Emily Drabinski

Drabinski earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University in 1997. In 2003 she received a Master's of Library Science from Syracuse University, and Master of Arts in Composition and rhetoric from LIU Brooklyn in 2011.[2]

Drabinski serves as the Interim Chief Librarian and is Critical Pedagogy Librarian at the Graduate Center, CUNY[3][4] and is a part-time faculty member at Pratt Institute's School of Information. She formerly held the position of Coordinator of Library Instruction at Long Island University, Brooklyn, where she worked from 2008-2019.

Drabinski joined the faculty at the Graduate Center, CUNY in 2019 as Critical Pedagogy Librarian. In March 2020, just as lockdown began in NYC, she assumed the role of Interim Chief of the library, when her predecessor, Polly Thistlethwaite, became Interim University Dean for Library Services at CUNY.[5][6] Prior to moving to CUNY, Drabinski was a faculty librarian at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, where she was the Coordinator of Library Instruction from 2012-2019 and before that served as Electronic Resources and Instruction Librarian (2008-2012). She is a part-time faculty member at the Pratt School of Information, where she teaches the required reference librarianship course, as well as adjuncting at Rutgers and Syracuse universities. Drabinkski's first professional librarian job was at Sarah Lawrence College. She served as a reference librarian from 2004-2008.[7][8] Drabinski was an early member of Radical Reference, protesting the 2004 Republican National Convention in NYC and teaching fact-checking workshops for independent journalists.

She is co-chair of the Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies Colloquium, along with Baharak Yousefi and Tara Robertson.[9] She is editor of the Library Juice Press Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies. She is co-editor of Critical Library Instruction: Theories & Methods with Maria T. Accardi and Alana Kumbier,[10] and is on the editorial board of Radical Teacher.[11]

Drabinski was the secretary of the Long Island University Faculty Federation and participated actively in the protest by faculty and students at Long Island University - Brooklyn over a lockout associated with faculty contract negotiations.[12][13]

During the COVID-19 quarantine, Drabinski and her partner, Karen Miller, launched Homeschool Co-op 2020,[14] inviting people to teach classes over Zoom for children and adults. Drabinski led a morning session every day at 8am Eastern Time called Cat Chat.[15]

In October 2021, the American Library Association announced Drabinski's candidacy for the office of President for the 2023-24 term.[16] She has served as an American Library Association Councilor-at Large (2017-2020), as chair of the International Relations Committee, and as American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries chair and member of the Information Literacy Frameworks and Standards Committee.

Drabinski describes herself as a Marxist.[17]

Drabinski's research focuses on Queer Theory, library instruction and cataloging practice.[18] She is also conducting research about reference services to incarcerated persons with Deborah Rabina.[19]

Drabinski served as chair of the International Relations Committee of the American Library Association, International Relations Committee. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Philippine Librarianship & Information Studies published by the University of the Philippines School of Library and Information Studies. She has presented papers at international conferences in Zadar, Croatia; London, England; Quezon City, Manila; and at several conferences in Canada including Ottawa, Windsor, Edmonton and Vancouver.[20]

Drabinski was a 2014 Library Journal Mover & Shaker Advocate,[21] and winner of the Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year in 2015 for her article "Towards a Kairos of Library Instruction."[22] She was honored with the Beta Phi Mu Harold Lancour Scholarship for Foreign Study in 2018.[23]

• Drabinski, Emily. (2020) “Professionalism reconsidered.” Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice. 15, No. 20, 191-195.
• Drabinsky, Emily and Debbie Rabina. (2016) "Reference Services to Incarcerated People, Part II: Sources and Learning Outcomes." Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55, No. (3), pp. 123-131.
• Drabinsky, Emily and Debbie Rabina. (2016)"Reference Services to Incarcerated People, Part I: Themes Emerging from Answering Reference Questions from Prisons and Jails." Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55, No.(1), pp. 42-48.
• Drabinski, Emily (September 2014). "Towards a Kairos of Library Instruction". The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 40 (5): 480–485. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2014.06.002.
• Billey, Amber; Drabinski, Emily; Roberto, K. R. (April 2014). "What's Gender Got to Do with It? A Critique of RDA 9.7". Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. 52 (4): 412–421. doi:10.1080/01639374.2014.882465. S2CID 62226099.
• Drabinski, Emily (April 2013). "Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction". The Library Quarterly. 83 (2): 94–111. doi:10.1086/669547. JSTOR 10.1086/669547. S2CID 54961169.

• Personal website