Political Education Program
Political Education with PLG
About the Project: A Note from the Organizers
June 2026
Over time, we have noticed that librarianship avoids a material analysis of the systems it operates within. While the profession tends to be able to speak about issues like bias, inclusion, and access, it seems relatively unable to name the organizing systems that produce the conditions we live, work, and respond within. We seek to change this by building a political education program for library and information workers grounded in an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial historical material analysis. Our hope is that doing so will help library and information workers name the systems and their location within them develop the political consciousness and analytics tools necessary to do and act on that understanding.
Of course, political education is not an end in itself, but rather is a necessary part of a larger project. Librarianship has no shortage of thinking and talking, but it is less able to move from consciousness or awareness to doing something about it. What we are building is the foundation for action: the analytical tools, the shared language, the political clarity, and the collective relationships that we hope will make meaningful interventions possible. We cannot predict or prescribe what forms any action may take because what will emerge from a deepened political consciousness will depend on the conditions, the people, and the moment. But we see this project as a space to develop the collective capacity and resources to support the actions we may take together and in our own contexts against the many systems of domination we must struggle against. In a way, we are moving against what the history/profession of librarianship has been championing: joining workers rather than being above or believing we are separate from them.
There are multiple dimensions of this project. The first is a month-long virtual offering that lays out the analytical foundations of the political consciousness that would be built through the Guild. This course will focus on the histories and political economy of libraries, librarianship, and library workers as professionals, and help participants locate and understand the function of the field and profession within the carceral, capitalistic, imperialist U.S. state. It will be grounded in a class analysis, particularly through the Marxist framework of historical materialism; though these words have become blurred throughout time from the echoes of academia, we will clarify in the first session with what this means to us. No prior experience or understanding of this is needed, because we will build our understanding together. Offered routinely, this foundation provides a basis for ongoing collective study, a sustained reading and discussion practice. The community's connections, analysis, and inquiry are developed, maintained, and supported, along with any other organizing events or actions.
Our goals are to
- Build political education structure within the work of librarianship, breaking down institutional types and professional roles, in which ideas can be shared and political understandings and commitments can emerge
- Expand the political consciousness of library and information workers, and sharpen our shared analyses and understandings of the social and political world around us
- Develop a space where research, study, inquiry, and knowledge can be shaped collectively, outside the confines of the U.S. imperial academy
- Create and sustain the collective capacity, resources, relationships, and structure necessary for organized action
PLG has a history as one of the few spaces in the profession where genuinely critical political thought has been welcome, where questions about libraries and power, capitalism, and so on have been asked seriously. As such, we see the PLG as a perfect home for the development of political education and the production of material analysis, proletarian consciousness, and possibilities for organized, collective action. We are excited to work together to revitalize the guild and the journal through our efforts to build this political education program and community.
To learn more about our inaugural course, visit the course page. You can also reach out to us at study@progressivelibrariansguild.org with questions, thoughts, etc.
