Pass It On…

By Marcelo Rodríguez (Follow us on LinkedIn)

Let me tell you about someone I met a few years ago in 2019. Her name was Judge Deborah A. Batts. The Honorable Judge Batts was the first openly gay person to be appointed as an Article III federal judge. She held this position for over 25 years in the Southern District of New York. As part of the library team in my previous position, we commemorated her 25 years of service with a candid interview during Pride month with her fellow openly gay judges also at the US Courts for the Second Circuit: Judge Alison J. Nathan, Judge J. Paul Oetken and Judge Pamela K. Chen. If you watch this interview as many times as I have, you can’t escape the gravitas of Judge Batts words when she describes herself as a “trifecta” and says “it’s important to pass it on…”

As a librarian, and particularly someone working with the law, I believe the responsibility of pass it on should be a major tenet in our profession And despite that altruistic goal and the best of intentions, I oftentimes find myself in situations where we have failed to do just that. Why is that? What is missing? Who is missing? Whose voices we are missing?

I don’t presume to have any of the answers. However, I’ve decided to create this platform and hear from my esteemed friends on the notes we pass to each other. By now, we all know the concepts, or at least we can find a new libguide with further reading. Let’s now dismantle and create. Let’s now more forward and be intentional. Let’s create the space and pass it on.

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Notes Between Us (NBU) is a blog about conversations and topics of interest to the writers. The writers are expressing their personal opinions solely. Their essays represent their personal beliefs and not that of their workplaces or any organization they are associated with.