When Leadership Falls Short: The Crisis of Care in Library Work
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Commemorating Women’s History Month with TIE and Choice Content
TIE and Choice resources that center women's history, including interviews, webinars, and book reviews.
Posted on March 3, 2026 in Blog Posts
Commemorating Women’s History Month
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Toward Inclusive Excellence team gathered TIE content and Choice resources from the past year on women’s history, including forthcoming titles in women’s and gender studies, books on reproductive rights, a webinar on supporting women’s history with archival materials, and much more. Choice, the publisher of TIE and a publishing unit at the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, provides book reviews to help librarians identify academic sources and professional development tools like webinars, podcasts, and white papers.
Initially introduced as a weekly celebration in 1981, Women’s History Month expanded into a month in 1987. The commemoration seeks to honor women’s contributions to the United States and to “recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.” We hope these selections complement your exploration of women’s art, achievements, and rights this month and throughout the year.
Hot Topic
Hot Topic takes a deep dive into timely, significant, or niche topics guided by reviews over the decades. This collection looks at the work of author Joyce Carol Oates.
Joyce Carol Oates
Webinars
Industry experts lead sponsored, 60-minute interactive presentations, which cover topics like library technology, DEIA, leadership and management, and open access and OER. This session explains how to utilize primary source archives to explore women’s histories.
Innovative Teaching: Exploring Women’s Histories with Newly Digitized Primary Source Archives and Media
This webinar invites educators, librarians, and scholars to explore new ways to teach women’s history with newly available archival and media content, including the digitized Irene Tinker Papers (1936–2004), primary source materials in Women and Social Movements in the U.S. Since 1600, and the digitized archive of Ms. magazine. Watch the webinar recording.
TIE Blog
These selections include TIE blog posts, reviews, and interviews spotlighting women’s history. To keep up with upcoming TIE content, subscribe to the TIE newsletter.
Featured Review
No Other Word for It: The Inexplicability of Violence Against Black Women and Girls
Treva B. Lindsey underscores the intersecting forms of oppression facing Black women and girls, and how these can be subverted to fuel resistance movements. Read the review of No Other Word for It: The Inexplicability of Violence Against Black Women and Girls.
Blog Posts
Belle da Costa Greene Reimagined: A Different Take on Her Legacy
TIE contributor Ashleigh Coren reflects on the Morgan Library’s exhibit on Belle da Costa Greene, the library’s inaugural director. Read the full post, “Belle da Costa Greene Reimagined: A Different Take on Her Legacy.”
On Being Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
TIE contributor Shari Lynn Robinson reflects on how BIPOC women are often expected to carry the weight of doing DEI work and invites others to join in. Read the full post, “On Being Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.”
Interviews
Returning guest Dr. Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University, discusses her new book, The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir. By looking at her family’s past, Martha seeks to understand her own Black identity and how her ancestors touched and crossed America’s color line. Read the interview with Martha.
Forthcoming Academic Titles
Forthcoming Titles gathers the latest and soon-to-be-released publications in select disciplines. This list centers on upcoming titles in women’s and gender studies.
Forthcoming Titles in Women’s and Gender Studies, 2025
Featured Reviews
Featured Reviews consider how a title exposes racist systems and inequities or proposes means of dismantling them. These important works from valuable perspectives are of use to undergraduates, faculty, and anyone interested in learning more about racism and racial inequalities. This includes the memoir by historian Martha S. Jones on family, race, and belonging.
Mistaken Identity?: A Family Memoir by Martha S. Jones Explores the Boundaries of Race and Belonging in America
What can a family story teach readers about the history of the United States? The answer is quite a lot, if the family belongs to award-winning historian Martha S. Jones (Johns Hopkins Univ.). Those fortunate enough to read The Trouble of Color will follow Jones’s quest to answer the question she was confronted with in 1976, “Who do you think you are?” (p. 1) by the leader of the Black Student Union at college. That question is the title of the introduction to her memoir, an American family memoir, as the history of her family chronicled some of the most important and troubling aspects of American history, a history that some now seek to hide once again. Jones explains that “approaching the [color] line, I am tethered to the generations before me by ambiguous and even unspoken beginnings—expressed in skin too light, features too fine, hair too limp. I am the heir of misunderstandings, misapprehension, and mistaken identity” (p. 25). At a time when important parts of American history are being removed from government websites, books like The Trouble of Color become even more crucial than in previous years. Read the review of The Trouble of Color.
Reviews of the Month
Each month Choice highlights four reviews that address topical issues, events, or holidays—or simply, reviews we believe deserve more attention. These picks discuss reproductive care, Latin American women artists, and Homeric women, among other topics.
The Authority File Podcast
Bill Mickey and a rotating cast of librarians, technologists, authors, and other academic library luminaries chat about the ways in which scholarly content is created, preserved, and distributed. Book talks, digital resource tours, the latest tech, and emerging trends in academic librarianship are all up for discussion in this award-winning podcast. This episode explores the portrayal of Black women actors and dancers in the late 1800s.
Gender, Race, and the Archives of 19th-Century Minstrelsy and Vaudeville
Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, discusses her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897. She walks through the gaps she encountered in the literature on 19th-century minstrelsy and vaudeville. Finding that much of the canon neglected the 1860s-90s as women began to enter the stage, Cheryl also discovered that texts on this period often portrayed Black women actors and dancers in terms of resistance and exclusion. She explains how she wanted to move beyond these two views, instead focusing on how these women expressed their own agency and found success on the stage. In addition, Cheryl describes the types of archives she used when researching the book and digs into the surprising and sometimes frustrating responses she received from librarians and archivists when looking through these materials. Listen to the episode.