My reflection of...

 my mental health. This will be triggering for those that are high-functioning anxious and depressed individuals so just be aware of this. 

Since the start of puberty, I have been an anxious and depressed person. I have hidden this side of me to protect myself from those that would take advantage of my willingness to be vulnerable. It has come back to bite me in the ass more than once. Everyone that I have hidden it from is extremely surprised when I come forward telling them that I have issues with my mental health and body image and the fact that I have for years. 

Mental health issues don't show in every person in the same way. The media unfortunately has helped to perpetuate this perspective and stereotype. This keeps the outside world on the outside and never truly able to understand what the person suffering is going through until it is too late most of the time. 

For me, it shows up when I am sick due to overworking myself to the point beyond burnout. These conditioned traits of overworking myself to the point of illness that I need to isolate which I hate more than anything. Isolation is a feeling and emotion that is not enjoyable to me but too much of it can push me over the edge. 

This happened recently around a week ago on my birthday and the day after. I had been ill and was finally getting better but was triggered by a family member on my birthday who called to ask if they could invite a complete stranger to my Master's degree graduation. This was after they got the Happy Birthday obligatory message out of the way! I then proceeded to drink too much alcohol and mix my medicines into the mix. These medicines include anti-anxiety and anti-depressants which are NOT SUPPOSED to be mixed with alcohol!! DON'T BE ME!! This pushed me to the point of asking existential questions and thinking that I would be better, not alive. 

I am doing much better! I wrote this to help others facing their mental health issues alone or are scared to talk about it to others! We all need help at times in our lives! Please call the 24/7 hotlines when needed, I luckily had someone who was staying with me so they made sure I was doing okay and not doing anything suspicious. Reach out to your people because they do care about you! 

My Reflection of...

 Defy Gravity and the Healing Movements workshop hosted and instructed by Athena. Defy Gravity is an amazing pole dancing studio in Urbana IL that I found and started going to over the summer to feel less alone and build a sense of community. I took this workshop in June for the first time and it was great then but I loved it the second time around because Athena made a requirement of having to take 3 classes of any pole level. I have been on fundamentals since this summer mostly because the fact of breaks from dancing due to traveling or school work just bogging me down. 

This second time around I felt that I really needed to feel less lonely and loved that Athena was teaching it again. I had updated them separately as to what I was and am still going through at this time. At this time I am not comfortable posting about the blog or Instagram due to some issues I am having at school. The first time they had offered for the class to show off a freestyle dance to whatever music we wanted. I was not willing to do it the first time. This time around I asked through Instagram first if that was still going to happen and so it did. Everyone in the class did one! It was amazing! 

I decided to record mine to help show how relaxing, reflective, and helpful this workshop was for me! The song I chose was Praying by Kesha. That is a deep and reflective song that I have danced to at home without people staring at me in a dance studio. I chose this song because it is helpful when I need to process something that I am going through that is deep and dark. This dance was a complete freestyle so I just let my body go with the flow which I don't usually like to do. 

So please take a look at the video on Instagram if you haven't already! Thank you for reading my blog and I hope to write more soon! 

My Reflection of...

 Yoni Circle, it will be two years in December since I joined one of my favorite online communities mostly due to the global pandemic and feeling lonely. I was super nervous about joining my first circle because once you get accepted and off the waiting list you are just dumped into this beautiful app experience with really no instructions or clue what is going on or anyone that you know they are all complete strangers. So I signed up for a circle with someone all the way in India which was interesting to me having someone on a polar opposite time than me running this! Her name is Anusha and is an amazing artist and creator that owns a small jewelry business based in India called Wanderlust Art Boutique. 

To give some context there are 4 parts to a circle: Intention, Introduction, Story, and Reflection rounds. 

At the time when I joined the app and community the leader of the circle, Salonniere, got to pick the prompt (or this is my understanding of how it worked at the time this could be incorrect). The prompt that was picked was about Family if I am remembering correctly, which was a slight bit of a trigger for me (still is if you have interacted with me recently, I am working on it with a professional therapist and I recommend you do as well if this is you). When it came to meditation time I struggled to settle down because I was so nervous about doing this correctly. When it came to coming up with my story I was going in the negative direction with the stories that came up in my mind. Any story is valid and I would say that if a negative one comes up it means that you need to get it out right then and there. But at the time my nervous and anxious energy around these complete strangers I didn't want to lead off with a negative story. Anusha started off the storytelling round with her amazingly positive story about her family and I think it was more specifically her mom if I am remembering correctly. Her story prompted me to tell a better story. I don't remember which one I told and I don't have it recorded. 

Overall the past two years have been amazing on this app. I highly recommend this app and community to any woman that wants to feel safe, heal and be able to be vulnerable again. 

My reflection of...

 The overturning of Roe v Wade. This is not something I take lightly at all, especially as someone who almost got one. As a 19-year-old, I experienced my first pregnancy scare with my first very serious relationship in college. This occurred of course after a conversation with my father about what the consequences would be if I came home pregnant with this person's child, option 1 get an abortion, and option 2 give the baby up for adoption if I carried it to full term. He felt that I shouldn't want to keep the child but if I decided that I wanted to keep the child I was going to be disowned by him at least because what he said went and anything that deviated from that he wanted me to no longer be a part of his life anymore. To have your own father have such a condition to his love and affection still hurts me a lot to this day.

Yet when it comes to voting politically he always votes against those politicians that support equal access for everyone to services like abortions. Why be such a hypocrite? Maybe because it doesn't directly affect him as someone who is cisgender heterosexual middle aged white man?!? These are just some of the questions I have been asking myself as I am feeling the aftermath of this overturning. 

As someone who is not ready to have children and this point in my life I will be getting an abortion if I become pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. The person would be alerted but I would have the last say because it is my body going through this big radical and if they didn't at least buy be a lot of pain killers and provide me with food and heating pads afterwards they'd be out of my live. 

My reflection of...

 My first year of graduate school! It was rough to start graduate school with a broken ankle on a knee scooter. But I also met some amazing people during my first semester and second semester. I have worked on group projects with people that became my closest friends. After my ankle fully healed I thought that meant that I would feel better here and that graduate school would become more fun and easier. I was not correct not even close! 

There are only 2 required classes for my program. The first one I had taken in person with a great professor who knew what she was doing and I have spoken with her since the class has ended. In the second required class, the first red flag for me was that she had never worked in a library let alone studied to become one, and was now teaching us about Library and Society. I mean most of the people in my major have never worked in a library which I don't mind but to stick us with a professor who has never worked in one was bold of the administration, to say the least! The second red flag to me was that she never wanted to teach a class! She admitted that she was forced to teach this class on top of research for her own publications because she was a post-doctoral employee. The third red flag was when we all presented our final group project. My group had picked censorship but we were constantly told to narrow our objective so we did to Public elementary school libraries and how censorships have impacted the collections and the employees working at the libraries. Then when it came to the last group presentation we saw that they had also chosen censorship but just read case studies around the topic. Which somehow made them get a higher score than my group. 

I feel these required classes shouldn't be dependent so heavily on the professors that teach them. There should be a more consistent structure for all professors to follow so we as the students are more likely to learn the same things vs right now where we could be learning about anything from NFTs to Taxonomy or Schemas. I am excited for my second year of graduate school especially now that I will be a TA for two different Gender and Women's studies (GWS) undergraduate classes as well as taking two more graduate-level GWS courses. 

Response Paper #2

 Optional Reading: 

From Week 8 Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in LIS and Information Professions 

Hall, T. D. (2007). Race and place: A personal account of unequal access. American Libraries, 38(2), 30-33. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2020/04/23/race-place-unequal-access/

Additional Readings:

1. From Week 5 A History of LIS

Brady, H. and Franky, A. (2015, September). A History of US Public Libraries. Digital Public Library of America

 

Over this semester, I wanted to learn more about the diversity or lack thereof within the Library and Information Science industry and the inequality between white and African American populations over history and the present day. When choosing the articles to read and write about for this paper I decided to look for articles that were based on these issues. The articles I chose were from weeks 8 and 5. The first article I chose was the article called Race and place: A personal account of unequal access, by Hall. The second article I chose was the article called A History of US Public Libraries, by Brady and Franky. I will be breaking down these articles with a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the articles as well as relating them back to what we learned in class. 

The first reading, it was a first-hand account of the inequality of access in the rural deep south in the past and present for the year 2007. The author talks about the library where she went to growing up like this, “Anti-theft bars covered every possible point of entry….It was painted a yellowish color that, depending on how the sun hit it, read from pale canary to drab mustard” (Hall, 2007). Her descriptions of the library that she visited weekly as a child painted quite an image for me as the reader. Her description of the library “from the other side of the tracks” as she called it was, “their public library, a gleaming white, a newly blue-carpeted edifice to self-learning” (Hall, 2007). One of the main strengths of this author is her descriptions of the area and the libraries that she visited as a child and the big differences between them. Her writing helps to paint a picture of the past and the present that she is writing about at that time. At the end of the article, she described the renovation of the library that she had visited a lot as a young child after many years of not visiting when in need of the internet, “By the time I made my way to the new iteration of the yellow palace—now relocated, expanded, and situated across the street from a thriving shopping plaza that features the wonder of all wonders, a grocery store—my head was swimming with possibilities. My euphoria was short-lived. Inside the library, the large majority of children and adults gathered around a bank of computer terminals each waiting for their precious hour of allotted time” (Hall, 2007). The one weakness that she has within this article is that she doesn’t reference studies or anything academic about the changes over time but I think that’s why I like it because it reads more like a blog post than a scholarly article or the digital archives I chose to compare it to. I think that this article helps show that over time libraries in the rural deep south have evolved but still have inequalities. 

The second article I chose was the digital archives called A History of US Public Libraries. This article’s authors chose to have a more typical scholarly layout but in an exhibition way. Once you press the “Explore Exhibition” button when you first open the page it shows you the entire exhibition and you can choose on the left-hand side (Brady and Franky, 2015). I chose to go to the “Segregated Libraries” section because that goes into the history of inequalities in public libraries and the African American community (Brady and Franky, 2015). The main strength of this section is that it helps to show the inequalities through pictures and descriptions of the time. The history of the African American community when written by most historians tries to sound objective and like the inequalities, and adversities that they faced are in the past as if they don’t still exist. That is the main weakness of this exhibition because it sounds neutral and objective about these issues. In comparison to the article written by Hall, this exhibition shows more of an overall history vs a personal experience history of inequalities and adversity of the African American community. 

When it comes to this class we talked a lot about neutrality but not as much about the diversity and inequalities that libraries still perpetuate in present-day as well as in the profession's history. Both of these articles represented the Library and Information Science industry just from different perspectives. The first article written by Hall was more of a personal experience of the inequalities and adversity of the African American community and how it is shown through the public library system. This article to me helps show how libraries can not be neutral and ignore the socioeconomic issues that the community and populations of people are facing. The second article written by Brady and Franky showed a more broad picture of the history of libraries and some of it focused on the inequalities and adversity that the African American community has faced within the library system and industry. Overall I liked the first article more because of the personal touch and description of the inequalities and adversity that were faced and are continuing to face by those of lower socioeconomic standing and the African American community in the deep south. 

Response Paper #1

 6. Reference and User Services/6A: Employ techniques used to discover, retrieve, evaluate, and synthesize information from diverse sources for use by varying user populations and information environments. 

9. Technological Knowledge and Skills/9A: Identify appropriate technologies and uses that support access to and delivery of library services and resources.

When it comes to Public Reference Librarians\Librarianship I know more than most people in the class because I have worked as one of a Substitute at the La Grange Public Library. I took IS 501 last semester which is Reference and Information Services through the school. This class is coming in really handy for this response paper because I now have these resources to reference and bring input from in addition to my opinions and first-hand experience in being a Public Reference Librarian. 

I feel that overall this document doesn’t really connect Technology and Reference and User Services together when they are definitely more connected and needed to be seen as such. In the past, while subbing I have helped a Doctoral student from a local University to better understand how to use the databases that he was paying for through his tuition to help with his dissertation. Over the Finals week of last semester, I helped an Undergraduate student that called into the Library to submit his final assignment and found out that Google Slides doesn’t allow for easy ways to record audio over the presentation without a separate application. Both of these interactions might have ended very differently but they still both included the use of technology on their and my part. 

If these interactions had been with let’s say a business person coming in asking for resources to update their technology skills I would have pointed out this resource on the La Grange Public Library website, especially if they are library card holders; Research Page. This page helps lead them to the many different resources that the library pays for with the property tax money that they get every year. One of the examples is “LinkedIn Learning -  (formerly Lynda.com) Video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills. (tutorial)” (La Grange Public Library). These resources help not only help those already in a certain industry but those also going through a career pivot. If these resources weren’t listed on the website and not included in the Reference Interview then this patron would be at a loss for this valuable information.

The Reference Interview according to the RUSA Guidelines, this process can happen in any environment including remote chat. So why don’t the Core Competencies relate them together more? I think it is this siloed thinking that helps to keep the industry and subcategories within the industry very separated and not willing to work together. We need to be more willing to collaborate and learn from each other to keep our jobs and the buildings open, especially when it comes to those who don’t want these spaces or buildings to exist. Two examples of this from the Guidelines; “4.2 In-Person; 4.2.1    Accompanies the patron in the search (at least in the initial stages of the search process) unless the patron prefers to conduct the search him/herself.; 4.3 Remote; 4.3.1    Uses appropriate technology to help guide the patron through information resources, when possible.”(ALA).  These guidelines have the same layout where in-person comes before remote. Remote was added because of the increase in its use during the pandemic and more libraries implementing virtual chats for those at higher risk. 

The Almanac could be used online or in print to help keep track of the moon cycle and look up healthy food recipes. When the Almanac was first published it was in print and the Public Libraries would subscribe to it. They would be able to be picked up at the main Circulation or Reference desk in the Libraries. Now that it can be accessed through the computers that can be used by anyone at the Library the size of the text can be increased to help with accessibility issues for those who are visually impaired. A perfect example of this would be this  Rhubarb and Cherry Crisp recipe (Yankee Publishing, Inc). The Public Reference Librarian would\should be able to help this patron figure out how to make the text larger for them to be able to read and then print it off with the printers provided if wanted. 

Overall this response paper helped to show that I feel that the Core Competencies are still separating the Reference and User Services and Technological Knowledge and Skills. These two skills are very important and should be seen as collaborative and helpful to each other. The Public Reference Librarian in me sees these two skills as working together more than separated. I hope in the future I will be able to provide my input and help make changes. 

Bibliography:

1. ALA. (2020, February 4). Guidelines for the behavioral performance of Reference and Information Service Providers. Reference & User Services Association (RUSA). Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidelinesbehavioral 

2. ALA's Committee on Education. (2021). ALA’s Core Competences of Librarianship, Draft 2021. [Core Competencies Policy]. American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/sites/ala.org.educationcareers/files/content/education/Draft%20-%20ALA%20Core%20Competences%202021%20Update.pdf

3. La Grange Public Library. (n.d.). Research. La Grange Public Library. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.lagrangelibrary.org/research 

4. Yankee Publishing, Inc. (n.d.). Almanac.com homepage. Almanac.com. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.almanac.com/  

Censorship Poster project

This was the final project for one of my classes this semester. My group was great and we came up with this amazing poster! 

Censorship Poster 

Reader’s Advisory

 Patron F. I would like to have a novel based on fact, that happened in the world. But put it into a novel form, so that there are fictitious characters in the book. I want to be able to relate the book to an actual country, a world, a situation that took place, an earthquake, or a fire, or a bombing, or an incident in a war that you know of or have heard of. The Bridge on the River Kwai is probably the movie that has stuck in my mind more than anything else. But, if you read the book On the Kwai River in Burma, it's not the exact situation of the movie, although some things are the same. There was a railway built, it was built by slaves, it was built by prisoners of war that the Japanese had. That's the type of book that I like. (male reader, age 60)

The books must be Historical fiction based on real life events, but relatability is key that could have been made into a movie or TV show or that was. For this one I used Novelist and LibraryThing databases that can be found on the IS501 Resources link under the Reader Advisory tab. It was interesting to see the overlap of some to the titles and different titles. The titles that I felt he would like from LibraryThing were, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker; Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, and Harvey Wheeler; and The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors was made into a TV show, and I thought of this one because I know my grandpa liked this show so maybe this reader would like to be able to read this novel and then watch the show to enjoy the story play in front of him on his TV. Fail-Safe is about the Cold War which is something that maybe this reader would like to learn more about that time.  The Narrow Road to the Deep is a book based in Australia which he might find interesting because we rarely learn about things that happen there but since he read\watched the Bridge on the River Kwai about the railway and this book also discusses this railway. On Novelist there was a list that an Adult Reference librarian had compiled into a list of specifically World War II books and some of the books that I had never heard of. The books that I think this reader would like from this list were, The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure, and When the emperor was divine by Julie Otsuka. The Paris Architect is relatable and could be made into a movie in my opinion, people hid Jews during World War II all the time, but this story would be interesting to watch as well as read because of the interesting perspective coming from an architect. When the emperor was divine I chose because these events happened in the states and to bring a different perspective that we don’t always hear about and maybe he knows someone in his life that was in a Japanese Internment camp, and he wants to better understand what they faced while in one.

Briggs, Krista. “World War II Fiction -- Display Idea for Adults.” NoveList, NoveList, https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=noh&tg=UI&an=444998&site=novelist-live  

“Recommendations: The Bridge over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle.” LibraryThing.com, LibraryThing.com, https://www.librarything.com/work/49632/recommendations.  

Patron H. I just watched the tv show "Love, Victor" and I'm looking for a book about teens learning more about themselves. I want it to be informational, not a story. Maybe it could explain a bit about some of the things I'm feeling? I'd also like it to be a book my parents could read later too if they have any questions. (male reader, age 15)

The books must be LGBTQIA diverse, be non-fiction, and have a self-discovery aspect since this reader wanted more information and be more helpful to himself and his parents about what he is going through. Fiction is more narrative-based whether that be in the first or third person and yes some of the non-fiction have narratives, but it is still informational because they can help provide more resources for further down the road or what the reader is experiencing now. For this one, I used Good Reads because they have Lists of good informational books for LGBTQIA+ Young Adults and Parents. I had originally tried Novelist but that seems to be just novels hence the name of the database. The five books that I found that I thought would be useful for this reader and his parents were, The Journey Out: A Guide for and About Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Teens by Rachel Pollack, Cheryl Schwartz; This Book is Gay by James Dawso, Juno Dawson; Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens by Kathy Belge, Marke Bieschke, Christian Robinson (Illustrations); GLBTQ*: The Survival Guide for Queer & Questioning Teens by Kelly Huegel, Steven Cozza (Foreword); and What If?: Answers to Questions About What It Means to Be Gay and Lesbian by Eric Marcus. Each of these books has a slightly different perspective and information but helps to bring more of a perspective that maybe he has never thought about and can help others within his friend group or high school community to come to terms with themselves as well. What If?: Answers to Questions About What It Means to Be Gay and Lesbian according to Good Reads it’s an “updated and revised informative, accessible guide..” which would be beneficial to this reader and his parents for more current information about the current resources. GLBTQ*: The Survival Guide for Queer & Questioning Teens is a bit dated at this point, but it might help to be able to see the differences and how far the world has come since 2003 when this book was published. Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens from what I read on Good Reads provides humor that I know helps me engage in a book and might help break the ice when learning\discussing this topic with the family. This Book is Gay this book seems to talk about everything and according to Good Reads “THIS IS THAT INSTRUCTION MANUAL” with illustrations and helps the reader leave with more self-love and acceptance of their identity and being. The Journey Out: A Guide for and About Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Teens claims to provide resources and helpful information about how to get through the rough parts of the readers self-discovery of their sexuality. These are the lists I got the books from,

“Non-Fiction Resources for LGBT Teens, Youth & Families (142 Books).” Goodreads, Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/26180.Non_Fiction_Resources_for_LGBT_Teens_Youth_Families  

“Fab & Spectacular LGBTQ Informational Books for Teens (17 Books).” Goodreads, Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/73137.Fab_Spectacular_LGBTQ_Informational_Books_for_Teens 

 

After-Class Reflection “What I learned this week” [1]

 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.

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

 (Links to an external site.)

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 (Links to an external site.)
• "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 (Links to an external site.)
• “Charter and Bylaws”, iSchool, January 23, 2019. https://ischools.org/resources/Documents/2019-01-Charter-update-v.2019-01-23_final.pdf (Links to an external site.)
• 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 (Links to an external site.)

 

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 (Links to an external site.)
• 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 (Links to an external site.)
• 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 (Links to an external site.).

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

 (Links to an external site.) 

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.

Recording of Program

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 (Links to an external site.) 

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:

Diversity in Publishing

Why aren't there more black librarians?

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!

Infographic

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!