The editors are both exceptionally well-positioned to work on a book on this topic. Dr. Gracen Brilmyer, an assistant professor at McGill University, is also the director of the Disability Archives Lab, and they have published extensively on erased and partial narratives of Disabled people in archival materials. Dr. Lydia Tang is the senior outreach and engagement coordinator for Lyrasis, a non-profit member organization that provides open-source software, digital services, training, and programming to information institutions. Both Brilmyer and Tang were founding members of the Society of American Archivists’ Accessibility and Disability Section. The book itself is split into three sections: Using Archives & Witnessing Oneself, Navigating Employment, and Doing the Work. The first section examines how Disabled users search for themselves in archives; the second examines how Disabled individuals navigate archival job applications, accommodations, and professional standards; and the third examines how Disabled archivists (re)describe records and navigate their work and sense of self. Each section includes a selection of case studies, personal narratives, and research articles. The book also includes autoethnographies, interviews, and an annotated list of suggestions to make archival workplaces more accessible. Mentioning every chapter here would be ideal, but given the sheer number of chapters, it would also be impractical. Each chapter holds valuable insights, lessons, and practical applications for the reader. Some describe experiences, like Selena Moon’s chapter, “Including Japanese American Disability History in the Archives,” which describes the challenges a researcher might encounter while researching disability or disability histories. Likewise, Emma Yeo’s chapter, “Uncovering the Past, Hiding Myself: Exploring the Archive through Autoethnography,” employs autoethnography to explore the experiences of Disabled and Neurodivergent archive users. Other chapters provide practical advice, especially about employment and disability, or cover topics like web accessibility or specific areas for further collections development. For instance, Chris Tanguay and Ann Abney’s chapter, “Are You the Gatekeeper?: Job Advertisements as Barriers to Employment for Disabled Archivists,” and Zachary Tumlin and David Spriegel’s chapter, “‘Ability to Lift’ Your ‘Little Black Clouds’: How to Not Exclude Disabled Archivists in Employment,” together give a comprehensive assessment of archival hiring practices and practical suggestions for how to improve them. Erin Baucom’s chapter on digital accessibility, “The Evolution and Importance of Sustainable Accessible Online Cultural Heritage Materials,” provides archivists with practical suggestions for making their online offerings more accessible. Finally, Cassandra J. Perry’s chapter, “Making Sex in the Archive More Accessible: A Call for Preserving Accounts of the Sexual Experience of People with Disabilities by People with Disabilities,” highlights the lack of collected materials about Disabled individuals’ sexual experiences and calls for greater inclusion of them in archival collections. For those interested in archival (re)description, in “Teeming with Troublesome Terms: Remediating Problematic Language Describing Disability in Special Collections,” Melissa Weiss, Jacquelyn Slater Reese, and Jay A. Edwards discuss some of the most common problematic terms used to describe disability and recount how they handled encountering them in their collections. Similarly, in “Disability in Archival Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives,” Talea Anderson, Greg Matthew, and Gayle O’Hara consider reparative description as a tool to fight ableism in archives, with a specific focus on finding aids. Beyond acting as a resource, Preserving Disability provides a sense of community and belonging for Disabled readers. While the experiences the authors describe are unique to them and their own times and places, at the same time, their analyses and reflections are relevant to an infinite number of other people and places. And while the book’s length might at first be intimidating, its edited-volume format allows it to take on a special quality that a series of single …
