(source)

For our Infinite Learning module, I chose to explore the “Library as Classroom” articles and resources. I even ended up writing about the Åke Nygren paper in my Inspiration Report. Another piece that got my wheels turning was “Curating Learning Experiences: A Future Role For Librarians?” by Brian Mathews. For those of you who didn’t choose this section of the readings, I’ll briefly sum up the gist of this essay by saying that it was written by a college librarian who was asked to purchase something that they initially thought of as outside of their scope: a WordPress blog theme. With some thought, however, Mathews realized that this particular piece of technology for the faculty member who requested it would provide them with something that would help them to build a better learning environment (a virtual one!) for their class – something that did indeed fall inside of his scope. As someone whose library acquisitions job is to field requests from faculty and librarians, I read this with many instances of similar far-reaching requests running through my head (ex., films that haven’t ever been picked up for distribution; online courses; kindle books). I admit that I have been left exasperated in the face of some of these asks in the past, but I feel like I might approach them differently now. (I don’t have the final say on these things, but enthusiasm can go a long way when approaching my supervisor for permission.) All of this reminded me of my Assignment X essay – the part where I mentioned how our library’s new director promotes an atmosphere of saying “yes” to things whenever we can. The Mathews essay puts me in mind of that thinking. He looked at this odd request as an opportunity, and then sketched out a few different ways that a librarian might take advantage of playing a part in the implementation of a blogging platform: as an installer, or an embedded participant, for example.

Another thing this particular reading made me think about was our class’s WordPress site. It’s so cool! I had high hopes of doing at least a little bit of mingling in our group chats (that podcast one is so great!), but this semester has just been so draining. Not so much with the coursework, but with everything. *gestures around at it all* At least I got to enjoy a lot of your blog posts and assignments – I read a bunch, even though I didn’t always comment. You all were very inspiring! I hope everyone has many great adventures in the rest of their degree work and beyond.

References

Mathews, B. (2013, September 5). Curating learning experiences: A future role for librarians? The Ubiquitous Librarian. https://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/09/05/curating-learning-experiences-a-future-role-for-librarians/

A few things that I wrote about on a day before the pandemic arrived.

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I have to approach social situations with a whole slew of tools that’ll help me navigate them. One of these is the piece of advice that one way to feel less nervous in a conversation is to ask the other person about themselves: it takes the focus off yourself, and you learn something. And it usually works because people like to talk about themselves. I know I do! This enjoyment manifested in the keeping of a blog, in the early 2000s, and in my habit of chronically oversharing on social media, in recent years. (As soon as I get over the horror of my own voice, I’ll be killing it at podcasting, I just know it!) And, ever since my early teen years, I’ve been keeping a written diary – though these days, I call it a journal. It’s more sophisticated.

With that in mind, it makes sense that the Power of Stories module was one that I really enjoyed. It was nice to take a look at some of the ways that libraries are promoting storytelling through initiatives like the Human Library, and via partnerships with StoryCorps. Because I love journaling so much, I wanted to see if any libraries were offering events surrounding that particular storytelling activity. I’m happy to report that I found a number of offerings in my search.

I even came across a 2023 blog post published by the Salina (KA) Public Library that did a deep dive into “The Creative Significance of Journaling and Scrapbooking”. Something that I really loved about this essay is how it took me back to something I’ve been thinking about a lot this semester: the importance of capturing the average person’s story as a piece of historical evidence. This quote gets at exactly that:

“… in a hundred or two hundred years, what will people have to remember us? Those of us who live in the twenty-first century have journals and letters from times past – what we historians call primary sources. It seems the only thing people would have to remember me by would be some Facebook posts or emails.” (para. 4)

Having said that, I don’t think that journals should just be locked away in an archives (even if it happens to be part of a very cool project). I absolutely love the idea of sharing them at events like the ones that the Salon of Shame hosts. The Salon puts on a series of live performances like the ones from Here:Say Storytelling, but at the Salons, people read from their cringiest old diaries and letters. I’ll bet a library could host this sort of event. Maybe in the evening as an adults-only sort of thing? It could be fun.

At any rate, I’m a believer in the importance of community-building, and I think that encouraging people to share everyday stories about their lives, or even just serving as a gathering place where people can share space while writing their stories down, is a great way to facilitate this.

And now: please enjoy this BONUS representation of one of my favorite books in emoji.

🤡🎈👧🏻👦🏾👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻👦🏻

(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

(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/

(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/