“A Promised (but Ultimately Unreachable) Land” -Daniel Fisher's Braverman Award 2022

 The Progressive Librarians Guild’s (PLG) Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee is pleased to announce that Daniel Fisher from Western University is the 2022 winner of the Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize!  Daniel’s essay was titled “A Promised (but Ultimately Unreachable) Land” and his anticipated graduation date is June 2022.

Fisher’s essay presents a critical history of the concept of neutrality which Progressive Librarian fosters.  He categorizes neutrality as “functionally impracticable” despite being a “touchstone of contemporary librarianship.”  As a case study, Fisher asserts that the selection of former President Obama as ALA’s 2021 keynote speaker is at odds with its organizational values.

The Braverman Memorial Prize is awarded annually to a student in Library Science or Archival Studies for an essay submitted on the theme of progressive or activist librarianship.  As the winner of this prize, Fisher will receive a stipend toward expenses for attending the 2022 ALA Annual conference and his essay will be published in an upcoming issue of Progressive Librarian, the PLG Journal.  Additionally, he will be given the opportunity to give his perspectives about their attendance of ALA for the PLG bulletin.  

The award honors Miriam Ruth Gutman Braverman (1920-2002), who was a socialist, writer, activist librarian, and longstanding member of the Progressive Librarians Guild, a founder of the ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table http://libr.org/srrt/, and a proponent of the social responsibilities perspective. The award is intended to celebrate Miriam's spirit of activism and faith in the power of people's collective social justice efforts and inspire future generations of librarians.  

The award has been given annually since 2003 with the exception of 2020.  Past prize-winning essays can be found on PLG's website at http://progressivelibrariansguild.org/content/award.shtml

The Progressive Librarians Guild is committed to providing a forum for the open exchange of radical views on library issues, as well as taking stands on issues confronting library workers and the world around them. Its members reject the sterile notion of the neutrality of librarianship, and strongly oppose the commodification of information which turns the 'information commons' into privatized, commercialized zones. For more information or to join PLG, visit the group's website at http://progressivelibrariansguild.org/ If you are attending ALA Annual virtually this year, please plan to join members of PLG at their virtual meeting during which the Braverman Prize winners will present their work.

For more information about the Braverman Prize, please contact 2022 Braverman Prize Committee Chairs Julene Jones at julene.jones@uky.edu or Amy Laub-Carroll at amy.laub-carroll@uky.edu