Conference share: Public Library Association - Dorothy Reed

PLA 2024 Day 1

Today's themes: change management, building a data culture, and addressing the needs of underserved adult communities

Quote of the day: "It's okay to set goals and not meet them, if you learn something from the less successful outcomes."

Top takeaways:

Leverage your community; the more you interact with community partners, the more your relationship with them improves.

Don't be overwhelmed; start small if necessary and build. Don't succumb to an all or nothing mindset. Continuous improvement is the way forward.

Many adult communities are underserved such as the intellectually and developmentally disabled and older job seekers who've often been recently laid off. Targeted programs can address the needs of these communities while increasing engagement.

The five-session model for job seekers that was presented for older adults could be modified and targeted for other demographics such as young people looking for a first job, recently incarcerated, etc 

Emerging trends worth exploring:

Expanding Book a Librarian to include Book a Job Search Trainer and Book a Digital Navigator

Targeted database-training sessions are in demand, for instance job seekers appreciate sessions focusing on how to use Learning Express Library

I have PDFs of the presentations and resources from the following sessions: Beyond the Numbers: Building a Collection of Data-Informed Decision Making, We See You: Programming for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and Older Adults Need Jobs! Empowering Seniors to Rejoin the Workforce. I'm happy to share the PDFs with anyone interested.

PLA Day 2

Today it was all about the books, 'bout the books, 'bout the books, including a Booklist presentation of upcoming releases from adult publishers, a mystery authors panel discussion, and panel sessions on genrefying collections and diversifying displays.

Quote of the day: "I didn't grow up with a great deal of money, so libraries were always the path to books for me. There's a mutual admiration society between us." Craig Johnson

Top Takeaways:

Upcoming book releases that build off of existing media include: 

Tangled up in You, the first title of the Meant to Be series, contemporary rom-com reimaginings of Disney stories.

Lisa Jewell authored Breaking the Dark, a Jessica Jones novel, the first entry in the Marvel Crime Series.

X-Files: Perihelion is an extension of The X-Files television series.

Mystery authors reaffirmed the importance of libraries in writing and building a career as a

writer.

Genrefying your collection can help deal with difficult layouts and space constraints as well as increase circulation by making titles easier to find.

People need to see themselves represented in the library and our displays are the most visible part of the library. Strive to include diverse materials in all displays.

If you're interested in more information about Genrefying Your Public Library or Diversifying Your Displays and Book Lists, I'll be happy to send you resources from the presentations. 

PLA Day 3

Today's theme: Diversity & Accessibility

Quote of the day: "Data doesn’t lie, but it sure will hurt your feelings.”

Top Takeaways:

Quick tips to help accessibility that can be handled by staff or facilities fairly quickly include: increasing space between aisles, moving coat hooks that are too high, replacing doorknobs and faucets that require grasping, rearranging furniture, wrapping pipes under sinks, and adjusting heights of tables and shelves. Trackball mice and large-print keyboards are easy additions that increase computer accessibility.

Materials need to be tagged in some way to allow tracking of diversity-category percentages both within the collection and within new purchases. The 690 field in MARC records works as a locally created access point. BCA allows for an EDI tag and facilitates tracking through the Data Dashboard. Tracking ensures that future goals are met. Keep in mind that changes in terminology may require updating your categories. 

A diverse collection requires consideration of demographics (racial, cultural, ethnic, religious, ...), formats (to accommodate differing abilities and challenges) and world languages. Diverse collections must be discoverable in the catalog via MARC records and accessible to the public without requiring staff assistance.

What is the heart of your community? What do they need? Build a need-focused specialty collection for each location. Block holds for these Community Collection items so that they can only circulate from their home location.

Be Community Facing – show your face at every community event possible.

Expand beyond the walls of the library. Establish Satellite Community Collections at daycares, senior centers, social service offices,hospitals, barbershops, and anyplace that has a waiting room.  

If you're interested in more information about Access Denied: The Journey to Make Your Library More Accessible, After the Audit: Sustaining Steps to Maintaining a Diverse Collection, or Curating Diverse Community Collections for Patron Engagement, I'll be happy to send you resources from the presentations. 

Introduction to Homelessness Resources - Webinar Recording available

Topic: Introduction to Homelessness Resources
Date: Apr 29, 2021 09:46 AM Eastern Time

Speakers:  Michael Stafford and Jessi Stevens, Mayor's Office of Homeless Services

Below is the link for the program we ran this morning.  Please note that the beginning of the recording is missing, but it picks up at the end of Michael's introduction.

https://marylandlibraries.zoom.us/rec/share/pNOTNtrPpfYzvgHoK5qaxzr4UzQxJFL0bEobnVVUruf80zKgKybj9QuZiuJUAAT7.nOAD7N1Iiz62BdC9 

Passcode: *0i7$3Xq

The resources that go with this program are now available under the new Resources for Staff and Customers page of the blog.

Also, the transcription was done by auto-transcript, so try not to laugh too hard - Lisa

Black Lives Matter: Community Read - free without wait-lists or holds

I thought this might be helpful for our staff assisting customers or just wanting resources for themselves.

From Overdrive:

Knowing that our library partners want to provide antiracism and social justice titles to their patrons, we are launching a new program called Black Lives Matter: Community Read. The titles included in our Black Lives Matter: Community Read program are focused on #ownvoices and are intended to help patrons read, listen, learn and grow as they expand their knowledge of race relations. Donated by OverDrive, titles will be made available to United States and Canada libraries at no cost and patrons will be able to check these books out without waitlists or holds.  

Blackhttps://company.overdrive.com/2020/06/30/now-available-free-to-libraries-without-waitlists-or-holds-black-lives-matter-titles-to-read-listen-learn-and-grow/

The titles included in Black Lives Matter: Community Read are provided at no cost to your library and you will be able to use these like any other OverDrive titles for curation or promotion in various reading rooms, featured lists, and other programs at your discretion. Be sure to also visit the Resource Center to get a marketing kit that you can use to promote these titles to your community.

Access and Equity resources on WebJunction.org

Our access to WebJunction includes their list of resources for libraries that are looking for ways to "stand in solidarity, to take action, and to ensure library services and programs are equitable and safe for all."  

WebJunction has their page sorted by the following categories.  Some items are articles, some are webinars, and some are links to other pages.  There is a wide variety of information for library staff.

Take a look, there is a lot of great information.

On WebJunction

Statements and Resources from Libraries

Online Resources

For Supporting Youth

Creating Diverse Collections

Articles

Booklists and Books

Multimedia

On Accessibility

https://www.webjunction.org/explore-topics/access-equity/see-also.html?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=June+17+2020+Crossroads&utm_campaign=&utm_term=WebJunctionCrossroads_COMM

NicheAcademy webinars

Looking for ways to develop your skills while working from home?  There are a lot of interesting recorded webinars on NicheAcademy that can be accessed from their website without having to create an account.  

These range from Diversity/Inclusive topics like "Cultivating Strong Girls" and "Serving Individuals with Autism,"  to general library topics like "Practicing Intellectual Freedom," and even some topics for managers like "Best Practices for Developing Employees' Soft Skills."

Not everything is CEU worthy, so be sure you are selecting topics that are appropriate to your work at the library, and that you are accessing webinars and not just informative articles.  Remember, the webinar has to be at least 60 minutes long to count for credit.

These are recorded webinars, so you'll need to include a review/discussion of the program with your CEU form when you submit it.  I'll attach the information about recorded webinars, which can also be found on the blog.

https://www.nicheacademy.com/blog  

ALA Annual - Reflections on Diversity

The 2019 American Library Association Conference offered many opportunities to reflect on diversity, and to find ways to include diverse elements of the US population in everything we do.

Here is a taste of two of the sessions I attended:

“Muslims in Story” – Ms. Sadaf Siddique, coauthor of the book Muslims in Story: Expanding Multicultural Understanding through Children’s and Young Adult Literature, talked about the intent and the content of the book. This book is a collection of resources and curated booklists that will help educators expose their audience to positive images of Muslims.

A powerful way to counter bias is for Muslims (or anybody else who is the victim of prejudice) to tell their own story through actual personal experiences. The book’s purpose is to show commonality. It is not so much about religion. It is about the people and how diverse they are. The books that the authors included in their booklists have a common quality. They are culturally authentic and they depict positive images that will make Muslim children feel proud of being Muslims.

Muslims in Story includes a thematic framework to use throughout the school year. Some of the themes featured in the book are: Historical presence of Muslims in America, Muslim kids and heroes, Fasting traditions among the various Muslims in the world, Similarities between religions, Respect and tolerance between people, Knowledge overcomes everything. Each story comes with complete lesson plans and extra resources.

For more details, read an Interview with Sadaf Siddique and Gauri Manglik

“Ready to Learn: Public Media and Library Partnership for Early Science and Literacy Learning” – The “Ready to Learn (RTL)” initiative’s “goal is to promote early learning and school readiness, with an emphasis on supporting children from low-income, underserved communities.” PBS (Public Broadcast Service) and their librarian partners from one library in Kentucky, and the other one in Tennessee shared their successes and failures in offering the Family Learning Community workshops.  

These workshops are usually divided into 4 weekly sessions, but they can be adjusted to be a standalone program. Each session is composed of 4 parts:

EAT: Participants eat a meal together and get to know each other

EXPLORE: Hands-on explorations and discussions in groups (inter-family connections)

MAKE: Families work together on their own projects

SHARE: Participants share their projects with the other families, and give feedback to each other.

Most programs and resources necessary to set up such workshops are available for free to all educators at PBS Learning Media.  The website is a treasure trove of information!

Sylvie Merlier-Rowen
Children's Department, CEN

What is unconcious bias?

The term unconcious bias refers to a bias of which we are unaware and over which we have no control.  It is unintended, subtle, and completely unconcious, and also made by everyone all of the time.

When we educate ourselves about different types biases it is easy to see them in other people, but we don't often see them in ourselves.  Our brains see things the way it wants to see them, and we really can't do much about that.  Your brain is more active when you speak with someone it sees as being "like you" in some way, equating that person as being "better" than others.  The more people "like you" that are around you, the more comfortable you will feel.  Again, this is your brain making its own decisions, regardless of the choices we might make consciously.

There are several qualifiers our brain uses when it makes these distinctions, but if we want to try and neutralize our unconcious biases (which is extremely difficult) we can use these qualifiers to identify our biases:

• Similarity - a person like me is better than person not like me  You can use this by focusing on the similarities between you and other people when you interact with them.  Find shared traits/goals/characteristics and focus on them.  Physical similarities are the easiest and quickest to see, but job, education, political viewpoint, and other factors can be points of similarity.  Even something small like a shared favorite television show can make this connection.

• Expedience - easy and quick, it feels right to me  We look for evidence to support our impressions and get an answer quickly, but we need to unlearn this because the quick answer is often the wrong answer..  For example, if you tell people that  a bat and a ball together cost $1.10, and that the bat is $1 more than the ball, and then you ask them how much the ball costs they will say 10 cents.  However, the correct answer is that the bat is 1.05 and the ball is 5 cents.  Our brains do the quick division for the answer, but our brains are wrong because they go for the quick answer.

• Experience - my perceptions are accurate so it must be true  This assumes that our perceptions are always accurate, but perceptions are highly subjective and therefore suspect.  An example of this is customer service.  If you have bad service the first time you go into a store then you will expect bad service the next time you go into the same store.  Even if you receive good service the second time, you will be more critical and less satisfied because of your previous experience.  You may also receive bad service because your attitude will be bad and you may be rude or annoying.

• Distance - closer is better, familiar is better  This is one that people have difficulty recognizing, but it can easily be seen in meetings, particularly if some of the participants are attending remotely (either calling in on the phone or by video).  The people in the people focus on each other, even if the person speaking is not in the room.  Those in the room are taken more seriously and given more time to speak then those on the phone or video.  Those attending remotely are often cutoff or not included at the same level, and may be less comfortable speaking up or raising questions of the group.

• Safety - bad is stronger than good   This can certainly be seen by watching any news program.  The stories included are usually tragic or negative in some way because these stories are seen as more "serious."  In the workplace, this creates atmospheres where threats are stronger motivators than rewards.

How can we work against our unconcious biases in the workplace?  The first step is to acknowledge that we have these biases.  It is almost impossible to rid ourselves of them, because our brains do a lot of thinking on their own, but we can create habits and procedures to minimalize the effects of these biases.  This can take some effort, because people like it when others conform/perform to our stereotypes and beliefs, and when this is not true our brains have to work harder.

First, we can try to create new "in-groups" that are more diverse and using our similarities to create a positive bias.  Anyone with whom you feel similar can become a part of your new group.  By making a deliberate effort to expand our "group," our brain finds it easier to make the connections with different types of people.

If possible, create policies and procedures that support this in your workplace.  When forming teams, it is important to remember that diverse teams are smarter and more effective. Limit the size of the teams so that everyone can be heard -- 5 to 7 people allows more inclusion than 30.  When hiring, it is important to remember that organizations diversity generates more profits.  In meetings, the leader of the group can limit the amount of time each person speaks or can ensure that those not in the room, or those who haven't spoken yet get a chance to participate in the discussion.  We can't take the biases out of the people, but we can take them out of the processes.

Once we learn to recognize our own biases, we can create procedures, policies, and practices to mitigate their effects.

ALA 2016 - Libraries and Community

ALA Annual placed a large focus on inclusion of patrons from all walks of our communities, whether or not they fit into our majority demographic. From collection development practices to programming development, attendees were encouraged to listen and learn from their patrons.

I attended so many inspiring programs, but my top three were:

• We Need Diverse Books and More: This panel - which included authors and scholars - discussed best practices for creating a truly diverse collection of voices in YA and children’s departments. Librarians were encouraged to investigate books for authenticity and strive to include characters who have intersectional identities.
• Literacy Inside and Out: When one member of a family is incarcerated, it has a lasting effect on the entire family. How can we serve our community members during and after incarceration? One excellent program idea came from the Hennepin County Library: their program, Read to Me, allows incarcerated parents read a children’s book and record it on a disc for their child.
• YALSA’s President’s Program: Grant recipients presented inclusive programs they created for young adults, including teen parents, GLBTAQ youth, and teens who are blind.

If I had to choose one key piece of advice that echoed throughout every program, it is the importance of building your library according to your entire community. While we think we know what our community wants, we should never assume we’re doing the right thing. No event should be planned without input from your target audience; creating space for dialogue and listening without judgment is the key to creating lasting community relationships.

Rebecca Starr

Information Services