "be an archivist," expanding beyond academic or professional credentialing.
• The lived tension of researching disability in archives, dealing with histories of erasure, institutionalization, and the absence of disabled perspectives.

Quote:
"If we can reimagine a future that is more flexible and more inclusive, it can transform our practice and how we discover our histories and share it and describe it."
— Lydia Tang [12:55]

[13:48] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Book closes with Zakiyah Collier’s provocation on “rehousing archivists,” critiquing ableist work culture and emphasizing the need for livable futures for archivists.
• Focus also on archival users—finding (or not finding) oneself in the record, confronting misrepresentation or silence, and the emotional affect of archival engagement as a disabled person.

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Disability and Accessibility in Archival Work

[17:50] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Disability work builds upon and is intertwined with the work of Library and Information Science (LIS) practitioners, especially those addressing racism and white supremacy in the profession.
• Reimagining core professional norms is made possible by earlier interventionist and critical work across LIS.

[20:28] Lydia Tang:

• Libraries have a deep history of disability services (e.g., Library services for wounded WWI veterans, services for the blind).
• Accessibility guidelines in archives date to the 1970s, evolving alongside disability rights movements and through dedicated efforts like Frank Serene's Accessibility Manual.
• Current guidelines (now newly revised) were shaped with direct involvement from disabled archivists.

[22:27] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Scholarship by figures such as Sarah White and projects focused on disability history (e.g., Meg Ryn’s and Bridget Malley’s works) have laid intellectual and practical groundwork for this book.
• Increasing focus on mental health, trauma, and sustainability in archival labor.

Quote:
"All of these lineages … have laid the foundations for a book like this to be possible."
— Gracen Brilmyr [24:12]

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Collaborative Process and Book Structure

[25:43] Lydia Tang:

• The book grew from a core group within SAA to a collective project via an open Call for Proposals.
• Dramatically expanded in scope—from a practical manual to a multifaceted collection spanning the lived experience of archivists and users alike.
• Chapters underwent rigorous peer review by other contributors and external reviewers in a highly collaborative process, enhancing quality and inclusivity.

[28:41] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Organizing the book was challenging due to the wide variety of subjects, styles, and voices.
• Chapters grouped into three clusters:
  1. The effects and affects of archives for disabled users, focusing on how disabled people experience archives and records.
  2. Disabled archival workers, exploring employment barriers, professional identity, and workplace transformation.
  3. Archival work shaping narratives, examining how disabled archivists curate, describe, and expand archival stories.

Quote:
"We really wanted to think about, you know, what is the overarching story we're telling … to orient readers to this really broad topic."
— Gracen Brilmyr [29:57]

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The Book’s Political and Social Moment

[33:08] Gracen Brilmyr:

• The launch coincides with escalating threats to disability rights, social supports, and inclusive labor practices (e.g. remote work).
• The book foregrounds intersectionality, highlighting compounded barriers for multiply marginalized disabled people—especially queer, trans, and disabled people of color.
• Envisions disability advocacy in archives as part of broader resistance and coalition building for social justice.

Quote:
"We hope that this book not only shows many different intersectional approaches to archives by disabled people who are … addressing disability experiences in all of their complexity … these solidarities that are absolutely like present between disabled communities and other communities where we're doing this work together."
— Gracen Brilmyr [33:41]

[34:55] Lydia Tang:

• The book is a vital rallying point as protections are eroded and as archives and memory work become increasingly threatened.
• The shift away from remote work and from diversity/accessibility initiatives is a tangible setback for disabled professionals.
• The collection serves as a "milestone and a snapshot in time"—with optimism for the ongoing evolution of access and advocacy.

Quote:
"We are just so excited that there is so much that went into this and so many efforts, so, so much that's currently happening right now and to discuss this. And we know that the best is yet to come and we look forward to everything ahead."
— Lydia Tang [38:03]

[38:25] Gracen Brilmyr:

• Beyond everything, the book documents disability—preserving the knowledge, politics, art, and community work that disabled people bring to archival practice and beyond.

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Notable Quotes

• "It was really, yeah, pretty magical to enter in as it was taking shape and then work with Lydia to help it come to life."
  — Gracen Brilmyr [06:52]
• "It made me realize that it had grown beyond anything that I could have imagined."
  — Lydia Tang [27:27]
• "If nothing else, this book, again, documents disability. It documents all of the magic that disabled people bring to the world."
  — Gracen Brilmyr [38:25]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:36 — Guest introductions and professional backgrounds
• 03:44 — Book’s origin story and initial dreams
• 07:38 — On preservation, ableism, and disabled brilliance
• 11:13 — Gatekeeping, barriers, and reimagining who gets included
• 17:50 — Disability within broader LIS equity movements
• 20:28 — Historical context for accessibility in libraries and archives
• 22:27 — Foundational scholarship on disability/archives
• 25:43 — Contributors and the collaborative process
• 28:41 — Structure and clusters within the book
• 33:08 — The book’s urgency in contemporary political times
• 34:55 — Hopes for the book as a milestone and rallying point
• 38:25 — Book as documentation and celebration of disability

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Final Reflections

The episode powerfully frames “Preserving Disability” not merely as a book but as a living testament to the ingenuity, solidarity, and advocacy of disabled people in archives. Brilmyr and Tang chart the profession’s ableist history, celebrate collective resistance, and urge us to reimagine archives as more inclusive, flexible, and just spaces for both practitioners and users. In a moment of political uncertainty, their work stands as a blueprint for building equitable futures and safeguarding disabled memory.

"The best is yet to come and we look forward to everything ahead."
— Lydia Tang [38:03]

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Transcript

[Grayson Brillmeier]

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[Lydia Tang]

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[Lydia Tang]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Clayton Gerard]

Welcome to New Books Network. My name is Clayton Gerard. My pronouns are em and today I'm here with Grayson Brillmeier and Lydia Tang, editors of Preserving Disability, Disability and the Archival Profession. Preserving Disability weaves together first person narratives and case studies contributed by disabled archivists and disabled archive users, bringing critical perspectives and approaches to the archival profession. Contributed chapters span topics such as accessibility of archives and first person experiences, researching disability collections for disabled archive users, disclosure and accommodations and self advocacy of disabled archivists and processing and stewarding disability related collections. Collectively, these works address the nuances of both disability and archives, critically drawing attention to the histories, present experiences and future possibilities of the archival profession. So, thank you both so much for being here with me today. I'm really excited for this conversation and the new book that both of you have just edited and brought into the world. Before we dive into the discussion, would you mind introducing yourself to the listeners?

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Sure, yeah. Thanks for having us. This is Grayson. I'm a disabled researcher and I am currently the director of the Disability Archives Lab, which hosts a lot of collaborative projects and research at the intersection of disability and archives. And I'm also currently an assistant professor at the School of information studies at McGill University.

[Lydia Tang]

Hi, Clayton. I'm Dr. Lydia Tang. I am a senior Outreach and Engagement Coordinator with Lyricis, where I provide leadership for our flagship service of archive space hosting. And I also support accessibility across the organization. Previously, I was an archivist, and I currently serve on the Society of American Archivists Council.

[Clayton Gerard]

Awesome. Thank you both for that introduction and for joining me today. Like I said, I'm really excited to talk about the book. So to start out this conversation, I just want to talk about how this book came about for y'. All.

[Lydia Tang]

So I had to look back in my notes. This is Lydia speaking, and we have records of brainstorming about this book from 2020. And so I'd say in the context of that time, the accessibility and Dis section was fairly new, and we had had a history of collaborating together, basically the steering committee and some core members of the group. We would collaborate on conference presentations, we collaborated on articles, and we had just revised the guidelines for accessible archives for people with disabilities. This is a standard through the Society of American Archivists. That was. That hadn't touched in nearly 10 years. So we were fresh off of building and refreshing the standards and just eager to continue the conversation about accessibility and disability in archives. And so Grayson came on as a co editor, and we decided to open up the book for Call for Proposals. And it brought in a whole new group of people that I hadn't worked with before, and it expanded the scope and the expertise and perspectives that came in, which was just incredible. So we're so happy that the book contains perspectives now that span several continents and also involves the perspectives not only of practicing archivists, but also of researchers and archival students as well. And we had been interviewing different publishers for the book, just trying to find the right fit. It was a process, because even at the time, which wasn't that long ago, it still seemed like an entire book on accessibility and disability often felt like too much of a niche topic for the publishers to be willing to take on. And so when we found Litwin, and especially with Michelle Caswell editing a series on archival practice and literature, it just seemed like the right fit.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Yeah. And this is Grayson. I was just, like, really excited to be invited to, like, come on this project that was in the works and then, you know, be able to facilitate it in growing. It felt like it really had, like, all of this potential to be really center these important conversations and really mark this important moment in this work that was feeling like it was almost like coming to a critical mass of ideas around disability and accessibility. So it was really, yeah, pretty magical to enter in as it was taking shape and then work with Lydia to help it come to Life.

[Clayton Gerard]

Yeah, thank you for sharing about that. It's always so interesting to hear about how books get started and what's involved in the process and also, just like, what inspires the book topic. So thank you for sharing about that. I'd love to talk a little bit broadly about the book and the concepts that are explored. So in the introduction, y' all begin by talking about how preservation is a broad topic when it comes to disability. Can you share about some of the complexities around preservation and where ableism comes in at times, and then also how disabled folks have practiced preservation in different ways and really inspire different ways of looking at preservation?

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Sure, Yeah, I guess. There's a quote that we have in our introduction that is freely available on the PDF on Litwin's site for folks to read, and we have a quote from Mia Mingus that says it means something to be disabled. Never forget that. That. And I think, yeah, we came into this book really wanting to honor and center all of the magic that disabled people bring to the world. And in. Yeah, thinking about titles for the book and thinking about archives and disability, the notion of preservation obviously came up thinking about, yeah, the ways that disabled people get told that we are not worth preserving, you know, through eugenic notions of eliminating or avoiding disability, through the lack of access and support and medical care that we might need, and even through future imaginaries that write us out of the future through technology or other eugenics esque solutions. And then we're also talking about it in an archival sense of this, also an idea of a future that archivists work around, you know, what we should keep for the future, how people will use materials in the future, and how we as practitioners move through different processes for that use and access, whether that's what we choose to select to acquire, how we choose to describe things. But yeah, I think as Lydia and I were simmering on these ideas, we really wanted to start this book with the assumption that disability is something worth preserving. And the book really highlights that through so many perspectives, primarily from disabled people on the importance of our work, the lenses that we bring to the world, to archives, to storytelling, to memory work. And yeah, and thinking about your question, I think I'm very much so drawn to think of folks like Leah Lakshmi, Piepce Amarasina and their work on care work, thinking about care networks, the way disabled people support each other, the ways that thinking of Alice Wong's Disability Visibility project, the way that we tell our stories and share them, whether that's through oral histories, through art through performance, through all of these ways. So, yeah, I think the book really starts with that ethos. And then, yeah, all of our contributors kind of take it up in a very different way of thinking about disabled memory work broadly.

[Clayton Gerard]

Yeah, thank you for that. I'd love to also talk a little bit about some of the questions that are driving the book, a lot of what the contributors are addressing, and then also what both of you touch on in your pieces and then also in the introduction more broadly. But can you share about some of the critical questions this book and its contributors asked about the archival profession and what it means to be like, disabled working in an archive or like doing archival work and disability related collection?

[Lydia Tang]

Yeah, there's even a chapter that starts with the phrase, are you the gatekeeper? And so I'd say that the archivists that are addressing the archival profession in their chapters oftentimes are interrogating historic practices of gatekeeping to enter the profession, internalized ableism within the archival practice, and gatekeeping to remain within the profession too. So there are, our authors have identified barriers to access as student workers, as archivists that are transitioning into oftentimes very contingent employment at the beginning, and barriers for job descriptions, such as, like, the weight requirements that often are present in job descriptions. So, like, it is somewhat common for job descriptions to say that you must be able to lift something like £40. And archival workers with disabilities understand that there needs to be more flexibility there and that a lot of the parameters that we have taken for granted over decades of archival practice just simply don't need to be that way. And if we can reimagine a future that is more flexible and more inclusive, it can. It can transform our practice and how we discover our histories and share it and describe it. So additionally, in Alice Wong's forward, Alice.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Talks about.

[Lydia Tang]

The notion of who is an archivist too. So the gatekeeping of the assumption that one does need to go through an archival educational program. Whereas with the Disability Visibility project, Alice is already an archivist in their own way, documenting and celebrating history of disabled people.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

And the book ends with those questions too, which I. Yeah, and just listening to you talk, Lydia, about Alice's forward to the book. Also thinking about the book closes with a really powerful provocation by Zakiyah Collier on rehousing archivists where they critique some of the hostile and ableist and exclusionary aspects to archival work and thinking about what it means to build and imagine livable futures for archivists. So, yeah, just in this moment, thinking about how the book is bookended with those two calls and critiques of archives. But yeah, we also were thinking about the other side, I guess, of the reading room desk or how it feels to be a disabled user. So a lot of the chapters in the book also ask really critical questions around access and users experiences. Some chapters think through historical language used around disability, like how do we find ourselves? How are disabled people documented or erased in archives? How are we represented? You know, I'm thinking about different histories of documentation around disability, whether that's histories of institutionalization or criminalization, or like activism and community that can be like, found and addressed in archives. And other chapters think about the ways that some records about disability really might be lacking disabled people's perspectives or narratives. So what does it feel like to meet those kind of historical narratives when you're working in an archive as a disabled person? So yeah, the book really spans questioning the profession and what it means to enter the profession, what it means to be in the profession and do the work, and what it means to experience the profession as a user or a researcher.

[Clayton Gerard]

Yeah, thank you for speaking to that. The book has such a wide like approach to these topics and it's so refreshing to see so many different voices from different perspectives speaking on these things. So I just want to also commend you both for that and the contributors work in engaging their perspectives. But I really appreciate how you mentioned that, like how the book is ending and the question of like livable lives and like making livable futures and how that's tied to archives and like Alice Wong's work with the Disability Disability Project. And I think there's a lot of assumptions usually that archives are about the distant past and like very institutional and such. But there are examples of archives in the present and archives of the present and different ways people are navigating lives and approaching these historical and contemporary issues. So thank you for speaking to that. I'd love to also ask you about some of the ways disability and accessibility has emerged as topics of concern and interest in the archival profession. Specifically, as you address in your introduction, there has been a lot of collective work from other people in the library and information sciences to engage these topics of disability and accessibility. And it ranges so broadly, like you mentioned, from the actual work of the archivist, but also like the archival materials from like papers from 100 years ago to like the actual information systems that catalog and organize and manage these different resources. So would you mind just talking a little bit about the work that has been done to address some of the issues around disability and accessibility.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Yeah, there's too many works and lineages to acknowledge without making this a very long podcast. But I think one one group of lineages of thought that this book is absolutely indebted to, and I feel like my understanding of archives and archival work is indebted to, is all of the LIS workers of color and people working in solidarity with them to address the historical whiteness and white supremacy in a lot of different information professions. And I think that work in addressing many white Western Euro American norms that get embodied in the ways that we're expected to work, how materials are created and kept and valued, and the many different processes and thinking about interventions for those processes really laid a foundation for like work on disability specifically to enter that conversation and identifying and addressing and reimagining some of the many norms that are within the ways that we do our work or think about our work.

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[Lydia Tang]

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[Lydia Tang]

And libraries have a long history of accessibility, too, stemming from just the philosophy of access to knowledge for all. When I worked at the American Library Association Archives, I was so delighted to come across the records of the Library service for wounded veterans of World War I. And so it was amazing to see the disability services, especially for people who were blinded during the war. Having such a long history of that type of accessibility work. And it goes on for other types of library services, both within the Capitol, with the library service for the blind, and also for state services as well. And then within the archival profession. Accessibility work has been talked about in the more recent past, leading up to this point. So starting in the 1970s, coinciding with the development of the with the development of national rights for people with disabilities, and for example, Frank Serene's Accessibility Manual for the National Archives was a starting point for developing the Society for American Archivists original guidelines for people with disabilities and then leading to this newest version of guidelines. So a task. Fours of us have been involved with revising the guidelines just in this past year, and so we're very excited to have that newly published on the Society of American Archivists website too.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

As Lydia and I were thinking about these different lineages, we're both bringing different perspectives on archives too, both practice based and theory based, and all of the intersections in between. And so we were also really inspired by and grateful for, like, early works like by the late Sarah White, who in 2012 published a really early informative piece that uses some disability theory and from disability studies to think about archival processes that started a lot of important conversations on disability. And arXiv definitely informed a lot of my work in thinking about the intersection of disability studies and archival studies in theory and in practice. And from there there's just been a growing body of scholarship addressing, you know, historical materials on disability, like Meg ryn's work on P.T. barnum materials or Bridget Malley's work on disability history in Western Pennsylvania. And there's also then this growing body of knowledge on disabled archivists thinking about access to the profession, support and accommodations, mental health bur trauma and accessibility, all of these lineages that are thinking about archival work and the well being of archivists and archival labor. So, yeah, all of these things kind of come together. There's no way that we could provide an exhaustive list of all of it, but definitely thinking about all of the work that has made something like this book possible and how that is impossible to capture in whole because there's so much work that's done outside of published literature or heavily documented practices, but definitely all of these lineages that exist in multiplicity that have laid the foundations for a book like this to be possible.

[Clayton Gerard]

Yeah, thank you both for just detailing a bit of that. I think it's also so important to just recognize the lineages that, you know, these projects take up and both of y' all do an excellent job of that. Introduction. So I appreciate you sharing about that with the listeners. And importantly, these questions of like, what even gets to be preserved are refracted by issues of like race, accessibility, gender, sexuality, all these different types of existence that are often unconscious or subconscious and sometimes very consciously part of the decision making of what gets to be preserved. So thank you for detailing some of that. I'd love to also talk a little bit about the work of bringing this book about. Both of you, I'm sure, did immense labor in editing the volume, but it also has many, many contributors that have done some excellent pieces that were included in the book. So would you mind sharing a little bit about the process of bringing contributors in to be involved in this project and what was like.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Sure.

[Lydia Tang]

Like I mentioned earlier, this book idea stemmed from a core group of people in the Society of American Archivists Accessibility and Disability section originally, and long history of collaborating together and then building out that call for proposals. The book morphed from being basically an extension of guidelines. Like there was originally the idea that we had a table of contents planned out and we were going to just build and expand on this kind of manual. And then we opened it up in a very poetic kind of way. It started with the germs of the themes that we started envisioning basically about that this book can be about archivists and the archival profession, but it also can be about people experiencing archives and.

[Clayton Gerard]

About.

[Lydia Tang]

Living our own history and documenting our own history and taking ownership of it. And so when the call for proposals, the call for papers came out, it really grew beyond what I could have ever imagined. It was so great to receive so many chapter proposals, and it was just amazing to see the breadth of their expertise and perspectives that were coming through. So it really made me realize that it had grown beyond anything that I could have imagined. And in addition to that, we had opened up a call for volunteers to help with the peer review process. So once we decided on the chapters to include, we went through a rigorous peer review process process where each chapter was reviewed by another co author or co authors and then also an external peer review person as well. And so it really became a collective effort of everybody helping each other realize, well build their chapter to be the best and strongest that it could.

[Clayton Gerard]

Awesome. Thank you for sharing about that. And I also want to just give a brief moment to talk about the structure of the book. So, Grayson, I believe you had mentioned earlier a little bit about the different topics that some of the chapters engage with, but would y' all mind just talking through a Little bit about the organization of the book and the three clusters that the book is focused around. What are those clusters? And like, what is the purpose of some of the interventions of that?

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Yeah, of course, maybe building off of what Lydia said, like, from the call for proposals. And then, yeah, us trying to think through, inviting a selection of chapters that cover different, very different experiences, both in the disability and archival sense. After we decided on the chapters that. That were going to be included, I think in sitting with them, we were really trying to think about all of these different themes and facets that the chapters address and how we could make sense of them as a collection. Because I think at one point, Lydia, we were talking about, we could group these around different kinds of archives, community archives, government archives, personal archives. We could think about different disabilities and different disabled experiences. We could also group them on, like, the very different styles of writing that we intentionally chose to include. We have some really beautiful personal narratives, provocations, poetics, case studies, reports, and more like academic and theoretical chapters as well. So that was another kind of. Of way to imagine it. And it almost felt for me like an early step in my research process when I'm trying to make sense of interviews that I've conducted and looking for through lines and themes that emerge. But, yeah, I think it was a challenge because the chapters are so different from each other. But we really wanted to think about, you know, what is the overarching story we're telling in order to orient readers to this really broad topic. So we decided to group chapters in three different clusters that sort of helped us make sense of the different ways one can experience archives. One being thinking about the effects and affects of archives for disabled users and their interactions with them. So what does it feel like to be a disabled researcher in an archive or work with historic materials on disability? The second one turns more to disabled archival workers in addressing different barriers and challenges to applying for or securing or maintaining jobs, as well as different ways that working with materials on disability can shape one's identity as a disabled worker. And then the last cluster addresses archival work and the ways that archivists shape, reshape, expand, and complicate historical narratives as archivists, as disabled archivists, and thinking about disability related collections, outreach, all of these other connections and constellations that might emerge from working in an archive.

[Clayton Gerard]

Awesome. And yeah, as this conversation is starting to wrap up, I did want to also give an opportunity to let you both, if you would like, reflect a little bit about this moment that the book is coming out in. Would you be willing to share some of what you hope readers can take away from this book. I'm thinking especially about some of the more contentious political moments where education and access to information and infrastructure are kind of in flux. And there's some questioning about what research and science and stuff will look like in the future and what access to libraries. And I think this book is a really crucial intervention into thinking about, you know, what access to these information institutions or resources look like and like what the experience is both from the professional side and from the user side. So I didn't know if either of y' all would want to share about what you're hoping this book will speak to audiences.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Yeah, I really appreciate this question because, yeah, we're seeing lots of of new barriers emerge. The removal of support for disabled people. You know, the attempts to strike down part of different laws and legislation that protects disabled people, as well as other removals of protection for other marginalized and minoritized people who also can be disabled. You know, I thinking of the many multiply marginalized disabled people, queer trans disabled communities, disabled people of color who already face so many barriers to support to medical care and other means of like survival and culture and community and memory work. So I think, yeah, I'll just say that, like, we hope that this book not only shows like many different intersectional approaches to archives by disabled people who are, who hold other identities and who are addressing disability experiences in all of their complexity and also addressing how issues around disability and accessibility both impact multiply marginalized disabled people, but also impact so many other people and communities and these solidarities that are absolutely like present between disabled communities and other communities where we're doing this work together. So I think in part that's sharing disabled knowledge, like in all of its complexity, I think is incredibly important in this current moment.

[Lydia Tang]

Yeah, I'd add that since this book has been in the works for the last five years, basically I don't think. Well, I mean, we've had one administration already, but the fierce onslaught of everything right now, the dismantling of like Grayson mentioned, protections for people with disabilities and dismantling of our National Archives too, is just unprecedented. And so with our, with this book coming out, just bridging that gap between the changes of the administrations and now coexisting with these active attacks on our existence and our profession, I feel like this book hopefully will be a rally point for resistance in terms of.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

With.

[Lydia Tang]

The new administration basically scrubbing the celebration of all types of aspects of diversity, of just erasing websites that celebrate disability history and removal of celebrations that recognize diversity on all levels and offices that advance diversity, accessibility and inclusion and also promoting really horrific toxic workplace culture. I don't have to mention about what's going on with Doge and about how people are in such fear, legitimate fear for losing their jobs. But also like in my own case of now having a work from home.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Position.

[Lydia Tang]

It'S convenient, but it's also an accessibility component that helped me choose that role. And so culturally, as we step away from this culture of remote work that has been building up with the pandemic, we're closing more doors again that had been open. And that's just one layer of devastation after another. And so just in conclusion, so I'd say that this book has been a milestone and a snapshot in time with everybody from all these different perspectives thinking about accessibility and disability in archives. And we are just so excited that there is so much that went into this and so many efforts, so, so much that's currently happening right now and to discuss this. And we know that the best is yet to come and we look forward to everything ahead. Yeah.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

And if nothing else like this book, again, documents disability. It documents all of the magic that disabled people bring to the world and I think just serves as like or can serve as one point to see like the politics, the culture and the insights that disabled people contribute to, in this case, memory work. But I think a lot of other facets.

[Clayton Gerard]

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. And even though it's a very intense and difficult moment for this book to be entering the world, it will only be more and more important as things go on. So I just want to appreciate that and speak to the importance of this book and the perspectives that are shared within it and the interventions that it makes. But thank you so much, both of you for joining me for this conversation, for all of your work and putting together preserving disability and the resources that it shares, and for allowing us to experience it and read it and listen to it and think with it as well.

[Grayson Brillmeier]

Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting us and yeah, helping us to celebrate the book. And yeah, we're hoping that an ebook will also be available soon. So thinking about increasing access to this text.

[Clayton Gerard]

Foreign.

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