I really liked yesterday's discussion about the different professions within the industry and how we have all been impacted by being questioned about choosing it. The one thing that I was disoriented by was that the discussion went more towards the profession and not diversity. I had read and taken more interest with the diversity reading because it is something that this profession is lacking in almost every subdivision of the Library and Information Science industry. It still has to do with the profession overall but just wasn't touched on as much as I had thought it would be. Overall the discussion went well because we all for the most part had similar interactions with outsiders of the Library and Information Science profession\industry as a whole.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Before-Class Questions “What I want to know" [1]
Kung, J., Fraser, K., & Winn, D. (2020). Diversity Initiatives to Recruit and Retain Academic Librarians: A Systematic Review. College & Research Libraries, 81(1), 96. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.1.96
When it came to choosing the article to think and create a question around at first I thought I might go for the one written in 1998 to see if the author's predictions were coming true or not now. Then I decided to read this article by Kung & Winn. I found this article very interesting to read and provoked several questions. My main question is why did the authors not look into the lack of retention within the Asian American or Asian communities as well as the African-American and Latinx communities? These communities face the same lack of diversity issues for sometimes the same and different reasons. The only time that the word Asian was referenced was at the end of Appendix A. Sample LISA Search Strategy. I found that curious as well.
My second question would have to be why didn't the authors include Public libraries and how they impact either positively or negatively the representation or lack thereof within the local communities and these specific minority communities? For example, my public library growing up had only older white women working there who as soon as you hit 12 years old were deemed as too old to go to the children's part of the library until 20 or 21 when they deemed you old enough to be quiet (I mean like you can hear a pin drop silent) in the adult section. Even I was discouraged from the Library industry until I started working at one in Western Springs, IL at the age of 22 or 23. The impact of libraries starts even before a person goes to elementary school and that was not touched on at all. If they had studied communities where there was a public library and the staff took an interest in the community member's lives throughout childhood into adulthood that might have brought some good data and correlation based on the race, and socioeconomic status of the communities and how many people felt they wanted to become librarians and work in academia or the public sector. If Chris Bailey is talking tomorrow my question to him will be if you can talk about this how do you feel the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is doing in terms of diversity and the retention of librarians from the Latinx, African-American, and Asian American\Asian communities?
The Information Professions
Readings
- Abbott, A. (1998). Professionalism and the future of librarianship. Library Trends, 46(3), 430.
- "Accredited Library and Information Studies Master's Programs from 1925 through Present", American Library Association, July 20, 2006. http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/accreditedprograms/directory/historicallist
- "ALA’s Core Competences of Librarianship", American Library Association, January 27, 2009. https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/sites/ala.org.educationcareers/files/content/careers/corecomp/corecompetences/finalcorecompstat09.pdf
- “Charter and Bylaws”, iSchool, January 23, 2019. https://ischools.org/resources/Documents/2019-01-Charter-update-v.2019-01-23_final.pdf
- Kung, J., Fraser, K., & Winn, D. (2020). Diversity Initiatives to Recruit and Retain Academic Librarians: A Systematic Review. College & Research Libraries, 81(1), 96. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.1.96
Optional
- Bladek, Marta (2019). From Women-Staffed to Women-Led: Gender and Leadership in Academic Libraries, 1974-2018. Journal of Library Administration, 59:5, 512-531. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2019.1616970
- Overall, P. M. (2009). Cultural Competence: A Conceptual Framework for Library and Information Science Professionals. The Library Quarterly, 79(2), 175–204. https://doi.org/10.1086/597080
- Preer, J.L. (2004). “This Year – Richmond!”: The 1936 Meeting of the American Library Association. Libraries & Culture 39 (2), 137-160. doi:10.1353/lac.2004.0038.
My full bio
I am Steph (she\her pronouns), this semester is my second semester with the iSchool. I am very interested in public libraries and how the sense of community applies to all age groups. I am also minoring in Gender and Women studies to help bring a different perspective to my future career in the public library industry. I have worked in the public library industry in two different suburb libraries before coming to school. I was living and working in Chicago within a large construction firm as an IT Support Specialist which was part of the HelpDesk team before coming to UIUC. This position helped to teach me to be more patient and empathetic to those who are not technologically savvy out in the field. This skill I then worked hard at in the library setting over winter break while working as a Substitute Librarian at the La Grange Public Library. I hope to be able to impact the community as an Adult Reference Librarian after graduation in a positive way by taking what I learned here and in previous positions. I am excited to write these blog posts about my Graduate school experience or discussion posts and projects about class! If you ever want any resources from my college or other colleges feel free to reply to posts and I will get back to you as soon as possible!
The Art of Podcasting program write up
Wolske, M., & Winkler, S. (2022, March 21). The Art of Podcasting. Champaign Public Library. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://cdn.champaign.org/resources/pdfs/handouts/ArtofPodcasting_March2022.pdf
This program was put on by the Champaign Public Library through a zoom webinar. The business and technology librarian ran this program and helped with the breakdown of all the steps to the process of starting your podcast. They tied it into promoting your small business or building up your community while using the library resources to save money while starting it up. There was a live demonstration of the use of an application called Anchor on the library iPad with the use of a document camera. Anchor is a free easy to get started application that can be used on a tablet or through a computer. The common misconception is that you need to spend a lot of money on the equipment but the librarians made it clear that the resources at the library are accessible to any patron. They also promoted the book-a-librarian service for help with your small business and technology questions.
I went to this program because I wanted to learn more about how to create a podcast and the resources that the library has to help with the process. As someone who wants to go into public libraries as my future career, I felt it would be helpful to show the class a possible public library program that isn’t based around a book club or community read. This program combined the use of technology with small business promotion. The use of libraries has been adapting to include more programs like this since the introduction of the internet. The evolution of programs also has started going to how-to and helping to increase the community's awareness of how software and social media can benefit small businesses and increase digital literacy overall. I hope to help implement a program similar to this one if the community wants one.
Libraries in Ukraine
Chappell, B. (2022, March 9). Ukraine's libraries are offering bomb shelters, camouflage classes, and, yes, books. NPR. Retrieved March 19, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/09/1085220209/ukraine-libraries-bomb-shelters
When I was looking for an article for this course I wanted to find one that showed how libraries can adapt and evolve. This article from NPR shows how the Ukrainian libraries have become the only safe place for those in their community. The libraries are being used as bomb shelters and having programs on how to weave camouflage nets and house care. This shows that the libraries are aware of the current needs of their patrons related to the war going on around them, and are adapting their services and programming to help their patrons through this national emergency. Everyone in this world deserves to be helped and libraries are working to provide that space, even in times of war and destruction.
These types of articles need to be brought up in graduate school classes, because it illustrates how we, as librarians, can make an impact. Our impact might not always be as big of a deal as what is going on in Ukraine, but social justice and educating the community through collection development and programming is a great place to start. Yes, the weight of what is going on around us in our community or country shouldn’t have to fall on libraries and librarians, but it, unfortunately, often does. If libraries and librarians in Ukraine had decided to remain neutral in this conflict by closing down completely and not offering shelter and services during this time, then a lot more people and collections would have been killed or destroyed. In class, we have discussed neutrality and if libraries and librarians should remain “neutral”. Neutrality is something that needs to be talked about; however, not in the sense that we should agree with the status quo, but in the fact that we should challenge it as Professor Knox talked about in "Are Libraries Neutral?".
Diversity or Lack there of in Libraries and their staff
As someone who is a white ciswoman I navigate the world with a lot of privilege this includes seeing myself and my race represented in all of the industries available to work in. This especially includes Libraries. These building\spaces are supposed to be warm and inviting but up until I worked in two I didn't find them inviting. The stereotype of the Public Librarian is an older white woman that shushes you if you are too loud around the books and others quietly reading. But I still have always seen my race in libraries and as librarians. For most others, this isn't always the case. Yesterday I met an undergraduate student, Megan, at a Library event that my friend was hosting in the Undergraduate Library or UGL as it is more widely called which will be closing at the end of this semester due to the expansion of the Archives Library into that space. One of the things that Megan brought up yesterday was that she was sad that the UGL was going to be combining with the Main Library or Graduate library and that it gave off to get your shit and get the fuck out vibes because of the closed stacks whereas the UGL has an open stacks policy. Open stacks mean that you can enter whenever the library is open and carry your bags around with you. Versus the closed stacks mean that you have to check your bag in a locker and go into the stacks and basically the deeper down you get the more like a dark basement it looks and feels like! Even I usually request my books and pick them up at the front Reference desk in front of the closed stacks so the librarians do the hard work and I just come and pick the items up! Then tonight she came to the Gender and Women's studies Solidarity night around the Anti-trans bills going around the country and she said something that I had in the back of my mind but it didn't click in my head because of my privilege of her not ever seeing herself in any of the librarians she had ever met throughout her education career. So this inspired me after I got home from a long day of work and events because after the GWS event I went to an open mic night with my friends to start researching Filipino American Librarians and I found one! She died in 2011 but she helped to found the Filipino American Library in California! So I texted the student to alert her of this! I just had to get this on this!
Resources to check out:
Why aren't there more black librarians?
Friday, March 4, 2022
My Book talk project
My Book talk project was very hard for me because a video via FlipGrid had to be recorded! My professor Dr. Dahlen was so sweet though and let me have an extension which was amazing! I still felt so nervous about the recording of the video! I really hate recording and then watching myself to make sure I did everything right! I started this blog to help me show my work and vent about school and my life via writing. Writing is something that when I was younger was so hard for me but now it is easier, the words might not always be there for me but I eventually get there. My voice can be heard by everyone or just me and I don't have to listen to my actual voice! As someone who knows what it feels like not to feel like you have a voice over your own body or health, I truly appreciated this project to give a voice and visibility to an author like Lan Samantha Chang because all voices deserve to be heard! So please feel free to check out my amazing infographic below!
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Rough and busy week!
This week started out really rough! I got a C on a paper that I know deserved a B, didn't win the appeal or the opportunity to rewrite and the professor had the guts to tell us all in class that she doesn't have the time to teach us how to write an annotated bibliography! I explained to her during my appeal of the essay that an annotated bibliography is either short and sweet like she had stated in her instructions or a full paragraph with all the details and specific things that she thought she had conveyed in her instructions. Only after that did she step back and say that she would make it more clear before the group project one is due. Let's see if that actually happens! She absolutely hates my section because we actually bring our opinions into class and state them openly about how we want more diverse readings not just about Academic librarians and not just about Eurocentric topics! The best part is she is from Japan so she has real-life experience of living and working in that country but the US school system has brainwashed her into this Eurocentric robot of a professor! I am also in an amazing but difficult class called Asian American Youth Literature! That professor is absolutely amazing! If I wasn't working two jobs and taking a Python class this semester I would take her Teen Materials class after Spring break! She is also very understanding! She allowed me to have an extension on my book talk project because I had worked 15 hours 5 days straight the week before it was due and just didn't want to submit literal trash and get an F! She stated that she would rather have her students feel good about what they submit vs submitting on time. I just got her approval to include her name which is Dr. Dahlen. She has amazing resources for books (http://sarahpark.com/) and other types of resources to help educate yourself and children you work around or your own (https://padlet.com/readingspark/AsianAmK12Resources). I have a group project due by Friday at midnight and have to also get a group presentation done for Monday and then present Monday evening over Zoom! I hate presenting but especially over Zoom because you're just doing it into the void because everyone is muted and talking in the chat and you still get the notifications about it! That should be a feature that we as presenters should be able to mute and unmute while presenting but I don't work for Zoom so again I am just posting into a void to right now no one!