SCATTERED THOUGHTS
Librarians in Action:
This past Saturday, our community hosted its 2nd Annual “Falmouth Days” event in Community Park where vendors, non-profits, food trucks, and more were gathered to bring the community together. I’ve been to events like this before, and manned library booths for a library at events like this. I’ve only been with FML (yes, we are amused by our acronym) since January of this year, so it was my first time at Falmouth Days. Rain aside, I had the pleasure of witnessing our Community Outreach Director do her job, really well. She connected with folks in a very laid-back way, asking thoughtful questions and finding ways to demonstrate how we can be mutually beneficial. She listened more than she spoke, and she found that all-important connection. Such an artful approach, I was impressed. “Hyperlinks are people, too.” (Hyperlinked Communties, n.d.)
Digital Gatekeepers
The first library I worked in, (and the one that opened my eyes to the career of youth services; who knew that was a job? I didn’t!), was a department of the city. This was in 2012. I didn’t even have a “smartphone” at this point. Typical Microsoft products were the only digital tools available to us. Anything related to the internet, the website and then eventually a Facebook page, were all carefully controlled and came out of the city’s IT Department. When I left there in 2018, we still had the same digital tools – six years later. Imagine my surprise when I started my MLIS in 2023 to see so much out there. Many of our readings this week are dated back to 2014. I was very interested in the article on “Reading Maps” (Rendón, 2013) only to find their links no longer work. I couldn’t see the reading map. This exciting “new” idea to me had been written about when I was only one year into my first job as a librarian. While I was figuring out how to make a poster with Publisher, they were creating living documents with hyperlinks.
Implicit Bias
The reading that stood out most to me this week was “What World are We Building” (boyd, 2016). Our digital connectedness is essentially a magnifying glass. We have the same prejudices, biases, and frames of thought, but now they can be shared with the entire world. When we create tools, both physical and digital, they can be used to create, help, even heal, but they can also be used to manipulate, control, strike fear. “When the data you input is biased, what you get out is just as biased. These systems learn the biases in our society, and they spit them back out at us.” (boyd, 2016). This reminds me of the only thing I remember from my required computing class in college, circa 1986, “Garbage In : Garbage Out”.
After my first library job, I worked as an administrative assistant for a medical university (it’s there I got the courage to go for my MLIS). I was there 2019-2024, during the time diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was ramping up at universities and other institutions. The prevailing attitude of the doctors, other instructors, and staff seemed to be a collective eye roll. “Of course, we believe everyone should have the same opportunities.” But our administration did a good job of choosing quality training. I soon found I was learning so much about myself and others. I was able to identify, label, and learn how to work through my biases. I was encouraged to share my enthusiasm with others. I think humans just don’t like being told something is mandatory or required. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that training was transformational for me.
Bringing it All Together
Saying we are open to all, that everyone is welcome, and having a mission statement that embodies that is meaningless if we don’t build the culture to sustain it. I’d love a follow up to the Multnomah piece, “Creating Conditions for Equity to Flourish” (American Library Association, 2019). What an inspirational story. My current library is similar in that it serves a more affluent, white, demographic. But we know there are others in the community who are underserved. They are there, but the connections and culture need to be optimized. “We need to shift our focus from collections to connections.” (WEVE, 2014).
Resources
American Library Association (Director). (2019, June 17). Multnomah County Library: Creating conditions for equity to flourish [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGlxh-zc0Y
boyd, danah. (2016, October 21). What World Are We Building? Data & Society: Points. https://medium.com/datasociety-points/what-world-are-we-building-9978495dd9ad
Hyperlinked Communties. (n.d.). [Video recording]. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://sjsu-ischool.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=3eacdb23-84fd-49e5-9975-aef3014b3ed2
Ingle, M. & Pewhairangi, S. (2014, May). WEVE. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/WEVE_May_2014.pdf
Rendón, J. N. (2013, December 12). Reading Maps: Readers’ Advisory on Steroids – Public Libraries Online. Public Libraries Online – A Publication of the Public Library Association. https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/12/reading-maps-readers-advisory-on-steroids/
@bsteenburg I would also like to see an update about the Multnomah library. What concerns me is we are currently in a time of fear and that does not help equity flourish. Hopefully it is still happening on the ground in all of our institutions.