Digitization 101

Last week was the New York Library Association (NYLA) Annual Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. Saratoga is a gorgeous community and always a great place to hold the NYLA conference. This conference was our first "normal" conference since COVID turned everything upside down. There were no restrictions and registration was close to what it was in 2019. (The conference in 2020 was virtual and it was scaled back in 2021, due to COVID restrictions.) 

There were many enticing sessions - often at the same time. Rather than writing about each session, I want to capture a few highlights and share some resources.

Courtney Harge: The Beautiful Revolutionary Future

The keynote was given by Courtney Harge (she/her), who is the CEO of OF/BY/FOR ALL. OF/BY/FOR ALL helps to equip "civic and cultural organizations to become of, by, and for their communities." Her slides are available and I recommend looking at them. Included in her presentation was an overview of their Change Network system.

What stood out to me is how they coach organizations to reach out into their communities, recognizing that gathering information and building relationships is paramount. Harge noted that we often rush to present a solution without knowing what the community wants or truly needs. People want to be listened to, heard, understood, and partnered with. Rushing in with a fully formed idea means that we are saying that we know best, even if we know nothing about that group or community.

Harge did say, "They don't need you." Those folks and groups who aren't using the library are existing without the library. We might rush in and exclaim, "you need us" or "we have a solution", but do we really know what those folks need? Spending time - a lot of time - getting to know the community and its sub-communities is vitally important. 

How do you get to know your community? Attend their events (without talking about the library). Walk through the neighborhoods and visit different businesses (and don't talk about the library). Perhaps try different places in those neighborhoods for coffee or lunch. Ask your staff to introduce you around, if they are willing. However you do it, Harge noted that we cannot immediately pitch an idea, rather we need to listen and learn. We need to understand what our community wants, rather than focusing on the solutions we already have. We need to focus on building trust.

Her presentation was full of wise words (many captured on her slides) including, "Make sure your space isn’t actively harmful.” For me, this also requires a lot of deep listening. Your staff and patrons need to trust you in order to tell you why your organization is actively harmful (if it is) and that trust does not occur overnight. It takes time.

There is a saying, "work at the speed of trust." Trust allows things to happen faster. However, trust takes time to be established and it can be ruined in an instant.

Creating Remote Access to Library Collections

John Raymond, Matthew Kopel, and I did a session on "Creating Remote Access to Library Collections," where we talked about digital lending in a controlled environment. Good to see public and academic librarians in the audience, who are interested in using Copyright Law (Sections 107 and 109), digital technology, and DRM to provide digital access to some of their print collection. We provided lots of information and emphasized the details of CDL (controlled digital lending) including maintaining the owned-to-loan ratio.

NYS Minimum Standards for Public Libraries

I found the session on the New York Public and Association Libraries Minimum Standards to be eye-opening and helpful. While I've studied the minimum standards, it was useful to hear others talk about how they are applied and what happens if a library is not meeting one (or more) of them.

One eye-opening tidbit is that all public library trustees need to fulfill the annual NYS mandated sexual harassment prevention training requirement. If a trustee takes this training in their workplace, they can use that training to fulfill their requirement as a trustee. Not having to take the training twice is good news. The bad news is that some of the sexual harassment training that is being used to fulfill this requirement is structured to meet the requirement and not to be truly helpful (in my opinion).

Mary Lou Carolan, from the Newburgh Free Library, shared their strategic plan during this session. (Having a strategic plan is one of the 14 minimum standards.) I like looking at library strategic plans and this one contains interesting activities.

Carolan noted that the Newburgh Free Library serves a community that is 50+% Hispanic. By hiring someone from the Hispanic community, translating the website, etc. into Spanish, & better outreach, they have increased the number of people from the Hispanic community who are engaged with the library. 

Combating Racism in Libraries: Creating Spaces to Educate and Inform Our Communities

I believe these archived webinars were mentioned in the "Reinventing Ethnic Library Services."  On this page are:

• Community and Communication in the Dialogue on American Racism - Past, Present & Future
• Using Collection Development and Readers Advisory to Introduce Race Relations 
• Inclusive Programming - Every Race, Every Month 
• I Write about Race - a panel discussion
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Human Resources & Microaggressions in the Workplace
• Teaching Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and American Culture in ESOL Classrooms 

And on this page are:

• Let's Talk About Anti-Asian Hate
• Reintroducing R.A.C.E. with Teens (Racial Awareness and Community Education)
• Evaluating for Inclusive Programming
•  Impact of Racism on Community Health
• Microaggressions in Academic Libraries

Good Weather, People, and Food

The weather this year was warm and gorgeous, and everyone took advantage of it! So nice to not have to take a winter coat or worry about rain.

One of the benefits of being in Saratoga is all of the good food. I didn't have one bad meal! Since NYLA will be in Saratoga again next year, I look forward to visiting places like Walt Cafe and Darling Doughnuts again. 

Of course, NYLA brings people together from across NYS (and beyond) who are interested in the sessions and then who find a myriad of other library-related things to talk about. The sessions and the conference structure become the backdrop for powerful conversations with existing and new library buddies.  I'm thankful to have seen folks whom I only see at NYLA and to make new friends!

Future Conference Locations

Finally, here is where the NYLA Conference is scheduled for the next five years. Yup, alternating between Saratoga and Syracuse!

2023: Saratoga Springs, November 1-4
2024: Syracuse, November 6-9
2025: Saratoga Springs, November 5-8
2026: Saratoga Springs, November 4-7
2027: Syracuse, October 27-30

Clark Quinn starts this 2011 blog post by stating:

Have you ever been to a conference session, and realized that there was a mismatch between what you read, and what you experienced? On the other hand, how often have you written a conference submission that has been rejected? In the middle is a lesson about what a good conference submission is. 

Yes, writing a good conference description and proposal takes a bit of work, and it is worth it! It means that you know what you're going to present and the audience knows what they are going to hear. And as Clark notes, a well written proposal will get the conference committee's attention! 

I know this is an old post, but I also know some people could benefit from reading it, so... 

As part of Association of Independent Information Professionals' (AIIP) annual conference, I am giving the Roger Summit Award Lecture, where I'll be speaking on Moving Beyond Hope in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging. That occurs on April 29. On April 13, I sat down with for a live online conversation with Jennifer Burke to talk about the conference and my presentation. In addition that, we had fun talking about elements of an in-person conference people might incorporate into their virtual conference attendance. The recording is below.

Jennifer used StreamYard for this interview, which I had not used before. People were able to interact with us on StreamYard itself, and the stream was also carried live on Facebook and LinkedIn. StreamYard looks like something many people and organizations could use to stream live events. I like that it does have a free option, although clearly Jennifer has a paid account!

In most years, I can easily list the conferences I have attended, because they were events I traveled to. And when you need to travel to attend a conference or most professional development events, you aren't going to multiples each month. However, the move to online events in 2020, because of the COVID pandemic, changed how conferences were run and how many events a person could attend.

Soon after March 13, 2020 - the last day I worked on-site before being sent home because of the pandemic - organizations began hosting events online. Early in the pandemic, the thought was to give people learning opportunities as something to do. Then there became a need for learning opportunities which addressed challenges occurring during the pandemic. However, rather than attending these learning opportunities, I was involved in creating them by giving webinars or being on webinar panels. 2020  opened up new opportunities and I'm grateful for all of them.

Now in 2021, in addition to being involved in giving webinars, I found myself attending many online professional development events and conferences. Yes, some events were free or low-cost, while still providing top quality content.  Having virtual events made it easy to go from event to event, when it would have been impossible to do so if I needed to attend in person.  (On Oct. 22, I attend parts of the Central NY Library Resources Council Annual Meeting, the South Central (NY) Regional Library Council Annual Meeting, and Library Research Round Table event - back to back events - without leaving my office!) Memorable to me was that I was able to attend the 2021 Miami University Libraries Copyright Conference, which had Kenneth Crews and Jack Bernard among its speakers.

The ShapingEDU Winter Games in January are worth noting, because I think more people should be paying attention to this group. From its first on-site conference in 2018 to now, ShapingEDU has been gathering people together to talk about the education and work towards changing it. The Winter Games had presentations and panels from a wide variety of people who are involved in education, including speakers from specific companies that are shaping how we learn. I sat enthralled in front of my computer! Yes, this was a free event!

The ShapingEDU Unconference in July was an event where people engaged in conference-long learning and envisioning activities. It was structured in a way that made it possible for people to dip their toes into specific topics, if they didn't have time for a deep dive. Sessions were led by people who are deeply involved in the areas covered by the Unconference, which meant that you had an opportunity to learn from the best. And did I say this was free? Yup. 

If you are interested in education, I encourage you to look at ShapingEDU. Their next event - Pente Pitch Challenge - will be in February 2022. Check it out!

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) had its annual conference online in August and I was on a panel entitled "Work-Life Pivots: Tales from the Trenches" with Julie Edwards and Eugene Giudice. Marydee Ojala was the moderator.  All of us had pivoted our careers at least once - if not multiple times and this allowed us to share our experiences, talk about what we had learned, and provide tips. 

Everyone can pivot their careers. Everyone. I know some people think it is impossible, but it isn't. Yes, it might take time and effort to achieve. Yes, you might have to learn new things. Yes, it might be scary. Yes, you can do it.

During the SLA Conference, I received the John Cotton Dana Award for lifetime achievement. I'm still stunned by that!  I've already written about it, if you want to know more.

My first in-person conference of 2021 happened in November, when the New York Library Association Annual Conference came to Syracuse.  Besides the in-person component, NYLA also held a virtual conference in October and had recorded on-demand content available. I've written a number of posts about this conference already. For me, it was wonderful to be at an in-person event. Because we were in a county conference facility, we had to wear masks all the time, except when eating or drinking. Seating in the sessions was spaced out, so we could keep at a distance from each other.  

Next year, NYLA will return to having an in-person conference only in Saratoga Springs, NY on Nov. 2-5. I hope that COVID is under control by then, meaning that the number of cases are much lower and we can meet without the need for masks or the fear of getting COVID. I plan on being there and hope to see many of my NYS library buddies there, too.

2021 Lessons Learned:

• Online conferences can be quite good! They do need a lot of planning, as well as good software, so don't think that hosting an online conference will be easier. One of the best things about them is that you can have a wider variety of speakers, because they do not need to travel.
• Attending an online conference is easier, because you don't need to travel. However, it is easy to get distracted because you're sitting in front of your computer. It is up to you to stay engaged, because there is no one sitting next to you to poke you when you clearly are not paying attention. 
• During 2020-2021, online conferences were held at a number of different price points. Don't assume that a conference will be too expensive for you to attend. Read the details! You might be surprised. 
• Offering online events at a low cost or free is likely a finance burden for the event organizer. However, I hope that organizations will continue to find ways of making some of their events widely available, so that they have a larger impact.
• Staring at people through a virtual event portal is fine, but it is not the same as being in-person. I think that people will want to attend a mix of virtual and in-person events each year, because the in-person events really do engage people differently.
  

This has been quite a year, which will be reflected in this look back on 2020. 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Those three words became more important this year. The library and information professions were already examining themselves and how to become more diverse in terms of people within the professions, content, programs, etc. We need and want to be more representative of the communities we serve. We need to include all voices. This is an ongoing struggle and one in which every ally needs to remain vocal and active. We cannot leave this work to other people. 

In October, I wrote four posts on the struggle to diversify library staff, which have been widely shared and I think have helped to inform some conversations. If you are interested in increasing the diversity of your staff - whether your in a library or not - I encourage you to read these posts. 

• The Struggle to Diversify Library Staff, part 1  
• The Struggle to Diversify Library Staff, part 2  
• The Struggle to Diversify Library Staff, part 3 
• The Struggle to Diversify Library Staff, part 4

By the way,  many people read the first post with fewer reading the remaining ones. Yet it is parts 2 and 3 which provides ideas for improving the situation.  (I think part 3 offers a radical idea.)

Racism in the Profession

In November, an article pointed to someone in the library and information profession as being a member of a right wing extremist group. This led to a lot of chatter on Facebook and in other places about the values of the library profession and how this person did not seem to have those values. However, the truth is that the profession contains a breadth of personal values and opinions, some of which are at odds with the values practitioners believe the profession has.  

This is an area where we all need to listen to those who have been - and continue to be marginalized in the profession. After that listening, we all need to think deeply about the changes that need to be made, and then make them.

I encourage you to read the ALA's Code of Ethics and consider how that code is helping or hindering us as we try to become more inclusive.  I also encourage you to read "This Is Who We Are" by Fobazi M. Ettarh.

If you head a library, look at your meeting room policy and consider if they would allow racist or extremist groups to use a room. Is that what you want?  Then look at your collection development policy. Does it support the inclusion of racist materials into your collection?  Is that what you want? You may need to update your policies. If you want racists to use your meeting rooms and be reflected in your collection, then you need to think about what that means to your community and likely you should document your rationale and decision. Finally, start a conversation with your staff about the values of your library, as well as about diversity, equity and inclusion.  Make this a long-term conversation. You will not be able to surface concerns or problems - or create solutions - in just a few sessions. You and your staff will need to get comfortable with each other and with the conversation, before people are willing to really open up. Everyone will need to see that conversation as safe space for all opinions.

BTW I have purposely not included links to articles, etc. about the LIS person who is associated - loosely or tightly - with a right wing extremist group. Why? Because this is not about scrutinizing one person, but about looking at the entire profession. 

My Most Shared Facebook Post

Much of the conversation around racism in 2020 was due to the Black Lives Matter protests. After a protest in Syracuse in May, a colleague helped pick up the debris and found a "rubber bullet." The term rubber bullet is used to describe a range of projectiles of varying sizes, including large ones that are used on our city streets. With permission, I created a public Facebook post about rubber bullets, noting that they can do serious damage, which other attested to. A few people disagreed, because there is a smaller version, which I know are used in police training instead of "live rounds," but these large projectiles are not those. I'm glad to know that Facebook post has been shared over 2,000 times, because it surely has educated some people.

A Push to Change the Pathways to Librarianship

There is a group in ALA and in the New York Library Association which are each focused on what needs to change in LIS education or the pathways to librarianship (I see these as being entwined).  

The work of the NYLA Pathways to Librarianship Task Force is just beginning and their timeline is ambitious. As stated:

This first charge of the task force will be to work towards the development of a Statement of Principles on the topic of Alternative Pathways to Librarianship. Particular emphasis will be placed on creating sustainable practices that allow historically discriminated groups to more easily enroll in library and information science graduate programs, attain graduate degrees in librarianship, retain employment in their chosen field, and advance through the profession.  These Principles will be used to create a white paper advocating for systemic reforms and the subsequent creation of a new framework to address inequities.

In ALA, nearly 100 people have come together  as part of the Librarian Education Reform Discussion Group (within the ALA Connect platform). This group is talking "about education requirements in the future of librarianship." Members of this group are also focused on other aspects that could help to diversify the profession.  

Talking about changing LIS education or pathways to librarianship is a complicated discussion. There are more opinions than people, and there is truth in every opinion shared.  Because there are so many valid opinions (or options), selecting which one to focus on can be problematic. Do you select the one advocated by the loudest voices?  It is the one that the group selects?  Do you select the easiest to tackle? Or perhaps your research leads you to the one that will have the biggest impact? If the focus is on making changes which will help the profession become more diverse, do you have representatives from those diverse communities in the discussion and are you listening to them?

I'm involved in the ALA Connect group, but have decided not to get directly involved in the NYLA effort. I've enjoyed the ALA discussions to-date and look forward to what they continue to surface and what ideas they might bring to the profession.

Digital Lending of Library Materials

After everything began shutting down in March, due to COVID-19, the number of copyright questions library staff increased. ALA did two webinars with me, Kenneth Crews and Lesley Ellen Harris. (Part 1 post and Part 2 post contain links to the recordings.) People had questions about fair use, storytime, the digital lending of materials, and more, and we answered all of their questions.

The digital lending of library print materials is the cause of many discussions and disagreements. Yet there are libraries - more than you realize - who are engaged in digitally lending their print materials. The simplest example are academic libraries who have digital course reserves. Ecourse reserves are done in a controlled environment. Making materials available in an accessible format for those who are blind or other people with disabilities (Title 17 Section 121), is a form of controlled digital lending. Libraries are also digitizing some of their print works and making those copies available in a "lend like print" fashion.  In other words, that one digital copy can be loaned to one person at a time, and when that digital version is out on loan, the print copy cannot be loaned. Below are related blog posts and I know I'll be writing about this more in 2021.

Related blog posts: 

• #ALAac19 : Yes, copyright sessions!, July 3, 2019
  
• The Internet Archive and the National Emergency Library, March 31, 2020
• The National Emergency Library, April 20, 2020
  
• Article: How Controlled Digital Lending Makes an Entire College Library Available to Everyone Everywhere, Nov 13, 2020

Report: Public Library Survey Data: Some Answers, Many Questions

As I've written about before, two years ago, the Syracuse University iSchool Public Libraries Initiative (IPLI) became interested in the IMLS Public Library Survey (PLS) data. At the time, the IPLI was doing some work on the data in conjunction with the EveryLibrary Institute. Seeing the data from every public library in our 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and our U.S. territories raised questions in us. Exploring those questions took time and required adding some skills to our team, while also understanding which of our questions were answerable and how many were not. Fast forward and earlier this fall I finished a 17-page report using the 2017 PLS data entitled Public Library Survey Data: Some Answers, Many Questions (free download).  I am still proud of this report and hope that public libraries across the U.S. will continue to use it.  

Conferences?

I really enjoyed the ALA Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia in January.  Now I look back at it as not only being a wonderful conference, but also my last trip before the pandemic. (Relevant ALA blog posts) That in-person conference was definitely a high point of the year, as was the virtual conference held by the New York Library Association in November. (Relevant NYLA blog posts) The NYLA Annual Conference us!ed the PheedLoop platform, which provided space for broadcasted and pre-recorded sessions, real-time chat, and a trade show.  It was more interactive than I expected, which was a huge plus. Of course, NYLA had excellent content as always.

My Last 2020 Flight

A travel highlight of being in Philly is the Reading Terminal Market. On the last day, I bought a half-dozen Amish sticky buns to bring home and put them in my backpack. A security person at the convention center wondered - as I was stuffing them in my backpack - if I could get them on the plane, which was an odd question. But later, there I was at the airport security checkpoint watching my backpack being scanned and the TSA agents staring at the screen.  One brought my backpack to me, opened it up, pulled out the bag of sticky buns and asked, "What is this?" Evidently, they did not recognize sticky buns on their scanner! (Yes, I got them home with me.) That was the highlight of my last flight of 2020.

A Change in Work!

The stay-at-home orders in March flowed nicely into my retirement from academia at the end of June. I am now Professor Emerita!

Yes, I am retired and just as busy as before. I am serving on several boards including the EveryLibrary Institute and the Onondaga County Public Library (OCPL) Board of Trustees. Being on the OCPL Board during the pandemic has been very "interesting" (in every sense of the word). Like nearly every library in the U.S., all of the libraries in the OCPL system shut their physical locations for many weeks or months due to the pandemic. However, like many other libraries, the OCPL libraries have been online for many years, including the ability to search from home for a book to reserve, access to online databases which contain high quality verifiable information, ebooks, audio books, and much more. While online programs are not new for any library, they multiplied in 2020 when meeting in-person was not possible. The OCPL libraries used storytime, performances of Shakespeare, online book clubs, craft sessions, summer reading, staff generated podcasts and YouTube videos, and much more in online formats to give people respite from the stress that 2020 provided. While many people focused on the doors being closed,  but the staff at the libraries were still working to meet the needs of our communities. We cannot forget that our libraries are very digital and are always open.

Besides serving on several boards, I'm continuing to give webinars on a wide variety of topics, including copyright (running again in February), communications, using SMART goals, productivity, and mentoring (March 2021). In terms of consulting I am talking with prospective clients about copyright projects and projects related to innovation. Innovation is something I've focused on for a long time and I look forward to putting my knowledge to work with a new organization. 

Besides my website, this blog, and LinkedIn, I've been using a new service called Lunchclub as a way of thinking about "what's next." Lunchclub provides curated one-on-one professional connection, and smart introductions to relevant people. What an interesting way to meet other people who are interested in copyright, and from difference perspectives. Paul Signorelli has written about this platform, so you can go there to read more. Lunchclub does not allow people to automatically join, but instead looks for people to be referred in some fashion.  If you're looking for a new or different networking platform, here is a link so you can signup for Lunchclub.

What else?

I'm sure there is more I should write.  I haven't talked about what I've learned about Zoom, or about the site Gather.Town (which has more functionality than you can imagine), or discovering Sardek Love's Monday "Ask a Master Facilitator" videos...or Tom Haymes' book Learn at Your Own Risk, or Paul Signorelli's book Change the World Using Social Media (which includes information from an interview with me)...or about the days I sat in front of the TV watching in disbelief all that was happening in the world. I am thankful for the light, for the good...and I look forward to what I hope will be a better 2021.

Happy New Year!

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Making the News: Library Advocacy and Local Media

Christi Buker (Pennsylvania Library Association):

• Use traditional advocacy and social media
• Make sure their legislative community is fully engaged
• Focused your limited time and resources
• The Pennsylvania Library Association  (PLA) have created handout that provide information on the good, bad, and what’s possible (the ask)
• In 2018, PLA focused on awareness
• In 2019, PLA focused on positive revenues within the state
• Suggested that you get your county to acknowledge National Library Week
• Do media training

• Use data to supplement stories on people. Marry anecdotal stories with data.
• Educate your journalists about the library

LITA Top Technology Trends

Speakers:  Ida Joiner (moderator), Victoria Blackmer, Marshall Breeding, Elisandro Cabada, and Alison Macrina

This Top Tech Trends session was focused on privacy.

What is causing the privacy concerns?

• Internet of things - the connection of the entire world 
• Inclusion of sensors in many things that are collecting personal data
• Not all libraries have secure websites - what a person does on a library's website should be private
• A need for libraries to use more encryption
• A recognition that a library's website may be secure, but the ads on it track user activity
• Analytics which capture user information
• Virtual reality and augmented reality
• Data storage
• Facial recognition - they have been some conversations about using facial recognition instead of library cards
• Consumer surveillance devices
• Vendor privacy issues
• People using Alexa, etc., for quick reference questions
• The use of drones

Libraries cannot assume that others will figure this out in a way that suits them and their patrons.  Libraries need to get involved and assure that the privacy concerns of their community are being met.

FUTURE-READYing Your Library: Preparing for the Future Today

Speaker: Marcellus "MT" Turner

Marcellus Turner is the Executive Director and Chief Librarian of the Seattle Public Library.  During his introduction of the topic, he said that this might not be what people expected and that it was okay to get up and leave.  That made me even more intrigued!

MT and Seattle Public Library are preparing the library of today for tomorrow.  While Seattle Public is well-known, that library was built to be the library of tomorrow, but rather to liberate our ideas about what a library can be.  Now SPL is working hard to figure out the trends that point to the future needs and what the library must do to meet those needs.  The goal is to be proactive, rather than being reactive.



SPL has been  on this project for about 18 months and are now at a point where they can begin sharing information. They are still gathering information and do want to engage a futurist, so the work is not yet done. They hope in sharing that they can also learn from others.  MT promised that as they continue to learn, they will continue to share.  He noted that they have hired a policy officer to help with this effort.

MT showed us this information on their strategic direction, noting that what they do will touch on these three areas: Individual, Community, and the Institution. 


This was an interactive session.  When we sat down, MT gave each of us a color-coded card, which related to 12 different areas.  These are areas that other industries are thinking about, and he emphasized that we need to think about them too. The areas are:

• Emerging Technologies
• Future of Work and Education
• Changing Demographics
• Financial Sustainability
• Corporate Influence and Consumer Expectations
• Climate Change
• Growing Inequality and Inequity
• Urbanization and Density
• Institutional Trust, Privacy, and Big Data
• Library as Concept
• Librarianship and Staffing
• Customer Service and Engagement

This was a session where my mind was fully engaged and I wished it could have gone on longer. Yet my notes are minimal.  Not every library has the funding and support to engage in strategic thinking like this and so it was inspiring to hear from a library that can take the time and resources to do this.  I cannot wait to hear what MT and SPL learn.  I do hope that some of those lessons will come while my own public library is working on its strategic plan!

Sustainability Is Now a Core Value. So... Now What?

Speakers: Rebekkah Smith Aldrich and Matthew Bollerman

As the session description says, "In 2019 ALA Council voted to make sustainability a core value of librarianship. So what's next? How do we embed this new core value in our work as a profession, in our libraries, and in our association?"

Smith Aldrich and Bollerman took turns talking about sustainability.  They noted that we - as individuals - want the people we care about the most to have the best possible lives...and that we want the same for our communities, too. Sustainability is one way of providing the best possible future for those around us and our communities. As libraries, however, we are late to this game.

Smith Aldrich and Bollerman are working to get sustainability as a topic in the MSLIS programs and in ALA accreditation. They noted that three MSLIS programs have already inserted sustainability into their coursework (Syracuse University, San Jose State Univ., and Rutgers).

They see sustainability as having a triple, interconnected impact, which they call the triple bottom line:

• Environmentally sound (earth)
• Social equitable (people)
• Economically feasible

Making Real Change: Moving beyond the Interpersonal to Create Actual Diverse, Inclusive, and Equitable Environments for Both Library Users and Employees

Anti-oppressive practices (AOP) grapple with power inequities that uphold structural forces like racism and sexism. Librarianship has primarily focused on individual expressions of AOP. However, AOP must include institutional and ideological change, which can be more challenging.

This session will discuss the AOP framework, explore examples of AOP in libraries, and give participants tools for starting larger conversations at their own institutions. Participants will discuss what their institution is doing that focuses on the individual, and explore how theories of organizational change can be used towards institutional AOP.

I have returned from attending the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia. It was a packed four days for me and I'll be providing highlights in several blog posts, beginning with this one about day 1 (Friday, Jan. 24).

Opening Keynote

ALA President Wanda Brown opened the conference.  In her remarks, Brown noted that "we are the heartbeat of our communities."  That is something that we - libraries and library staff - know, but is something that our communities rediscover on occasion and then think that this relationship between us and them is new.

Wanda Brown  introduced Wes Moore, who was our opening keynote.  This was the second time that I've been able to hear Wes Moore speak and he was as engaging as he was at IFLA.

Moore began by talking about his early life and his connection to the public library. When he was  in fifth grade, he read at a third grade level.  His mother used Brown's love of sports to connect him with books, and his love of reading was born.  (That first book was on the Michigan Fab Five.)

He then talked about writing The Other Wes Moore, which was a book about individual choice and societal dynamics. He then moved to talking about his upcoming book, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, which is about the protests and activities in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.  Moore calls this a story about poverty.

Freddie Gray had led a tragic life. He was born underweight to a mother who was an addict, and that means he was born an addict.  He got lead poisoning from his environment before he was 2 years old.  Freddie's life did not get better and it was not a peaceful one.  Moore believes that the week Freddie Gray was in a coma may have been the most peaceful week of Gray's life.  That is heartbreaking.

• How did we get here?
• What do we do next?

The Exhibit Hall

I know that an important funding stream for an association is its conference and that the vendors are critically important to that. So I do believe in going to the exhibit hall.  I'm always pleased to see new products and will send relevant info to colleagues, when I can.  And yes, the exhibits can just be fun!

On Friday, one booth that stood out to me was the Islamic Circle of North America.  They had copies of the Quran and other books available for free, and were more than willing to talk about Islamic culture.  I'm heartened to see exhibitors like this, who are at the conference to extend the educational content into the vendor area.

Short Edition had short story dispensers around the conference site.  These dispensers contained locally-curated content of one-minute, three-minute, and five-minute stories.  A dispenser in the exhibit hall contained comics and stories specifically for young adults.  I was fascinated and printed several stories over the four-day event.  Yes, I am reading them.

Colleagues wondered if this functionality could be done using existing technology and whether children/young adults would print many stories - creating piles of papers - without reading them.  I agree that both questions are good ones.  Concerning too many people printing stories, I'll note that I saw very few people printing stories, which felt strange since most people at the conference would describe themselves as readers. I do think this functionality could be quite interesting in some environments.  I hope I run across one again, so I can print/read more!

Library Journal Librarians of the Year

Friday evening, Christian Zabriskie and Lauren Comito - founders of Urban Librarians Unite - received the Library Journal Librarian(s) of the Year Award.  The more I get to know Christian and Lauren, the more impressed I am with their work.  If you are unfamiliar with them, please read the LJ article.

Christian is now the executive director of the Onondaga County Public Library (system), where I am now the president of its Board of Trustees.  I am thrilled that he is in Syracuse and that I'll be working with him in the weeks and months to come.

This is what I'm doing in the coming months.  If we end up in the same location, let's meet for coffee!

Conference

Currently, I have only one conference on my schedule:

• Jan. 24-27 - ALA Midwinter Conference (ALAmw20) in Philadelphia, PA.  Look for me in the Convention Center and in the Reading Terminal Market, where the food choices are awesome!

Teaching

I'm teaching the following this winter and spring:

• Copyright for Information Professionals (IST 735) - Jan. 13 - Apr. 28 (asynchronous online, credit-bearing graduate course)
  Basic ideas, concepts and perspectives of management as they apply to the information professions. Students learn to understand and apply basic principles of organization theory and behavior and managerial techniques needed to improve organizational effectiveness. This course is offered through Syracuse University.


• US Copyright Law in the Library: A Beginner's Guide (ALA eCourse) - Feb. 2 - Mar. 15 (asynchronous, non-credit-bearing)
  The library is a hub of content, all of it subject to copyright law. The legal reality of copyright is dynamic—changes in technology have created a landscape that is constantly adapting and can be difficult to predict. If you don't have any formal training in copyright law, it can be intimidating to know how to answer your patrons' copyright questions and to know what you can and cannot do with your library’s content and resources. It can be tough to understand the line between providing information and answering a legal question.
  
  In this eCourse, you will be guided through the basics of copyright law and provided with the foundation to become your library's copyright expert.
  
  Each week, you'll learn how copyright law informs what libraries, library staff, and patrons can do with their materials and how you can stay up-to-date as this area evolves. You'll be able to check and affirm your knowledge through focused self-assessments.  This asynchronous eCourse is offered through ALA Publishing.


• The Public Library as Institution (IST 600) - Mar. 25 - June 16 (online with synchronous and asynchronous components each week)
  This credit-bearing course covers the unique aspects of public libraries include structure, governance, funding, and community interactions. In addition, public libraries are impacted by many societal concerns. This course prepares students to examine and support those areas of public librarianship. This course is offered through Syracuse University.


• Productivity 101 - May 14, 9:00 a.m. - 12 noon, SCRLC offices in Ithaca, NY
  Productivity. It's important, but we often struggle with how to stay organized so that we are productive. We struggle with email, time management, and managing workloads. We want to delegate tasks, and even say "no" to some, but we struggle with the best way of doing that. In this interactive workshop, you will learn and use methods for these areas, and become more productive. Both paper and digital methods will be discussed.

Other Stuff 

First, I am now the president of the Onondaga County Public Library Board of Trustees.  It is a honor to be able to serve this library and the OCPL system in this way (32 libraries in total)! 

Second, in 2017, I became involved in the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. This is a continuation of the campaign begun by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After the 2016 elections, I wanted to get involved some how in making a difference in our country. Like many others, I looked for an effort that resonated with my values.  I particularly wanted to get involved in something locally. This is where I''m donating my energy working with the NYS Poor People's Campaign and the CNY organizing committee.  Why am I posting this here? Because I just want to share something that is important to me.

Last week was the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Annual Conference in Knoxville, TN. This year's theme was "Exploring Learning in a Global Information Context." Part of the global context is diversity and a number of sessions connected with that specifically. A thread that crossed several presentations and posters was the information seeking behaviors within a community, however, that community is defined.

Information and Under-represented Communities

In the juried paper, "Information and Under-represented communities: LatinXs Finding InformaXion in Boston" by Monica Colon-Aguirre and Janet Caja Alcal, we learned of the information seeking behaviors of those who speak Spanish in the LatinX community. A 2015 Pew Research study found that LatinXs are less likely than other groups to know about the services offered by their public libraries. LatinX communities are the largest minority group in the U.S. and have complex information needs. Colon-Aguirre noted that LatinX populations are not monolithic, which means that we need to be careful about any assumptions we might make about their information needs.

Through 13 interviews, Colon-Aguirre and Alcal found that educational attainment and English language acquisition impact the use of library collections and facilities, and whether that use is for the person or for their child. For example, someone with a higher levels of education would use the library for themself, while a person with lower levels of education would seek services for their children.

Colon-Aguirre recommends that LIS educators prepare future professionals with the knowledge and skills to foster cultural competence. She also said we need to encourage students to acquire proficiency in languages used in our communities, other than English. She noted that LatinX communities are less likely to learn English than other migrant groups, mainly due to ethnic enclaves in cities around the U.S. Of course, the optimal solution would be to hire librarians that represent and look like the people in their communities.

Colon-Aguirre also recommended that libraries:

• Employ community engagement strategies
• Develop more programming
• Build rapport with community members, especially those who are gatekeepers
• Create bilingual catalogues 

Besides being proficient in another language, library will want to build cultural competence. Cultural competence is a set of attitudes, skills behaviors and policies that enable a person to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.  Rajesh Singh (St. John's University) and Beth Patin (Syracuse University) have MSLIS courses on this and others may also exist.

Chatman Revisited

LaVerne Gray and Bharat Mehra were two of the panelists in the session entitled, "Chatman Revised: A Panel Reexamining and Resituating Social Theories of Identity, Access, and Marginalization in LIS."  Gray joined the SU iSchool in August, so she's been educating me about Chatman for a while! Mehra was her doctoral advisor and remains a collaborator.

Elfreda A. Chatman (1942-2002) was "well known for her ethnographic approaches in researching information seeking behaviors among understudied or minority groups." (Wikipedia) Chatman studied information seeking behaviors, and then created theories about them.

Because I will not be able to fully articulate her work, I encourage you to locate information on Elfreda Chatman. Two articles, which I quickly found, are:

• Chatman, E. (1996) The Impoverished Life-World of Outsiders.
• Burnett, G.; Jaeger, P.T.; Thompson, K.M. (2008) Normative Behavior and Information: The Social Aspects of Information Access.

Given the conversations in the U.S. since fall 2016 and some of the actions that have occurred, it is not surprising that there were many sessions related to bias, microaggressions, diversity and inclusion. I was able to attend only two. I'm giving you the descriptions because these capture important information.

New Destinations in the Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of People of Color to the Library Profession

 

Description

In spite of ongoing diversity initiatives and programs by organizations such as ARL, ACRL and other groups, recruitment, retention and promotion among library and information studies (LIS) students and library workers is lagging. Two recent projects, the REFORMA Telling Our Stories: Community Building to Recruit and Retain Latinx to the Library Profession grant and the Hampton University Forum on Minority Recruitment and Retention in the LIS Field grant, both awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), address the need to set new goals and create profession-wide efforts to look at the recruitment and retention efforts if we really want to diversify the profession. Libraries that succeed in recruiting must simultaneously focus on retention and promotion of new hires. Mentoring programs have proven to be effective in supporting new professionals and aiding them to remain in the field. There is a need to develop a climate in the workplace that supports and encourages advancement. The Hampton LIS Forum, held August 1-2, 2018 at Hampton University provided a safe space for the discussion of diversity initiatives and the concerns of people of color within the LIS profession. The forum also created a think-tank to create actionable strategies to address diversity in recruitment and retention. This presentation will discuss both grant-funded projects and the need for continued efforts and research to address the lack of diversity of people of color within the library and information studies field.

Speakers: Miguel Juarez, Tina Rollins, and Tess Tobin

 

Notes

The speakers wanted to spent more of the time having a discussion with the audience, but unfortunately, they spent too much time providing background in this one-hour session.  What is clear, though, from their presentation is that there are areas where we can focus, in order to improvement recruitment, retention, and advancement.  Those areas include two which drew my attention:

• Mentoring
• Leadership training
  

We often have a specific idea of what mentoring is.  However, I like the varied list of what was mentoring can be in the Tomorrow's Professor post entitled "Mentoring and Productivity." Our staff of color may benefit from mentoring that provides one (or more) of the following:

• Professional Development
• Emotional Support
• A Sense of Community
• Accountability
• Institutional Sponsorship
• Access to Networks
• Project Specific Feedback
• Role Models
• Safe Space
  

Library staff of color need to find and connect with mentors, who can provide the type of mentoring they need.  While a library might provide a mentor, staff should be willing to look elsewhere for additional mentors, who can provide a different point of view and perhaps a different mentoring relationship.

In terms of leadership training, current and future leaders need to be trained on working with diverse staff members, no matter what that diversity might be.  We cannot assume that someone already has those skills.  This training could occur in a number of different ways and might need to occur more than once, since we really don't leave everything about working in a diverse and inclusive environment in one sitting.

Our staff of color should also receive leadership training, because they will be leaders.  Some will become team leaders, managers or directors, while others might lead a project.  They should get into that leadership role with an understand of what it entails and how to succeed as a leader.  They should see leadership as a natural progression in their careers.  Having people of color in leadership roles puts them in the position of being role models for other staff as well as our communities, so we need to help them succeed, rather than setting them up for failure.

An Introduction to Implicit Bias and Microaggressions

Description

The American Library Association commits to ameliorating marginalization and underrepresentation within the Association and the communities served by libraries through increased understanding of the effects of historical exclusion. This introductory training will explore implicit bias and microaggressions. Participants will be able to identify how these concepts create barriers and begin to explore ways to disrupt our biases and respond to microaggressions. This training will be presented three times throughout Annual Conference and is open to all conference attendees.

Speakers: Mee Moua and Michael Wenger

Notes

They noted the history of bias in the U.S., noting that it was used to justify enslavement and conquest.  Some bias has been based on pseudo science.  Some have been quite intentional through federal government actions.

Bias is a preference for - or against - a group of people and it occurs on a subconscious level. We all are biased. We all can learn what our biases are and then be more mindful of how we consciously react in various situation.

One of the exercise we did was to discuss how we would handle the following scenario.

Two groups of students - one predominately white and one predominately black- are sitting at separate tables in the library, and both groups are speaking loudly to each other.  Your colleague walks over to the table that has mostly black students and tells them to be quiet or they will be kicked out of the library.

What message do you think the students at either table received from the interaction?

What would you do or say to the students, if you were the one responding?

What would you do or say to your colleague?

That was a fascinating discussion! Wow.  Did we all read the scenario the same way?  And then what did we decide to do?  You might discuss that scenario with your staff and see what happens.  I guarantee it will be educational.

This session was both informative and fun.  The speakers created good interaction with the participants and assured that we interacted with each other at our tables.

Resources

• Steele and Aronson. (1995) Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.
• Devine, et al. (2015)  Long-term reduction in implicit race bias: A prejudice habit-breaking intervention
• National Center for State Courts. (2013) Helping courts address implicit bias
• Eberhardt (2019) Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

Thoughts

It is likely that every sessions at ALA related to diversity, bias, etc., began with some sort of an overview of the basics.  While I know having an understanding of the basics is necessary, I wish there could have been a different way of doing it, so that each session could have spent more time one what was unique about that session.  This might have meant creating an introductory session each day, which was marked and promoted as such.  Then the other sessions could have had in their descriptions that people were expected to attend one of the introductory sessions first.  Yes, I know this would be a hassle, but I think participants at these sessions would have appreciated it.

Finally, I want to say that I appreciate ALA having so many sessions on these topics. Now more than ever, we need to be trained and retrained on them.  And then we need to be willing to use what we have learned to make our libraries more welcoming for everyone.