(via Bobbi Newman, National Network of Libraries of Medicine – Greater Midwest Region)
Registration is now open for the online session “Yoga as an Act of Self-care for Librarians”. The event will take place on Thursday, January 7, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM CDT. Please registers here. More information on the session’s content and the speaker is below.
Yoga is both a movement-based and breath-based practice. While many people in America practice it, it has historically served those who are wealthy, white, and non-disabled and been sold as part of the “wellness” movement and “self-care” movements. This session will start with a brief chair yoga session, then follow with a very brief history of yoga and yoga programs at libraries and how it is currently being researched as an intervention in the biomedical and psychological fields.
We will discuss how yoga is being practiced and made more accessible during the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion will include the origins of the term “self-care” and its radical feminist context. We will center the discussion around self-care for librarians based on findings from a survey conducted in fall 2020. We will also include how you can personally participate in free yoga classes, how to incorporate and make accessible a yoga program at your library, and the beginnings of a yoga outreach program at Texas Tech University Library.
Speaker Erin Burns received her MLIS from Kent State University in 2007. They worked as a librarian for twelve years at Penn State before starting at Texas Tech in July of 2020 as a STEM librarian serving the Whitacre College of Engineering as their personal librarian. She has many different research interests, including mental health and academic ablism, digital humanities, and critical librarianship. She is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 200), and you can find her walking or hiking when she is not knitting, creating yarn art, or standing in tree pose.