About the Forum

Overview

This Forum seeks to build and foster a community of academic library workers that will learn about cyber sexual abuse and empower each other to take action against it on college campuses.

The Challenge

Digital violence is a ubiquitous but frequently overlooked form of harm that is often rooted in patriarchy, white supremacy, and misogynoir. Although it occurs regularly on college campuses, it is rarely discussed publicly at these institutions. We see this area of trauma-informed outreach and instruction in digital privacy as a critical but neglected form of digital literacy that library workers are uniquely poised to direct.

Our Mission

The National Forum on the Prevention of Cyber Sexual Abuse is a virtual conference hosted by Tisch Library and sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LG-246340-OLS-20). 

Across a diverse group of academic library workers, the National Forum will build a shared understanding about how cyber sexual abuse is perpetrated, the racialized and gendered power structures that enable it, as well as tools and strategies for its prevention. We aim to inspire, empower, and energize library workers to build relationships across their campuses and develop outreach, instruction, and other support structures in order to cultivate campus cultures of consent and liberated participation in online spaces.