CalRBS program manager and MLIS student to share research on indigeneity and professionals’ shared vision of art libraries’ future.
In a creative endeavor to connect with her colleagues in the art library world, MLIS graduate student Sam Regal sent out a call for mail art creations that depicted a decolonializing vision of art libraries. After hosting a making session on Zoom, Regal received nearly 40 artworks, each on a postcard. She created a zine with the artwork, and will present “Imagining LIS Futures Together: Mail Art with ArLiSNAP x Artifacts” at the annual conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America, which takes place in Chicago, April 5-9.
Regal says that it was a unique experience to meet and share with others in the profession and share their thoughts in such a profound way, albeit in a virtual space.
“Some of it was very beautiful and some of it was very visually arresting,” she says. “But mainly, it was fascinating to see people articulate their thinking about their own roles in the future of the profession through a critical or decolonial lens. Receiving all of these art objects that have representational capacity was actually sort of an honor.
“In the pandemic, where we’re all on Zoom, it’s just wonderful to meet people who are interested in the same things, who want to enter the same professional lane of the highway, as it were. To make those connections in a way that doesn’t feel forced – it didn’t feel like just another Zoom meeting – that was really special as well.”
At the conference, Regal will also present her paper, “Preserving [Spectral] Knowledge: Indigeneity, Haunting, and Performing the Embodied Archive,” which has been recognized with the Gerd Muesham Award by ARLIS/NA. In the paper, Regal explores the ways that conservation and archives practitioners face practical and ethical challenges when tasked with the preservation of intangible indigenous artworks such as the performance of ceremonies, rituals, oral tradition, and lived experience, and the appreciation of the human body as a form of inter- and multidimensional archive.
Regal, who serves as the program manager for the California Rare Book School, says that the experience has enhanced her MLIS education. In addition, she has had the opportunity to curate a CalRBS course on “Critical Art Libraries,” and has invited a series of art library practitioners invested in critical or decolonial or anti racist practice to lead one-day intensive sessions.
“Being able to engage with these communities through my role as CalRBS project manager has been really integral to my education, and also my professional development writ large,” notes Regal. “It has taught me so much about the field and being able to learn from students and learn what students want. It’s been really wonderful to partner with Professor Rob Montoya in developing the school’s new direction and to serve a strategic partner in that capacity. It’s also directly relevant to the kinds of positions and I’m interviewing for now, where I would be serving as an instruction librarian. Having this experience managing an instructional program has been really meaningful.”
Regal has recently been selected as vice chair-elect of the Southern California chapter of ARLIS/NA. She also has authored an essay in the upcoming book, “Women Talk Money: Breaking the Taboo,” to be released in March by Simon & Schuster.
“I started a PhD program in Georgia, and I left the program for lots of reasons but mainly to pursue librarianship, which is what I’m doing now,” says Regal, who is also a freelance writer. “I spoke very candidly about my experience as a grad student, where I was not paid enough for my labor, and was not able to really survive, working three different jobs in and outside of the university.
“[It’s also about] my experience as a person my age – I’m 32, a millennial in the world with a certain amount of privilege, but still unable to live a life that feels anything in the neighborhood of what my elders have been able to cobble together, seemingly with a lot less pain and hardship. It’s a literary essay about my professional development, my personal development, and choosing the path that I have now chosen and I’m happy to report have found a lot of success in, so it all worked out.”
Regal, who earned her MFA at Hunter College and her undergraduate degree in English and American Literature at New York University, says that she chose UCLA for her MLIS degree program for its reputation and access to the University’s world-class resources.
“You can’t undersell the resources that UCLA has,” says Regal. “As someone who’s interested in special collections and someone [for whom] it’s not my first grad school rodeo, I wanted to use this experience of my MLIS to get as much as I possibly could out of it. That comes from having wonderful and supportive faculty, but it also comes from the other things that this institution offers that many don’t: the incredible special collections, and the wonderful artists’ book collection that we have.”
Regal also credits her fellow students, staff, and faculty at UCLA IS with making her experience the best it could be.
“[Rob] has always made the time to candidly speak to me about any questions I had about the profession, my own path,” she says. “He’s always been unbelievably supportive of me and my interests, so I really just can’t say enough wonderful things about him, he’s been the best. Professor Joanna Drucker is my advisor, and she has been also incredibly supportive of my interests and guiding my research. It’s been a thrill to work with her just because I’m such a big fan of her scholarship.
“Dee Winn has been wonderful, working so closely with me, encouraging me. I had an interview this morning, and she sent me an email just before it [happened], wishing me luck – you know, just these little things. I couldn’t ask for a better program manager than Dee.
“It’s a very progressive institution, you can tell that by everyone – students and faculty alike are incredibly critically engaged. The students – my colleagues – operate under an ethic of care, there’s really a sense that we care for one another and for one another’s development within the program and outside of it.”
Photo by Sam Farzin