WAAL 2015 Opening Keynote: Transforming our image through a compass of critical librarianship

I went to Wisconsin this week to present the opening keynote at the annual Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians conference for 2015. I had a great time meeting librarians from all over the state, and really enjoyed talking about librarian stereotypes and using critical librarianship as a compass to transform our image.

Find details and access to all materials below!

Title: Transforming our image through a compass of critical librarianship

Description: Librarians have been lamenting our stereotypes for over 100 years, but has anything changed? Critical librarianship--the process of incorporating social justice through theory and practice into professional philosophies and day-to-day work--pushes us past a simple dismissal of stereotypes, and toward a consideration of what implications these tropes have on our diversity, status, pay, and ability to collaboratively carry out our work with faculty as partners.

This keynote address will examine how implementing critical librarianship through our library instructional pedagogy, scholarship, and other ongoing work can add greater value to the profession, and help transform the perception of librarians to campus, as well as our own perception of ourselves.

Transcript: Find the full transcript here, including list of references

Slides (It looks like slide 81 is blank, but it's a video)... the full PPTX is here, which includes the videos that you can watch in the ppt, and then image credits are in the notes of each slide). Below is the SlideShare version for quick reference but videos won't play here.

Opening Keynote, #WAAL2015 Conference (Pagowsky) from Nicole Pagowsky

#acrl2015 reflection: experiences of academic librarians of color

Before #acrl2015 might become a blur, I wanted to reflect on the conference, and one session in particular, From the Individual to the Institution: Exploring the Experiences of Academic Librarians of Color with panelists Juleah Swanson, Isabel Gonzalez-Smith, Azusa Tanaka, Ione Damasco, Dracine Hodges, Todd Honma, and Isabel Espinal. You can find the Storify from the session here. I'm parsing my ideas together still, so apologies if this is a little messy...

One of the main takeaways from this session for me was that we need to stop framing diversity as a problem that needs to be solved, and that diversity is everyone's responsibility. This drives home the point for me even further that diversity and inclusivity research and other work should be woven into, and encouraged in, day-to-day work as well as in the tenure and promotion process. Something I wrote about over the summer was related to hiring for diversity and this panel made me think even more about the burden of responsibility we put on those who are diverse to do this work. We should all be doing this work, we should be doing this research as tied to our "regular" work. As Isabel Gonzalez-Smith noted during the panel, our students' diversity is skyrocketing, but diversity of librarians is crawling along at 0.5%. Why is that? If we're concerned with how people use our resources, how we do instruction, and the value of the library, shouldn't we be spending as much time on figuring out why we haven't been able to improve our diversity and how that affects our field and our constituents? I feel like I might still be framing it as a problem here, and it's a hard rhetoric to get away from, something that many of us could probably change our perspective on.

The other thing this panel made me realize is how we talk about diversity in regards to "types" of diversity. When we say we need "all types" of diversity equally, that brings to mind the conversation around #BlackLivesMatter vs #AllLivesMatter. It's this misconception that "colorblindness" affects positive change by imagining everyone as the same, when it winds up being detrimental by not acknowledging specific, very problematic issues. Here is a tweet for some context:

If we don't focus in on specific diversity and instead just lump it all together, we can't really address what we are lacking and what needs to change. And just saying finding people with "different viewpoints" is equivalent to diversity that speaks to systemic structures, such as racism, classism, sexism, etc. is problematic, particularly if these people with different viewpoints also happen to always be white males or white middle class white women. Of course, finding people with different perspectives is important, but it doesn't stand in for addressing other issues surrounding diversity.

The other thing we should be taking about is that diversity isn't a numbers game. Filling all the lower-level positions with diverse candidates still doesn't address who holds the power. There is a highly skewed percentage toward white men holding administrative positions, so even if we get the "right" number of diverse candidates, how does that change the culture?

And the last thing I want to touch on from this panel that really made me think was the idea of "institutional fit" that a couple panelists brought up. The fact that this nebulous idea of fit when we're looking for candidates can harm our moves toward diversity by discounting certain people who we don't feel are like us. And we can say that we really don't do that, but when we think of fit it winds up being people we get along with, or people who have a similar mindset to the institutional mindset already in place. It can reinforce hegemonic structures.

So I think we have a ways to go, but it's so heartening to see more critical sessions accepted at ACRL and that there is a bigger interest in talking about these things. I'm certainly still learning and thinking about what privilege I have, but I hope we can have these larger discussions with our institutions and as a profession.

--Check out the session link above for their list of resources / bibliography, and also see Gonzalez-Smith, Swanson, and Tanaka's chapter in The Librarian Stereotype: Desconstructing Perceptions and Presentations of Information Work. The Pho & Masland chapter might be of interest as well.

Hiring and retaining diverse talent by supporting risk

Image via http://fvckthemedia.com/issue25/the-end-of

We are hiring (soon)! Let me preface this post with the fact that I have little power: by way of not being a supervisor, not being a hiring committee member, and furthermore, not yet having tenure. However, the UA Libraries is a collaborative atmosphere, and since we are going to be hiring a number of new positions (including 2 positions on my team, the Research and Instruction Department, name subject to change), we are all invited to contribute content for the position description and our wording on diversity. My library does have a commitment to diversity and we do have current wording we typically use in our job posts--diversity meaning both underrepresented groups including POC, and also diversity relating to mindset and lived experience. Likewise, I have felt through being interviewed myself for my job and participating in others' interviews more recently that we do seek out risk takers and creative thinkers. But as I think more about what hiring for diversity means at my institution, I wanted to work my thoughts out on how we as a profession overall could improve our efforts because clearly we need to do more.

The book I just finished editing with Miriam Rigby, The Librarian Stereotype: Deconstructing Perceptions and Presentations of Information Work with ACRL Press (read chapter 1 and the foreword as an OA PDF here) discusses implications of our stereotypes and how they negatively impact the collective profession, by way of lower status, pay, and diversity. The more our stereotypes stick around, the more negatively they impact efforts to increase diversity; and the more difficulty we have in increasing diversity, the more our stereotypes are perpetuated. A lack of diversity in librarianship harms everyone. Isabel Gonzalez-Smith, Juleah Swanson, and Azusa Tanaka examine this in greater depth for librarians of color in chapter 7 of the book; and Annie Pho and Turner Masland reflect on diversity and activism pertaining to all underrepresented groups in chapter 12. The authors, as well as many of us, question: why have so few efforts made an impact?

A couple ALA sessions inspired greater thinking for me. As there are many dimensions to increasing diversity within librarianship, I'm going to take a narrow focus to the issue at large. I attended Nicole Cooke, Robin Fogle Kurz, and Safiya Noble's amazing #alaac14 session, Power, Privilege, and Positionality: Applying a Critical Lens to LIS Education. The panelists described the struggle they have faced with their scholarship, as it has been viewed as controversial, where they have dealt with roadblocks in support, tenure, and even the ability to present at ALA conferences. Although this session discussed what needs to be done in library schools to encourage greater diversity in the field and greater diversity of thought/more radical thought in the classroom, points can be applied to hiring from the institution's perspective. Some snippets from Twitter:

.@LibraryNicole RT @cmcaffre "be comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable" - Nicole Cooke on her social justice LIS course #alaac14
— Sujei =) (@sujeilugo) June 29, 2014

“@roselovec: Diversity #s place the focus on the worst aspect of race: the biological. Instead of the focus on the social says @safiyanoble
— Safiya Noble PhD (@safiyanoble) June 30, 2014

“@edrabinski: Diversity can't mean, we need more dog people! It needs to be about power. #alaac14” says @safiyanoble
— Safiya Noble PhD (@safiyanoble) June 30, 2014

“@roselovec: Diversity in LIS is a trendy topic. Make it consistent by having FT LIS fac who focus on these issues. says @LibraryNicole
— Safiya Noble PhD (@safiyanoble) June 30, 2014

We're value-free, non-coercive, neutral helpers. @safiyanoble asks, does anybody believe that? #bananas #alaac14
— Emily Drabinski (@edrabinski) June 29, 2014

The expectation for this research and action should not fall solely on LIS professors, but all of us. It should be an expectation for practicing professionals as well. One thing that might attract and keep more diverse talent is encouragement to research, teach, and implement more critical approaches to librarianship that the presenters discussed.

In also attending another session at ALA, Introduction to Women's Issues: The Staff Potluck, organized by the Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship (COSWL), Social Responsibilities Round Table Feminist Task Force (SRRT/FTF), and ACRL's Women and Gender Studies Section (ACRL/WGSS), the question arose of why did only 15(ish) of us show up? Of course it's a big conference with a lot going on at once, but it's always such a small group at these discussions. TBH, I haven't attended one in awhile, myself. But I made the point that it's a risk to attend. This type of work is not always valued at institutions, and it would be more plausible for people to attend a session on assessment or discovery systems, for example, than these types of sessions. Until our institutions explicitly value this type of thinking, talk, and action, we will continue to have a small number of individuals able to commit to these issues.

I live in a questionable state--AZ--when it comes to taking a more radical stance on issues. Our campus is generally liberal-leaning, even recently expanding the transgender studies program, but we are still funded by the state. I'm even a little nervous about writing this post since I'm still just assistant faculty. And I know much of the research I have done recently related to the book (linked above) sort of counts toward tenure, but not really. Where one chooses to devote their efforts is a risk in itself.

So this brings me to how hiring could change for libraries to attract and retain diverse talent. I think explicitly stating in the job ad that not only is the library committed to seeking out and hiring diversity, but also that the library is committed to retaining diverse talent by supporting (or even advocating) the risks these individuals may take would make an impact. Will the library step up if these new hires engage in potentially controversial research? Will the library encourage new hires to take risks and integrate critical pedagogy into library instruction (for example)? Will the library overall agree that these sorts of activities are positive things that will improve campus, student learning, and the field as a whole?

We as librarians are certainly not neutral as the presenters, and others writing about critical librarianship, have expressed, so instead of supporting the status quo by remaining silent (silence = consent), we should make a concerted effort to change the power structures within libraries and our campuses. Of course this goes for all--not only new hires. For those of us hiring in locations where more diverse individuals might not have instant attraction, if we could demonstrate an even higher level of support for actions and thought comprised of what we say the profession needs, we can better support those we seek to recruit.

(And if these sorts of topics interest you, please join us for #critlib chats on Twitter where we discuss critical discourse and action in libraries typically within critical pedagogy, but expanding to the library as a whole.)

Thanks to colleagues for reading over this post before I published! If anyone out there is at an institution with diversity hiring language along the lines of support for scholarship and service within more critical topics, I would love to see a copy as we solidify our position descriptions. Or please post here as a comment and share with everyone.

#badgecurric workshop recap from #alaac14

#alaac14 was great! The first thing I did was Storify the digital badges workshop I did with Annie Pho and Emily Ford before it got away from me, and hoping to put together a bigger post on the conference overall next week.

In the meantime, here is the recap if you missed the session. Thanks to all who attended and participated, we were really pleased with how it went!

#alaac14 schedule

I had high hopes of writing at least 1 more full post by now, but have had no time! Anyhow, thought I'd share my ALA 14 schedule in a static location. Excited to see and meet people there!

The specific sessions I'm involved in are:

Friday, 5:30-6:15pm:
ACRL booth-ing (#1847 in exhibits) to promote newly published book (see party below) with my co-editor, Miriam Rigby. You have until Wednesday to enter our raffle to win one free copy over Twitter! We will also have book pins with us

Saturday, 10:30-11:30am:
ACRL NMDG panel on "The Stories We Tell: Academic Librarians and Identity"
ACRL NMDG and Librarian Wardrobe teamed up to have two of our authors discuss their research for chapters they wrote along with 3 other panelists

Saturday, 3-4pm:
ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group, topic is using information literacy learning outcomes for general education. Will be here with my co-chair, Jaime Hammond

Saturday, 9pm-forever (champagne toast and vegan/GF cakepops at 10pm): 
Book release party for The Librarian Stereotype: Deconstructing Perceptions and Presentations of Information Work (ACRL Press)
(This party is part of the larger After Hours party with EveryLibrary, and we will be raffling off 2 free copies of the book!)

Sunday, 1-2:30pm:
Dive into Digital Badges! A Badge Curriculum Workshop - Presenting with Emily Ford and Annie Pho on digital badges for instruction. This session is for all types of librarians at all types of libraries and will be very hands-on. Our hashtag will be: #badgecurric

#ala2013 recap: Badges, student retention, and over-capacity parties

Wow #ala2013 went by so fast! This was hands down my favorite conference that I've been to over the last 3 years. Here's my brief recap of highlights:

I didn't attend as many sessions as I would have liked; I presented twice, led a discussion group, and reviewed people's resumes for NMRT's Resume Review Service, so a lot of my time was already nailed down, but it was all stuff I wanted to do so it worked out.

Gamification
On Saturday morning, I presented on the LITA: What to know before gamifying your library panel. We had a range of topics including: Bohyun Kim (moderator) giving an overview of gamification; Dave Pattern's use of Library Game / Library Lemontree at the University of Huddersfield (UK); Annie Pho covering the not-fun-but-very-important stuff on how to create institutional buy in and obtain grant money for these sorts of projects; and Young Lee explaining the technology aspects involved and how he plans to use badges in a law school library. My presentation was titled, "Anchoring the badge: Setting standards for game-based learning in library instruction." I discussed my current implementation of badges for instruction at The University of Arizona Libraries. You can see the Slideshare presentation with everyone's slides; though, since it was such a large panel not all of us contributed slides (myself included). So you won't get much from what I discussed in that link. Here is a very brief summary below; I am sure I will be speaking and writing about this project more as it progresses (have IRB approval!), so I plan to share more information in the near future.

Importance and benefits of using badges for instruction:

• Makes instruction more scalable, can ensure wider adoption of IL skills: trackable, measurable
• With trackability and assessment built in, this presents possibilities for customized learning ("microcredentialing," demonstrate specific skills; customization can greatly improve motivation and learning)
• Evidence is tied to the idea of competency-based learning (use specific outcomes to show criteria has been met for assessment, accreditation, program SLOs, other standards like the ACRL IL Standards, etc.)
• What we are doing at the University of Arizona: my overview was very brief since I'm still currently studying this and have gotten IRB approval to do so

I left those in attendance with some thoughts from Dan Hickey of Indiana University, via a Campus Technology article, How badges really work in higher education:

• "What sorts of claims will your badges make about the earners and what evidence will your badges contain to support those claims? 
• What assumptions about learning will frame your consideration and implementation of badges?
• How will your badges program be introduced? Will it be a centralized effort or pockets of innovation? "

You can read more about badges and gamification in academic libraries from what I have published in ACRL TechConnect on initial plans for badges at the UA Libraries, as well as our use of SCVNGR back in a pilot:

• Test-driving Purdue's Passport platform for library instruction

• Taking a trek with SCVNGR: Developing asynchronous, mobile orientations and instruction for campus

Char Booth also has a great post on badges at her blog, Info-mational, looking at badging in higher ed and discussing how she is using this form of micro-credentialing in the ACRL Immersion Teaching with Technology track. See her post, MYOB: Make your own badge.

More on Badges for Instruction
On Sunday, I presented a Conversation Starter with Annie Pho and Young Lee: Achievement unlocked: Motivating and assessing user learning with digital badges. Our hashtag was #alabadge, and you can see some helpful Tweets summarizing the session.

Tweets about "alabadge"

Student Retention
On Saturday, I also co-facilitated my and Jaime Hammond's ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group meeting.  You can also find the group on ALA Connect. Our topic for this meeting was:

How do we measure causation versus correlation in the library’s role in student success and retention? The ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group will be discussing the impact of a “culture of assessment” on libraries and demonstrating value on campus in regards to retention. We will discuss how effective demonstration of value in campus retention is through traditional methods and hope to explore ideas participants have for new initiatives.

To help guide the discussion, we used Megan Oakleaf's article on assessment strategies:

Oakleaf, M. (March 01, 2013). Building the Assessment Librarian Guildhall: Criteria and Skills for Quality Assessment. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39, 2, 126-128.  

We had some great discussions about what people are doing at their institutions, and seemed to have a good mix of academic librarians from community colleges and universities. The minutes should be posted within the next week or so; if this interests you, joining the Connect group will keep you up to speed. We also organize monthly article discussions during the regular academic year, with volunteers choosing articles and facilitating.


Misc
Other things included the Librarian Wardrobe + Every Library After Hours Party, which will have a solid recap on Librarian Wardrobe soon. We had a great time helping to raise awareness and $$ for Every Library, and so excited to plan more events with them at future conferences. Apologies to anyone who could not get into the party, it's very, very hard to find venues that allow for a large capacity without charging tons of money that neither LW or EL have to spare. We do have plans to accommodate more of everyone for #ala2014.


There was a lot of other great stuff but I'm going to stop there since this is already getting pretty long. I had a lot of fun spending time with friends and meeting new people at this conference. In the meantime, I am getting ready to go to ACRL Immersion in Seattle later this month for Program Track and have some other, exciting projects in progress as well. Check back here for more updates on badges and other stuff!

#ala2013 scheduling

Posting my tentative schedule for #ALA2013 below to share but also promote some panels and events I'm involved in. In reality I think I have at least 5 sessions marked per time slot, but these are the ones I am either presenting for or will most likely wind up at. Excited to see friends and meet new people, too!

Friday, 6/28

Annual Unconference

ACRL Leadership Council Networking Session + Meeting

Emerging Leaders Poster Session & Reception

ACRL Instruction Soiree (don't see an official page yet)

STACKS! Soul Librarian Dance Party & Benefit for the Read/Write Library

Saturday, 6/29

LITA Panel: What you need to know before gamifying your library
I will be participating on this panel, presenting: Anchoring the badge: Setting standards for game-based learning in library instruction.

ACRL New Members Discussion Group
Moderated discussion about the intersection of gender and academic libraries

ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group
I created this group with Jaime Hammond to discuss issues related to student retention in academic libraries.You can join the group in our Connect space here: http://connect.ala.org/node/173037.
Our topic for this conference is: 

How do we measure causation versus correlation in the library’s role in student success and retention? The ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group will be discussing the impact of a “culture of assessment” on libraries and demonstrating value on campus in regards to retention. We will discuss how effective demonstration of value in campus retention is through traditional methods and hope to explore ideas participants have for new initiatives.

LITA Instructional Technologies Interest Group

ACRL Instruction Session Current Topics Discussion

WGSS Social

8th ALA Annual 2013 Newbie & Veteran Librarian Tweet-up

ALA After Hours: EveryLibrary & Librarian Wardrobe Party (Facebook event page)
Like last year, there will be a best-dressed contest (just for fun) and a walkoff for anyone who wants to participate. Librarian Wardrobe will have more details posted soon. There will also be Librarian Wardrobe photographers snapping pictures of people during the conference. And check out the EveryLibrary site.

Sunday, 6/30

Conversation Starters: Achievement unlocked: Motivating and assessing user learning with digital badges
I will be presenting with Annie Pho and Young Lee, covering what digital badges are, their use in instruction, and potential with technology. And check out Annie's post about this session.

NMRT Resume Reviewer Shift
If you're interested in getting your resume reviewed, there might still be some slots left.

Libraries and Student Success: A Campus Collaboration Using High Impact Educational Practices

ACRL ANSS Studying Ourselves: Libraries and the User Experience

Various socials/happy hours (LITA, NMRT, GLBTRT....)

Monday, 7/1

ACRL Undergraduate Librarians Discussion Group

How to Teach and Assess Discipline-Specific Information Literacy

Annual Library Camp
Facilitating

Chicago Showdown: ALA Battledecks IV

Que(e)ry: Leather Bound in CHICAGO!

SOPA on a ropa

I initially wrote this blog post on 1/21/12 during #alamw12 but didn't get a chance to post it. With the boycotting of Elsevier, I thought it would be a good time to pull this back out:

There has been a lot of talk about SOPA and PIPA leading up to the conference, and now during. One of my conference roommates, Lauren Bradley, pointed out this Tweet that is pretty hilarious:

http://twitter.com/#!/danwho/status/160800863298916353

Clearly, there is some inner turmoil in dealing with these vendors professionally, and having good relationships with them for our libraries and in general, yet if they are supporting something you (or I, I do) oppose such as SOPA, then what is our professional obligation versus personal ethics? This last Wednesday was a blackout day in solidarity of protest for SOPA. ALA made commentary via the website, and librarian projects such as Radical Reference and In the Library with the Lead Pipe went black for the day. I even blacked out Librarian Wardrobe.

Now that we’re physically at the conference, though (or, those of us who are here), what can we do to not have the cognitive dissonance of being so vocal on the internet battleground, but feeling politely silent at the conference? For starters, Andy Woodworth at Agnostic Maybe made an *amazing* color-coded guide to the exhibit hall. Amazing, really! So you know which vendors to complain to and/or avoid. I’d say this extends to the parties, too. I had RSVP’d to the Elsevier Dessert Reception but now decided I’m not going to go. Some of the ALA Think Tankers are going to go and protest while there. I guess it goes either way it’s kind of like if you don’t go and they see there are significantly fewer people there then maybe they’ll realize our collective voice is pretty strong. At the same time, if we don’t go to these things and actually verbalize our opposition, what will actually come of it? They could just think we aren’t showing up because of unrelated reasons. 

So what vendors have you spoken to, who support SOPA? What are you doing to fight against this crap? Do you think going to the party and protesting or not going by silent protest is more effective?

ALA 2011 reflections

After getting caught up with everything after ALA 2011, I now have a chance to reflect on the conference. There are some other excellent reflection posts recently done by Aaron Tay and Andromeda Yelton, and Patrick Sweeney has some inspiring vlogs up on his YouTube channel. This was one of the best conferences I've ever experienced (not that I've been to a whole lot, but still). Being more involved in programs, and meeting and reconnecting with a ton of great people really made the conference experience; it helped that stale professional development advice come to life, where I realized oh wait, I was just networking or wow, I just stepped outside of my comfort zone.

If I were looking back to my (student) self in 2008 who attended ALA Annual in Anaheim, here is some advice I would give myself:

1. Get involved: apply for special programs (like Emerging Leaders), participate on panels, contribute to unconferences, plan a party or event, make/do something. Being an Emerging Leader this year, as well as being on REFORMA's How I Landed My First Librarian Job and What I Did 'in Between' panel were not only just good experiences to have, but gave me even more interesting things to talk to people about. (By the way, the REFORMA panel will be available as a free webinar in October if you missed it and would like to catch it next time.)
2. Don't play hard to get: I officially met some people that I've been following online for awhile and felt kind of fangirl-ish when the opportunity arose to connect with them in person. Believe it or not, people actually like compliments! It might feel awkward and stalkerish to say, "Oh yeah I [read your blog] or [noticed your work on x committee] or [love your stylish outfits] or [etc] and I think you're great!" But if it's the truth, and you're not actually a stalker, it's always nice to make people feel good about themselves, and hey you started a conversation.
3. You know more than you think: Just because you're not an expert in such and such librarianship with 10+ years of experience doesn't mean you have nothing to contribute. Look at Hack Library School and all they're doing, it's fantastic! I love reading Bohyun Kim's blog where she talks about early career issues and what she is learning along the way. 8bit Library / #MIH has found a niche and are known for what they write and create about videogames in libraries. In fact, JP and Justin were my Emerging Leaders team mentors, and now that our group has done this project we also have contributed a lot to the topic -- and two of us will be continuing on with more research that we're very excited about.
4. Other suggestions I can't take full credit for: From the Emerging Leaders session, it was reiterated by Peter Bromberg, Maureen Sullivan, and other ELs in our group discussion to think of librarianship as a gift culture (be generous), volunteer for things (say you'll do something and do it, committees and others will be pleased), and always have a drink in your hand (open body language + interest in talking to others = ability to make friends).

Last I'd say, as networking is really a big part of conferences, to not think of it as networking. It is what it is, but I really just thought about it as making new friends and talking to interesting people. Librarians and other info professionals are often fun to talk to; just strike up a conversation, and if you keep those other suggestions in mind, you'll have a lot more to talk about (less awkward is always good, right?).