Keynote Speaker: Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz

Archivist and curator Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz (NYU Libraries) was the keynote speaker for the August 12, 2021 half-day virtual symposium, “Cataloging Queer Library Issues: A symposium to honor Walt ‘Cat’ Walker.”

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is an assistant curator and Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement at New York University Division of Libraries. She is a recipient of the 2020 WGSS Award for Significant Achievement in Women’s & Gender Studies in Librarianship sponsored by Duke University Press, administered by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Libraries Association, for her work archiving and exhibiting the Salsa Soul Sisters, the first lesbian of color organization in the country. She is co-editor for an upcoming publication, Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations in Librarianship, Litwin Books. She is a co-coordinating volunteer archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, co-chair for the board of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) and chair of the CLAGS Archives committee. Shawn has a B.S. in queer women’s studies from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program, an M.F.A. in creative writing/fiction, and an M.L.S. with a focus on archiving and records management from Queens College. She is also a visiting assistant professor at the Pratt School of Information. Shawn is currently interested in critical race theory and its intersections with queer narrative formation, specifically as it relates to the silencing of Black lesbians, their herstories, and their spaces.