Iron & Glass

Q & A with Romel Espinel and Freddy Thompson

Freddy Thompson is a MSLIS student set to graduate this semester, currently working as a Graduate Assistant at the reference desk at Pratt’s Brooklyn campus library. He’s here to help with all your research needs, but has a specific interest in medieval manuscripts, typography, the history of science, and speculative fiction.

Last year, Pratt libraries welcomed Romel Espinel as one of our Critical & Inclusive Pedagogy Librarians. I sat down with Romel to learn more about his role at the library, the role of librarianship in the wider world, and how he can help you get the most out of the library and your time at Pratt.

I’m most familiar with your work providing reference assistance at the desk and through our Live Chat function, but could you walk me through what else your role entails?

A lot of it involves developing ways to teach information literacy from a critical perspective. Not only are we teaching students where they can find information, but we’re teaching them how they can critically evaluate it. This can be done in different spaces - a lot of what we do in Pratt happens in physical spaces, in classrooms, but it can also happen virtually, whether it be LibGuides or asynchronous online teaching. 

I know we’re looking to get this kind of instruction to basically everyone at Pratt - how does that work?

Pratt runs this kind of instruction similar to how I’ve seen other libraries do - I’ve worked at two other colleges before this - through liaisonship. We all have subject specialties, so when someone needs help, we make sure they get to a librarian who specializes in that subject area. 

Sometimes we have prior specialisations in these subjects, but other times we have to learn their information needs while on the job. I’ve had to do that a couple of times - my first job was at a business school, so I had to learn business sources, and my second school was a STEM school, so I had to learn engineering and science sources. But I’m from the humanities and arts world, so being at Pratt is nice because almost all of it is my subject specialty.

I’m the graduate architecture librarian, and I didn’t know anything about architecture research, but I’m learning a lot. Doing the research in any of these given fields, there’s a practice to it. There’s databases, books, journals,  all associated with these specific subject areas that we as librarians need to learn. That way we can know which are the most used by architects (for example) what they use, what they trust, what best serves them,. 

That makes sense - it sounds like the sort of situation where you’re learning from the students you’re helping.

Exactly! When we think of architecture, we tend to just think of the things being built - and coming from an engineering school, I was thinking about materials, physics, science, but it’s also really philosophical. I’ve heard lots of postmodern ideas around architecture from architecture students, and the kinds of thought they have to apply to their practice is fascinating to me. Because I study critical theory, I understand where they’re coming from, so then I can say, “Yeah! Let’s talk about Foucault!” or something like that. I can help you with your theoretical underpinnings, or I can help you with standards and practices and metal and concrete. 

That’s really cool! I always think it’s interesting to see multiple disciplines coming to work together.  You did go to Pratt as a student, that’s where you did your MLIS, and you’ve mentioned you’ve worked at two other universities, so can you tell me what your career journey was like, coming back to Pratt?

Back in 2006 or so, I was starting to reconsider what I was doing. I was in political graphic design: newspapers, magazines, some journalism work, and I’d been doing that for probably 15 years. I was thinking, “I really gotta change it up”, especially with the newspaper world starting to slim down, so I was wondering what direction to take. I had always been interested in writing, in literature - I was a creative writing and photography major in college, and then did critical theory and work in my first master’s program. I thought about law school for a hot second, but I’d just had a child and there was no way I would ever have seen my family if I had gone to law school. But then, just by chance, librarianship - in around 2006 - got hot. I think it was all the changes in technology at the time. There was - I think a New York Times article - and I was like, “Wait! You can go to school and be a librarian?” 

I was already working in the city, so I looked into some programs and it was either here or Rutgers, and Rutgers was far away. Even though Pratt was more expensive it would have made up for the commute time. But then I was also really interested in Pratt’s programs in art and design because I did an arts undergraduate at a state school. And then there’s the connections to the museums and the art world, which were really interesting to me. I just jumped into it, not even really knowing the work of librarianship! But I did have a remembrance of libraries always being a part of my art education, like I’d just go in there and discover books in the public library - but also taking naps, because that was a commuter school and I was at school for long hours at a time, so I was in libraries a lot.

That makes a lot of sense - I feel like you spoke there to an underappreciated part of the library as a university space, that is, it’s a physical space. That’s something I think we’re looking to encourage in the students and users of our library. Yeah, we’re a research resource, but we’re also here as a space where you can work alone, or collaboratively, or take a nap, or anything. I feel like it’s good to take the chance to encourage people to just spend time in this lovely building that we have.

Oh yeah, especially the Brooklyn campus, it’s really beautiful. I know other universities have multiple libraries: Syracuse University has two libraries, one that’s a loud, collaborative space, but then there’s the Carnegie Library, where you can hear a pin drop. It’s beautiful. It's like a cathedral. And I like those kinds of library spaces, too, where you’re being inspired by the space. I come from cities where there’s noise everywhere, so seeking out quiet is important. Which is why at my last job we used to do surveys all the time, and one of the things the students would request is that the library be more of a quiet space. They’re living in dorms! They have no privacy, there’s music playing and people rustling around late at night, stuff like that. They appreciate places where they can just have some quiet time, too. 

You went to Pratt, then you worked with some other university libraries, and now you’re back with us! What’s it like working and teaching at the same school you studied at?

It’s really nice, it’s really familiar. The great thing about coming back to Pratt is that you have a lot of people who share in your critical practice and you can explore ideas with them. Because sometimes, when you’re not around that, you can feel isolated or you can feel that you need to be teaching other people that practice - sometimes they’re open to it and sometimes they’re not. But at Pratt I’ve always felt, even as a student, that everything was on the table: being creative or critical in your practice. I know when I came to Pratt as a library student, it was changing. That was the time when library schools were opening to new technology, to design - because UX and information architecture and all that was blowing up back then. Actually, it was a new program, when I was at Pratt.

The iSchool movement was starting up.

Exactly, that started right after we graduated. I remember Michigan first, then maybe Rutgers - they were the iSchools and then, several years later, Pratt joined. It made it an interesting space where you were working in what Pratt was known for - design - and thinking about how that intersects with librarianship. It was really cool.

That’s definitely something I’ve really enjoyed about being at Pratt: the interdisciplinarity. As you said, a lot of different professors are interested in collaborating with each other and with the library and students in general. So, speaking of working with the school as a whole, do you have any current projects or anything that you’re collaborating on?

Well right now it’s a transition period - whenever you switch jobs you need to figure out not just your new job, but also the culture. Over the past six or seven months I’ve been at Pratt now, I’ve been feeling out what the culture is, and it’s one I’m very familiar with, having always been an art student. It’s: “What is the critical practice people need here? What can I provide or give insight into that already exists here, but we want to take further?” 

It’s different to where I was before, because you can be critical and you can push people farther. Here you don’t have to ask people to be creative, they’re being creative! 

I have no research projects right now, it’s just research. We’re at this crucial time for information and our political systems and challenging what information is. I’m trying to figure that out, just like everybody else. What are our roles in our contemporary world, as librarians? And I think it’s an important role, because while they were saying that librarians aren’t going to be useful, we’re actually going to be very useful - especially in the current disinformation and misinformation landscape. We should play a crucial role in that because, with authoritarian governments, that’s what they use: information. We have to be critical.

So if there’s anything I would like to study it’s how libraries around the world have coped with this, whether it be in Chile or Uruguay - especially because I’m interested in Latin America. 

I really like that idea. I feel like in all kinds of professions there’s this urge to reinvent the wheel whenever we encounter a major problem. But you’re right, this isn’t a new political problem, it’s something that has occurred a lot, for a long time, and people have dealt with it in different ways. It’s worthwhile looking into critical librarian practice under various kinds of political regime and how that can be adapted.

Yeah, and how they’ve come back in a lot of these places, like in Chile and in Uruguay. Because burning libraries is a common practice. I just found out that they destroyed the Edward Said Library in Palestine. It’s devastating. But at the same time, you gotta think, “How are we going to rebuild it?” It’s a crucial aspect of dominance, destroying libraries. Because you’re destroying knowledge, you’re destroying legacies. But people have done it. People have rebuilt. And hopefully, once those regimes are done away with, we can rebuild those things. But it’s scary times!

No kidding! But it’s worthwhile to not shy away from how scary those times are.

Exactly.

So, to finish up, how would you like to reach out to the students? To anyone reading this, what would you like them to come to you with? What sort of issues, or interests, what sort of questions do you want to get?

Well I think it’s interesting, as I go into teaching Reference and Instruction, I think everybody’s questioning the world right now. And everything’s always political at any given time, especially for library students. We always need to think about what our roles are going to be. Because, as many of us have been saying, our jobs and our institutions are not neutral. We need to be able to resist any kind of push to neutrality or beyond. And it has to start right now. We’ve already seen the first steps: book bans around the country, and eventually they get around to cutting funding for public libraries. I don’t know what that means for academic institutions but I think being actively aware and involved in struggles so that people have access to information can be liberating. It can be liberating for working class people, people of color, people who are LGBTQ+. 

You were talking about destruction of libraries on occupied land, and the notion of the living library is something I see a lot in Palestinian and Indigenous spaces, where, yes, physical things can be destroyed, but you have the ability to retain knowledge yourself and share it among your community. I feel like that’s especially important right now.

Exactly, memory is so important right now. We were at a conference for zines - the Zine Librarians unConference in Manhattan - and we heard this story from a Michigan State student who was there during the mass shooting and started making zines. I think - I’m probably going to mess up the quote - they said they started making zines because they felt they needed to record it for their own memory. 

Zine libraries are important because they add to the memory on a very local, individual level, so people can remember and can hopefully be collective in that memory. I think it’s important that people use their memory, and recreate these things or advance them further. There are obvious weaknesses in institutions and libraries and we can make them a lot better. 

Yeah absolutely! I think that’s one of the best things to reach out to the library for, is how to be more involved in the community. That’s something I’ve really enjoyed about Pratt - how engaged everyone is in helping each other and uplifting each other.

Yeah! It’s a pretty amazing place. Everybody’s really collaborative. Whether you’re in access services, faculty or circulation - everybody’s working together to create a very inclusive learning space for everyone. Like everything else, we can always be better, but that’s what we need students for.

The one project I do have to say we have is that we’re trying to get more students involved with our committees, especially our DEI Committee. We want to flesh out a student advisory board, so that students have more voice on what goes on at the library.

That’s great! Is there a way that people should reach out if they want to be involved?

Well, I think we’re getting a survey together, but they can always email me if they want to get involved in the library, especially the advisory committee. You can reach me at respinel@pratt.edu.

Great, well thank you very much!

Yeah, no problem, that was awesome!