Disabled people need information access. And yet in so many of our fields we are excluded from information by lack of accessibility, an abundance of ableism, and an uphill battle to be acknowledged as whole people to the point where understanding what we need is borderline impossible. How can we do our work without support? What do we do when we are set up to fail? 

This empowering presentation aims to share necessary content and tools for workplaces and scholarly environments where self advocacy is needed. The hope of this lecture is to help people gain a better understanding of what self advocacy can look like from scholar to staff, and ways to utilize storytelling to change our own narratives regardless of how the world sees us, in and out of capitalism.

Addressing what we CAN do, and not what we cannot, this presentation aims to support and bolster the disabled community during unstable times where information access is being stifled. Our stories are necessary and there is a need to document our stories and experiences to positively impact future generations of disabled people who, due to information access issues, have no idea that we have forged our own paths through life. Many have not fully considered the reality of leaving a legacy and impact on our terms, not least because we haven’t been told it’s even an option. We need to be able to dream and bring to life our own best case scenarios, because no one else will do that for us. This is where storytelling comes in and information access is a tool that can get us there.

From the perspective of a DeafBlackTrans librarian who has dedicated his study to understanding intersectionality and subverting the kyriarchy.