Here is my Innovation Strategy & Roadmap for a series of programming that would teach the community how to preserve their history.
Innovation Strategy & Roadmap: Citizen Archivists Series and Memory Lab
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New Models: The Library’s Place in Democracy
(Antenna, 2018)
This election season has me thinking a lot about what the library’s place is in helping to promote democracy. Every library I’ve ever worked in has made voter registration forms available, and I know that libraries often host local candidate forums. However, one of the readings from our “New Models” module, “100 Great Ideas for the Future of Libraries – A New Paradigm for Civic Engagement” (Lipsey, 2017) spurred me to wonder about what we can do to help people stay engaged between elections.
When people pay more attention and know more about what’s going on in their government, they can better advocate for themselves and their neighbors. There is a space for someone in the community to step in and not only encourage people to do this, but also to facilitate it. Libraries can do this! Things like the creation of LibGuides and of programs that can provide information on how to do things like track proposed bills, and how to know who to contact when you want to speak out would be useful. Hosting city council meetings is a valuable thing that a library can do, especially because, as the “100 Great Ideas” article notes, not everyone knows where meetings in which changes to their community are planned take place. The article also talked about the benefit of having the community steer what happens to it – if folks make a regular habit of attending these meetings, they can have a hand in these things.
Another thing that I think libraries can do is to make space for community members to get to know each other and to engage with each other with civility. Everyone knows we are living in a time when people don’t always treat each other as well as they could, and they have trouble trusting people they don’t know. Our country suffers for this. I’ve looked around the web, and there are many instances where libraries are indeed taking on this challenge. This is an area that I’d love to look into further because I find it very necessary and very inspiring.
References:
Antenna. (2018, January 5). [People sitting on chair]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/people-sitting-on-chair-ohNCIiKVT1g
Lipsey, R. F. (2017, December 7). 100 Great ideas for the future of libraries: A new paradigm for civic engagement. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/100-great-ideas-for-the-for-the-future-of-libraries_b_6551440
Hyperlinked Environments: The Library as a Place of Welcome
(Padriñán, 2019.)
Our readings for the Hyperlinked Environments module contained a 2015 paper from IFLA in which European public libraries spoke on their work with refugees, detailing ways that they’d been helping new community members to feel welcome and to settle into their new nations. Recent conflicts, along with the threat of climate-related disasters, spurred me to look at what sorts of things libraries around the world are currently doing to assist refugees and migrants.
One library that I read about is located in Ireland’s County Laois. This past June, the Rathdowney Library hosted an art exhibition of works created by refugees on the theme of “home”, as part of “Refugee Week”. Rathdowney has become home to both Ukrainian and Brazilian communities recently, and the library has been playing a part in bringing services to these groups. A local official who attended the exhibition’s launch party talked about how welcoming refugees didn’t just benefit the refugees, but it also enriched the entire community by bringing in “diverse perspectives, talents and skills” (Cahill, 2024). The event was sponsored by two outside community organizations and featured music and poetry. Reportedly, “the library was filled with members of all communities expressing their support”. I love that we can be a place where things like this happen.
Similarly, the War Memorial Library – a public library in Lower Hutt, New Zealand – hosted an event to celebrate “Welcoming Week” last month. The city describes Welcoming Week as “an opportunity to roll out the welcoming mat to celebrate the things that unite us” (Hutt City Council, 2024), and I love that libraries are included in doing the welcoming. This particular program was an author talk that featured migrants and former refugees, and promised “a chat on how our host community can play a vital role in creating inclusive spaces for all”.
In its chapter on librarianship in a global society, the professional handbook The Portable MLIS (2017) stresses the importance of cultural fluency: “the ability to listen, learn, exchange ideas, and understand local needs in the global context” (p. 274). Our communities need information professionals who are able to play an understanding and empathetic part as our populations change. One way of doing this is to help our communities to welcome new members, and to assist those people with getting access to the services that they need. Just as important, we can look for ways that our libraries can serve as meeting places for all community members, so that they can get to know and appreciate each other – in all their diversity.
References:
Cahill, H. (2024, June 14). Inspiring art exhibition in Laois Library kicks off International Refugee Week. Laois Live. https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/what-s-on/1529608/inspiring-art-exhibition-in-laois-library-kicks-off-international-refugee-week.html
Haycock, K., & Romaniuk, M. (2017). The portable MLIS: Insights from the experts. Libraries Unlimited.
Hutt City Council. (2024, September 6). A big welcome to welcoming week in the Hutt. Hutt City Council. https://www.huttcity.govt.nz/people-and-communities/news/2024/a-big-welcome-to-welcoming-week-in-the-hutt
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’s Public Libraries Standing Committee. (2015). Responding! Public libraries and refugees. https://www.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/assets/public-libraries/publications/library-service-to-refugees.pdf
Padriñán, M. A. (2019). [Close-up shot of keys on a red surface]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-keys-on-a-red-surface-2882688/
Inclusivity and Hyperlinked Communities
(Monstera Production, 2020.)
I think my big takeaway from our Hyperlinked Communities module is the idea that there is no limit to the ways that programming can support inclusivity, especially when it comes to welcoming underrepresented groups. Christian Lauersen’s “UX in Libraries Conference” keynote speech gave me a lot to think about, including this:
Conclusion: The US library workforce don’t reflect the diversity of the nation. And it is the same picture in most western countries and the obvious problem is, that a uniform white library workforce is most likely not to create diverse and inclusive libraries to serve their communities because we think alike (para. 31).
In other words, if you don’t have staff that represents what your community looks like, you are unlikely to be able to offer programs and services that would speak best to users. And this is why I felt so impressed with the Madison Public Library’s Library Takeover series of programming. They offer the library and its resources up to underrepresented community groups several times a year so that they can create programs that those groups feel will benefit them! It has resulted in so many cool events, like the Access Denied dance party that was put on by those who were used to feeling excluded from these places.
I thought about what this would look like at my workplace – a college library where all but one of the employees is over 30 and are mostly white and heterosexual. We are likely missing out on being able to devise programs that appeal to all students, and it could be worthwhile to invite student groups to create some events that speak to them directly. This would help them to feel more welcome, and to see the library as theirs. Food for thought.
References:
Lauersen, C. (2018, June 6). Do you want to dance? Inclusion and belonging in libraries and beyond [speech text]. The Library Lab. https://christianlauersen.net/2018/06/07/inclusion-and-belonging-in-libraries-and-beyond/
Monstera Production. (2020). [Cheerful multiethnic students with notepads and textbooks together]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/women-playing-connect-four-in-a-bar-3009788/
Assignment X
I put this together while thinking about how I wanted to approach this post. You never know what’s going on inside a library…
Michael begins the “Open to Change” section of Wholehearted Librarianship (Stephens, 2019) with lyrics from Rush’s Tom Sawyer: “… changes aren’t permanent, but change is” (p. 80). I liked this for two reasons: first, I love Rush (they were one of my first concerts!), and second, it really speaks to my lifelong grappling with change-aversion. The idea of change as a constant has come up a great deal in the first few weeks of this class, and it has really got me thinking about my own experiences with change as a library employee.
In 2000, I began working at a large public library as the assistant to the head of the film collection. When he very suddenly resigned less than a year later, I was offered the chance to step in. Along with this change came expanded responsibilities and stresses, and the next decade brought even more adjustments: a building renovation, a new director, a shift from behind-the-scenes work to desk duty (from desk service to roving service, then back to desk), videotape migration to DVD and then to Blu-Ray, and on and on and on. I was not thriving. I ran 300 miles away, to a quiet acquisitions position at a college library, from which I intended to someday happily retire.
Then 2020 arrived.
Staff reductions took my friends and handed me an enormous workload. I thought about running away again, but instead, I decided to risk a different kind of change and enroll in graduate school.
So, you can understand how, when Michael lists “embracer” (Stephens, 2006) among the skills that librarians need to have in this era, I take that to heart. To thrive, I need to not only accept that “inevitably, there will always be some amount of chaos” (Stephens, 2016, p. 2), but to understand that change is necessary – desirable, even.
However, the importance of change not just being implemented for the sake of change has also been mentioned in our readings, and I found this useful and comforting. Casey & Stavastinuk (2007) delved into this in their chapter on bringing changes to library staff and users. They stressed the importance of letting people know that changes are not being made “willy-nilly” (p. 108), but are being implemented to address the needs of the community and the library itself. They also point out the need to regularly assess any changes, to make sure they’re working the best for everyone involved, including staff (p. 108-109).
In doing further research on change in libraries, I came across an editorial written by university librarian Brad Warren (2020), entitled “Developing a Practical Approach to Change“. Something I found remarkable is that it was published in January of 2020, which, as we know, was just before a time of huge upheaval. A lot of his argument surrounds the idea that academic libraries need to be able to adapt to “catastrophic” change, like those brought about by climate change, and even through the existential issues surrounding higher education itself. He posits that a combination of forecasting, planning, and looking for opportunities in otherwise terrible situations is the best way to approach this. Another interesting aspect of his argument is that while iterative change is good, it’s also important to know when something more drastic is necessary:
It is important to work in a cycle of continuous improvement, but how does one recognize when the system itself should be ‘blown up’, ‘destroyed’, lays outside of our changing value systems, or heightens external threats? How does one recognize when a transformation is not only needed, but vital to survival? (para. 6)
I feel like I’m encountering this type of change in my current position. In the past couple of years, my library has hired both a new director and access services manager, both of whom have been making big changes to the status quo. Though I understand why these things are being done – and am even excited about some of them – they have still been somewhat unsettling. But, I’ve found that immersing myself in the ideas I’m encountering in this class is helping to boost my resiliency, and to get me to start questioning why I’ve been doing a thing a certain way. For example, just this past Wednesday I was helping to get a demand-driven acquisitions project off the ground, and I suddenly realized that a part of our workflow that was something we’d always done – out of unnecessary caution – was actually hampering access. We won’t be doing it that way anymore.
References
Casey, M. E., & Savastinuk, L. C. (2007). Library 2.0: A guide to participatory library service. Information Today, Inc.
Stephens, M. (2016). The Heart of librarianship: Attentive, positive, and purposeful change. American Library Association.
Stephens, M. (2006). Into a new world of librarianship. Next Space, The OCLC Newsletter
Stephens, M. (2019). Wholehearted librarianship: Finding hope, inspiration, and balance. American Library Association.
Warren, B. (2020). Developing a practical approach to change. College & Research Libraries, 81(1). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.1.2
Introduction
Hey, y’all! I’m Terri Beth.
This is my 7th semester in the program (wow!), but because I’m not doing this full-time, I still have three more to go. That’s fine, though, because I’m really enjoying this journey.
I graduated college in 1994, as a film major. The first position I took after leaving school was as an evening circulation manager at a college library, due to the fact that I had work-study experience from my own college days. Aside from a short stint in publishing, I’ve been working in libraries ever since: 13 years in technical processing and video collection management at a large public library, a few months as a temp at some federal libraries in Washington D.C., and about 15 years in acquisitions and access services in two different academic libraries. Over the years, people have encouraged me to get my MLIS degree, but I was never really interested in going through more schooling, and honestly, I was content with the non-professional positions I held. Then the pandemic lockdown came, and I fell into an existential crisis about what I wanted out of the rest of my life. That’s when I applied to this program.
Why this class? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, I have a feeling this class can help me to get over my low-level feelings of burn-out with this field. I know it’s wild to be doing this degree when I feel this way, but library work is something that I know how to do, and that I’m good at. I’d like to be excited about it again, though. Second, this class comes highly recommended! My dear friend who steered me to this program told me to take INFO 200 with Michael, but I couldn’t get into his section. I’ve wanted to take a class with him ever since. Also, the Facebook class recommendations group is always raving about this course, in particular. So, here I am.
I’m currently on the archives pathway, and though my present position is in acquisitions at a college library, I’ve been given the opportunity to help out in the college’s archives. It’s been fun, but I’m still open to learning about other types of librarianship, and I even have the occasional pangs to go back into public library work. We’ll see how this all shakes out.
I’ll wrap up with some of my non-professional interests. I’m very into stationery (I LOVE PENCILS) and anything stationery-adjacent, like letter writing, journaling, and keeping a paper planner. I spend a lot of time watching people play with their planners on YouTube (I swear, it can be gripping!). I love podcasts — my favorites are about politics and disasters, especially ones where animal encounters go awry. I come from 80s pop culture, but Hallyu (Korean pop-culture) is also becoming a beloved space.
Okay, I’ll stop now! Have a photo of my senior roommate, Lillian, and have a great semester.
