Brittani Sterling, Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies Librarian at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas (UNLV), was named a 2025 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her online workshops and UNLV Libraries program “We Need to Talk: Conversations on Racism for a More Resilient Las Vegas.” LJ spoke with Sterling about academic advocacy, talking about systemic racism in Las Vegas, and being in the public eye as an introvert-leaning ambivert.

LJ: Can you talk a bit about what led to the work you do?

Brittani Sterling: My focus on academic advocacy came from a combination of observation, educational interest, and lived experience. I began my career in public librarianship. Public library spaces are truly a crossroads for people from every walk of life, and what I observed, there was sometimes a lack of care for individuals’ differences [when they] came to use the space or seek assistance. I had also worked in a high school library for a while and came to understand how students’ pathways leading up to adulthood are deeply shaped by a combination of factors including their educational interests, how their home environments shaped their perceptions of the world and how it works, and their lived experience.

These observations, along with working in both non–tenure track and tenure track library roles in universities, helped me consider that librarianship could be viewed through a sociological lens, and that there was meaning to explore in the micro and macro level experiences of what it means to be a librarian. Once I learned about critical librarianship, or #CritLib, I understood that I could research and advocate for people who both patronize and are employed in libraries. I like to joke that academic librarianship gives me a container for my civil disobedience! I think Henry David Thoreau would be proud of my CV.

How do you come up with the topics for your workshop series?

The We Need to Talk series is powered by a dedicated cross-collaborative team with members from across the Libraries. Our process for topic selection has changed over time, but since our original scope was looking at systemic racism within Las Vegas, we chose some broad areas that often fly slightly under the radar but are very impactful to people’s everyday lives, like healthcare inequality or Anti-Asian racism. As we started to expand into more categories of social justice, we also explored themes like being queer in Las Vegas, specific parts of the community like the Historic Westside, and immigration, among many others. I think I’m particularly good at surveying the media landscape for trending challenges of the moment and letting those, along with what topics seems to be dominating colloquial spaces—water cooler conversations, social media feeds, and the news cycle—assist us in determining what our campus community needs most right now.

We do keep a running list of topics but often prioritize them by being a little ahead of when a topic will hit the horizon. For example, our latest episode is We Need to Talk About AI. Though AI has been a topic of conversation the last few years, now that it is being pushed much more as the absolute and infinite technology of the future, I wondered, “What is the academy’s responsibility to aiding students in developing ‘AI literacy,’ if refusal, hesitancy, and full-speed-ahead adoption are all on the table at the same time? How do we balance retention of critical thinking and developing subject mastery in the university setting, with any number of generative platforms that can spit back out seemingly accurate dupes for assignments? How do we preserve the mission of higher education when students, faculty, and staff are utilizing these platforms as tools in every other aspect of their lives?”

One of the bigger topical areas we sought to interrogate in this episode is not whether any one individual should or should not be an AI user, because to some extent many of the tech platforms we use outside of the explicitly named ones have these technologies integrated into their back ends, but what is the place of these rapidly evolving technologies in universities, and what ethical, psychological, cognitive, and legal factors should we consider as we try to continue the mission of higher education, while also preparing graduates for future career prospects, and life, in general?

How do you feel the series has helped others? Have you gotten feedback that was especially meaningful to you?

The series has helped people in a couple of ways. First, there is a special kind of resonance that students feel when they understand that their communities are worthy of being amplified and witnessed by others—the good, the often overemphasized bad, but also the joy and rich cultural heritages encompassed within them. Especially as many students at UNLV are minoritized, first generation college students, they may have grown up being socialized to hear about the blights on their communities, and sometimes have internalized these messages as an indictment about themselves and their families, even when those indictments are often in direct contrast with their lived experiences. Our show is often the first time where they’re learning about the nature of systemic racism and other systemic problems from people with deep expertise in the factors that helped create those challenges, sometimes intentionally. Making the connection that there is not anything about their background that makes them more deserving to endure certain situations or be subject to certain types of treatment—and, maybe most importantly, that there is reclamation in naming that and other harms that they may be aware of—is so powerful for them. In addition, others with different backgrounds learn about their classmates and communities they may have never engaged with or known the challenges of.

Our greater Southern Nevada community also benefits from this streamable public academic forum where they too—without paying tuition—have access to scholars, community leaders, legal experts, and sometimes even celebrities, who are willing to give of their time and expertise in interrogating whatever topic we’re exploring at the time. There is also a companion LibGuide that I maintain, which allows people to explore a mix of scholarly and popular sources to go on a deep dive about the topic for free. We start episodes with foundational knowledge, explore what things have changed over time, and spotlight how the issue is affecting Las Vegas at present and what might be on the horizon. For example, in our episode about Las Vegas’s Eastside, which has always been a mix of those from different parts of the Latine diaspora, we had panelists discuss, among other things, actual changes to neighborhood amenities being made by the Mayor’s office, as well as allowing a student panelist to enlighten the audience about the oral histories of Eastside residents that are digitized in our Special Collections and Archives portal. She emphasized the importance of knowing the stories of those residents who helped lay the foundation for the City of Las Vegas as we’ve come to know it, and audience members heard about foundational Las Vegans, who literally built this city, that they‘d never heard of!

This series is just one example of UNLV Libraries being a site of neutrality that patrons trust to handle sensitive topics with intention and care. It also allows me to live up to my alma mater, Wittenberg University’s charge: Having light, we pass it on to others. I love helping members of our community feel ownership over their own stories. I’m just the messenger. Through this series I really get to live my values, and I realize how lucky I am to do that!

Have changes over the past year to the language that funders or administrators are calling for impacted programs like We Need to Talk? Have you seen an anti-DEI backlash at your institution?

I haven’t seen anti-DEI backlash like we’ve seen in other places in the country, and we’re all very grateful for that. This is not to speak for our campus administrators who are likely still facing the challenges of keeping it that way, so my hat goes off to them. UNLV has HIS [Hispanic-Serving Institution], MSI [Minority-serving institution], and AANAPISI [Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution] designations, so the impact would definitely be felt if our campus was moving in that direction.

To be honest, with every new federal change, I do wonder if today will be the day we’re told this program has to stop. So far that day has not come, and I hope that if we ever decide to stop filming the show, it’s of our own volition. Thankfully, my library’s leadership team has remained committed to fostering an open, supportive and respectful working environment for all our faculty, staff, and students, and we collectively continue to stand by our mission, values, and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

I’m glad that our path has not been one of anticipatory compliance, and at the same time I make it one of my greatest missions to both host and compile resources on these sensitive topics with tact, accountability, and intention, so that as little fault as possible can be found with our work. We’re just serving our community. “Off-limits words” be damned!

What do you wish others in the field knew about the work you do?

I think others would be surprised to know that I consider myself an introvert-leaning ambivert! I’m naming that because I truly think about the work I get to do as a privilege, but I had to shed some of my apprehension about being in the spotlight to execute the work I’m passionate about in an impactful way! Since we last talked, I’m now the host of the show, when my original role was very, very behind the scenes as the LibGuide creator, which was just fine with me. Because I am a public services subject liaison and participate in projects like We Need to Talk, amongst my many other #CritLib projects, which require a bit of a spine, I think there’s sometimes a perception that I’ve always been willing to stand out and be bold, and loud, and unafraid. Nothing could be further from the truth! As soon as I became an academic, I decided that it was my responsibility to use my academic privilege for collective empowerment, and with that in mind, I have been able to be a part of projects I never would’ve guessed I’d be doing, like hosting We Need to Talk. I don’t participate for accolades, to build my own reputation, or for the spotlight, but because, to quote Lila Watson, “If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” The only way we advance as a species on this road called life is with the collective in mind, and anyone can contribute. It takes all of us. None of us are ever “just” librarians or library workers.

Do you have any projects planned that you’d like to talk about?

I’m in the midst of a project called “Femtorship [female mentorship] as Spirit Protection in Academic Libraries,” which will likely be published sometime in 2027 in an ACRL anthology with some brilliant coauthors. I am currently interrogating the unwritten rules of tenure and promotion in academic ibraries with my co-investgator Christina Miskey, and I recently gave a presentation called Information Weathering in the Age of AI, which I hope to develop into an article or book after these other two projects wrap!