ABOUT BEYOND THE STACKS
Beyond the Stacks is a web platform, blog, and rallying cry for politically informed library services that understand we can no longer afford to suffer the status quo of profit-driven systems that treat life as disposable.
We not only affirm the fact that library service cannot be nonpartisan or apolitical, we embrace it gleefully.
We work in the service of the most vulnerable members of society and toward a grassroots vision of justice.
We seek a world in which all people have access to free information, education, healthcare, housing, and support.
We uncover the history, politics, and centuries of violence that have constructed the world as we know it.
We curate a social justice mobile library serving communities in Southeastern CT and Southern RI.
We foster community in an online virtual writing group making space for authenticity and liberation through writing.
We invite you to reach out with questions, to request books, and to conspire against empire wherever it stands.
MOBILE SOCIAL JUSTICE LIBRARY
We currently maintain a circulating collection of 200+ books and counting. We add new books regularly based upon user request and pre-approved donations. Everything we do is volunteer run.
Our collection of books serves one of two purposes: (1) to provide education and further information about social justice issues (2) to highlight the personal narratives and stories of marginalized people in this oppressive culture. We collect books representing as wide a variety of genres, reading levels, and identities as possible for our available space and resources. This will always be a work in progress. This is true of any living being learning how to love better.
We purchase any books we add to the collection with a library discount, from a Black-owned bookstore, or through thrift store finds. Check out People Get Ready in New Haven, The Key Bookstore in Hartford, or Burgundy Books in Old Saybrook to make your own purchases. Or find a Black-owned bookstore in your city here.
ABOUT US
Ery Caswell - Founder, Manager of Mobile Library, Collection Development Librarian
Ery Caswell (they/them) is an Adult Services Librarian who plans and develops community programing including technology classes, author talks, wellness seminars, and writing groups. Their past library work includes discretely radicalizing the youth in a library teen space, answering mail in reference questions for incarcerated people, and tutoring ESOL students how to navigate the pains & tribulations of the English language. They are the founder and a co-manager of Beyond the Stacks and the mobile social justice library.
Ery earned their MLIS from the University of Rhode Island in 2020 along with a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Information Literacy Instruction; they earned their BA in both Writing and Political Science from Ithaca College in 2016. Outside of the library, they are an essayist whose research oscillates, naturally, between theories of empire, queer history, the inevitable collapse of global capitalism, and the aesthetics of the pop diva.
You can hire Ery by appointment as a freelance digital programming consultant, writer, editor, and/or tutor to support the mobile library. But they are always happy to offer opinions free of charge.