Alex Soto (Tohono O’odham) is director of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center at Arizona State University (ASU) Library. Under his leadership, the Labriola Center has developed and implemented culturally informed library services, expanded its personnel four-fold, and re-established its physical locations as culturally safe spaces for Indigenous library users. Alex co-authored ASU Library’s first land acknowledgement statement, is the recipient of the Society of American Archivists 2022 Archival Innovator Award, and recently was awarded a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Firekeepers: Building Archival Data Sovereignty through Indigenous Memory Keeping,” a three-year project to preserve Indigenous knowledge through community-based participatory archival partnerships with Arizona’s Tribal communities. Alex’s journey to librarianship comes after years of success as a touring hip-hop musician and activist.
Education
Masters of Arts in Library & Information Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 2020
Bachelors of Science in American Indian Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 2019