Some networking notes from the Association for Talent Development annual conference

I recently attended the ATD conference, and went to a relly interesting session on networking, called Networking for People Who Hate Networking.  In the workshop, they defined networking as creating meaningful and beneficial connections one person at a time.  This was interesting, as we generally think of networking as meeting a bunch of people at an event, but if you don't gain something from the interaction then it's just talking.

Both extroverts and introverts can be successful networkers; they just need to approach it differently.  Introverts don't have to fake being extroverts in order to network successfull, but they should do a bit of preparation before the event so that they can be confident in their interactions.  Introverts may have more difficulty starting a conversation, but they tend to develop more meaningful connections.

Here are some tips that you can use to improve your networking skills, regardless of the situation in which you find yourself:

• research in advance - what is the purpose of the event, why are people there, who is likely to attend and what connections would you like to make?
• volunteer to help with the event - particularly good for conferences or meetings since people are always glad to have help and you become an instant "insider" with lots of opportunities to talk to others
• arrive early to group events - it's less daunting and you have time to focus on each of the newer arrivals rather than trying to navigate a large group
• spot check before you arrive - are you pulled together?  Have your business cards handy?
• get in a line - this sounds funny, but often we meet interesting people while waiting in lines, and you never know who might be a good connection
• eat or (soft) drink before the event, this keeps that magic spinach from appearing in your teeth
• if you take someone's business card, take a moment to make a note on the back of who they are and why they talked to you, so when you follow up later you can remember who they wereand why you have their card (this works for vendor rooms too, what did you discuss with that company?)
• practice active listening, don't look over someone's shoulder when you are talking to them and focus your attention on what they are saying
• be authentic - don't try to impress someone, just share your information and thoughts
• don't hang on one person all night, you need to circulate (be a best-seller not a research tome)
• follow up after the event, remind the person where you met and what you discussed (from your notes on the business card), otherwise you aren't building a connection

MLA 2019 - Using Children's Literature to Help Children of Trauma

The theme of “What if…?” at this year’s MLA conference inspired librarians to focus on the
possibilities of librarianship and ways we can improve our services to have a greater relationship
with our community. One program particularly made me consider our potential to facilitate healing
with our youngest customers.

In the program “What if…We used Children’s Literature to Help Children of Trauma Heal?” Dr.
Colleen Lelli outlined the needs of young children exposed to trauma and how we can use children’s
literature to create “bibliotherapy” opportunities for conversations and healing around  books. She
outlined the effects of acute (short term) or chronic (repeated) stress and how toxic stress can
manifest in children’s behavior. She explained that stress comes in different levels.

While mild/moderate stress can be motivating for a child, chronic or toxic stress quickly leads to trauma. She also explained that our understanding of trauma is constantly changing and affects something like 66% of the population, but our vocabulary for dealing with it is unfortunately limited. This is especially tragic for children affected by chronic/repeated stress, which can have the effect of
limiting children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary, leading to confusion and trouble with
problem solving. Dr. Lelli left me with many simple strategies I’m excited to implement when
working with our young customers.

Here are some of the simple strategies offered for helping children connect with texts:

• Since children of trauma are often unfocused readers, ask them questions of the text to keep them focused on subtler details. 
• Since they often act instead of plan, set goals for them to help with their task analysis and participation in classroom activities. 
• Practicing simple phrases like “Please focus on the directions I’m about to give,” cues these children to be prepared for the directions. Asking them to summarize directions once you’ve given them reinforces these connections.
• Create visual task cards to show each step of a task, and have children work in groups so that they can summarize together what they have heard. 
• To help with expressive language encouraging children to use graphic organizers to keep track of ideas they are interested in writing or talking about.  Encourage them to practice talking about areas of personal interest for 2-3 minutes at a time. 
• Provide children with verbal prompts to solve problems and resolve conflicts with peers.
• Try exercises like cutting up a comic strip and asking them to put it in the correct sequence can encourage critical thinking. 

Matthew Hickey
Children's Dept. CEN

Further reading:
https://goo.gl/tYicwz - Books to Teach Grit and Resilience
https://tinyurl.com/y5jy5xb8 - Books in which Children Witness Violence or Trauma

MLA 2019 - William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award winner Mary Amato

The 2019 winner of the William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award is children’s author Mary Amato.  Ms. Amato is an author of YA books, poetry, plays, and songs, and her books won numerous awards including The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators National Magazine Writing Award and Nonfiction Book Grant, the Beehive Book Award, the Buckeye Children’s Book Award, and the Arizona Young Readers Award.  She is also the founder of The HIVE, The Brown Bag for Creatives, and the Silver Spring Town Center, Inc. Arts Salon and co-founder of the Firefly Shadow Theatre.  Ms. Amato works with numerous non-profits in Maryland and teaches workshops on writing and the creative process.  She also gives ukulele lessons. 

Starting with a song written just for the award luncheon, Ms. Amato shared that when she was a child she knew every inch of her public library, where her “friends in fiction” would put images in her head.  After the luncheon, Ms Amato signed copies of her books and chatted with many of the attendees.  For her afternoon program, she used examples of her works and those of other children’s authors for her discussion on how to incorporate themes and songs into programs for children.  Passing out several of her own ukuleles, Ms. Amato discussed how useful the instrument can be not only for singing with children, but also how easy they are for children to learn to play and how suited they are for little hands.

As part of Ms. Amato’s lively and fun program, attendees worked together to re-write “Row, Row your Boat” as a library based song, and then the group sang their creation “Read, Read, Read your book” while accompanying themselves on the ukuleles. 

Lisa R. Kenyon

SD&T

Recommended (by me) reading:  

Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery Sixteen-year-old slam-poet Lacy Brink wakes up dead—and confused—in Westminster Cemetery. It’s the job of Sam, a young soldier who died in 1865, to help her adjust to the strict rules of the afterlife. Lacy proposes hosting an open mic; and when Sam and the other ghosts finally express themselves, surprising emotions emerge in this darkly hilarious tale about truth, forgiveness, and love. Contains explicit language and mature themes so probably best for mid-teens and up. 

Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook  In this humorous and touching mystery, fifth grader Edgar Allan tries to catch a thief who leaves poetry instead of fingerprints at the crime scenes. Recommended for ages 8-12. 

Note:  although these are YA books, both can be enjoyed by adults

Librarians ARE Wikipedians

The Wiki Scholars Program was highlighted by Staff Development & Training in Fall 2018. The program instructs professionals in academia and libraries to become Wikipedia editors and/or initiate library partnerships with Wikipedia. The program was presented by the Wiki Education Foundation https://wikiedu.org/ and sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration.

As a result of the Centennial Celebration of Women’s Suffrage celebrated in March 2020 many archives, libraries and museums are preparing and expanding content on this theme.  Wikipedia is no exception. It was an honor to be a part of a Wikipedia Scholars cohort as we learned to edit and create 2 biographical articles to increase the quality and quantity of information about suffragists on Wikipedia. Our instructions included using mainly secondary resources to create articles. Having chosen two Baltimore suffragists I searched some resources familar to librarians such as the Library of Congress, the Maryland Historical Society and several databases. It was more challenging than I had anticipated to find resources that were both in the public domain and accessible online. I had the opportunity to review resources that were less familiar to me such as SNAC at the National Archives and Records Administration http://snaccooperative.org and the HEARTH Archive at Cornell http://hearth.library.cornell.edu.

Since most Wikipedians are male there is a disproportionate amount of male editors and this seeps out in the form of lack of information by and about women. Through the Scholars program my cohort along with others were able to make contributions that change that statistic.  Becoming a Wikipedian is a positive way to engage and make a change for the better so I hope other librarians will be encouraged to participate. Though It was intense I am glad I gave myself this challenge which led to a sense of accomplishment, inspiration, and motivation to do more.

        The majority of my time was spent finding facts about suffrage and the lives of women in early 20th century Baltimore. With a cohort of about 8 librarians we met online weekly to review our progress, work out any difficulties, and take self-administered quizes to check our mastery of quality fact-finding, copyright issues and editing. By the end of the 3 month program I had created an article about Etta Haynie Maddox, vocalist, suffragist and first Maryland woman to attend law school (Baltimore Law School now the school of law, University of Maryland) to become a lawyer, sit for the Bar exam and practice law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etta_Haynie_Maddox.

Though disappointed that her photo was under copyright I was pleased to complete my first article by bringing an unknown Baltimore lawyer and suffragist into view. In 1902, Maddox successfully fought the state legislature to permit Maryland women to take the Maryland bar exam and practice law. In 1910 she submitted the first suffrage bill to the Maryland state legislature. For those who might be interested, it was exciting to find a bit about her sister at our own www.digitalmaryland.org here <ahref="http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/ref/collection/scws/id/462">Page 2 (page 1 is missing)</a>

For a second article I chose to edit an existing biography about another Baltimore suffragist, Edith Houghton Hooker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Houghton_Hooker. Hooker was a social worker who attended Johns Hopkins in the early 1900s and became part of the social hygiene movement. She believed women’s rights and women’s public health challenges could gain much needed attention by supporting womens’ right to vote. She founded the Just Government League of Maryland, established the Maryland Suffrage News and became the editor for the national newspaper, The Suffragist. There are some primary source materials regarding Hooker at www.digitalmaryland.org such as this suffrage phamphlet dated around 1912 http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/ref/collection/scws/id/107 for those interested.

The nature of Wikipedia as an open access repository of information that anyone can edit may seem unsavory until, like with most new initiatives, involvement in contributing to articles and engaging in the Wikipedia community reveals the many attributes and benefits for librarians and libraries. Then there is an awesome discovery that even Wikipedia itself makes users aware of their tools that should be used to verify information found on Wikipedia. Wikipedia even provides the caveat that not everything you find will be accurate-it is a dynamic platform that is in constant motion. Though clearly accuracy is what the organization strives to do with multiple layered checks for quality control. But there is an increased need to engage librarians in order to have greater accuracy in citations and reference lists. Additionally its an environment that can be used to educate patrons about determining what is fact and what is fiction.  The realization dawns that engagement in this self-described encyclopedia of the world is a win-win partnership for public libraries. To find out more about engaging library patrons in Wikipedia see GLAM-Wiki on page 4 https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/hq/topics/

info-society/iflawikipediaandpubliclibraries.pdf.

The future is more than promising for this resource to continue to grow in quality and quantity. It is already being used as a teaching tool, reference resource, and to engage communities in a stronger sense of ownership of their own history. Its informative, fun, and gives power to its users, editors and libraries to change the world and provide access to otherwise hidden or limited-access information and collections.

 Finally, in addition to the objectives to make Wikipedia more accurate, complete and accessible there are efforts to make it more inclusive across all subjects and all underrepresented people. Editing biographies, for example, helps to remove bias and highlight the rich diversity that makes up the real world. Correcting a citation supports increased accuracy and reliability. Uploading historic Baltimore photos can help to address underrepresented communities. Who better to do that than public librarians that already show students of all ages how to find accurate information, who strive for diversity and inclusivity in storytime and collection selection, and seek to provide access to technology, research guides, educational events, and electronic materials that address the needs of their communities every day?

See Also

Cummings, John, Fenoll, Carme, Hinojo, Alex & Tramullas, Jesus. (2016).  Opportunities for Public Libraries and Wikipedia: a discussion paper [International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), The Information Society, News, 20 January 2017, Presenting the IFLA Wikipedia Opportunities Papers]. Url: https://www.ifla.org/node/11131.

OCLC WebJunction. Wikipedia + Libraries: Better Together. Retrieved March 5, 2019 from

https://www.webjunction.org/explore-topics/wikipedia-libraries.html

OCLC WebJunction. Wikipedia + Libraries: Empower Communities to Learn from and Share Reliable Information. Retrieved March 5, 2019 from

https://www.oclc.org/en/member-stories/wikipedia-libraries.html

Proffitt, M. (2018).  Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge

9780838916322. Publisher: American Library Association. https://books.google.com/books?id=hYZ8DwAAQBAJ

Rose Anne Ullrich, Librarian

Information Services

MLA 2019 - Two Favorite Programs

Two workshops at this year’s MLA Conference really stood out to me: What If … You Could Make Sense of Management and What If … Equality Is A Reality.

The What If … You Could Make Sense of Management Workshop was extremely helpful to me as a first time supervisor. This workshop was led by Professor Brian Butler from University of Maryland’s iSchool. The focus of the workshop was on how to navigate the creation of your personal leadership toolbox in order to make dealing with the myriad of issues and personalities that you are responsible for less stressful and more effective. We discussed the various stakeholders that are involved in the operations of a public library and the many demands that they make on our resources. It was really helpful to hear from peers from different types of library environments and with different levels of management experience on how they deal with these, often conflicting, demands on their resources. Some of the issues discussed were ones that I have already had to deal with as a new supervisor and some of the issues were ones that I had not considered. The end conclusion of this workshop was that management is hard and if you think that it’s easy or that you have a one-size-fit-all solution, then you are doing it wrong.

The other workshop that I found particularly compelling was What If .. Equality Is A Reality. This workshop was led by Dr. Michael Edge from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the College of Education at Wilmington University, and his ability to combine his life experience with the topic matter was compelling. He spoke about implicit biases and how they impact our relationships with one another. While I’ve been to several trainings that have discussed implicit biases in some form or another, Dr. Edge spoke on this sensitive topic in a way that was both highly impactful and not at all blaming or shaming of the participants. One of the things that he brought up over and over again was that you can not blame someone for having implicit biases, they are something that are formed in your childhood by circumstances that you have no control over because you were a child.

This was a welcome approach to the topic since many such trainings on implicit biases have a tone that seems intended to instill a sense of guilt in participants. This approach led to a more open and, in my opinion, honest discussion of the participants’ experiences with implicit biases. The workshop discussed how these biases impact our interactions with customers, both internal and external, and our ability to give excellent customer service. The only downside of the workshop was that it was too short to cover the breadth of the topic.

Kalyn Shields

Pennsylvania Avenue Branch

MLA 2019 - Favorite Program

One of my absolute favorite and most valuable trainings at MLA was Cindy Pol of BCPL’s training on serving Latino customers. I learned some fascinating facts about demographics of Latinx customers in Maryland, such as the fact that Hispanics in Maryland have the highest median income in the nation. 

We also went over the cultural norms of Central America, where the plurality of Latinos in Maryland are from. We learned crucial vocabulary and outreach strategies for reaching our newest neighbors and practiced filling in a map of Latin America. It was a humbling and educational cultural experience.

 I was excited to see several Pratt employees in the audience- I can’t wait for us to put our cultural competencies to use to reach Spanish-speaking and Latinx Baltimoreans!

Cornelia Beckett

School and Student Services

MLA 2019 - Highlights

This year’s MLA & DLA Joint Library Conference was probably one of the best I’ve attended in recent years. There was so much offered, that if I had any complaints at all, it would only be that I didn’t get a chance to go to all of the sessions I wanted to.

A major highlight for me was the film screening of “I Know a Man…Ashley Bryan.” As a former children’s librarian, I spent many hours sharing the books of Ashley Bryan to many, many pre-school aged, and older children, and their caregivers. He’s a wonderfully gifted artist, and storyteller, and the film documents so much about him that I didn’t know.

Another presentation that stands out is the one “What if…Every Library Supporter was an Informed Advocate: Federal Legislative Update.” As a result of attending this seminar, I have a much better understanding of the Federal Appropriations process as it relates to libraries, and specifically as it relates to Baltimore City, Dorchester County (Cambridge), and Somerset Counties, as well as other jurisdictions in the State of Maryland.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the William G. Wilson, Maryland Author Award luncheon honoring author Mary Amato. It was heart-warming to have her begin her speech by singing to the audience, and playing the ukulele. She became genuinely emotional, and it was humbling to witness someone with such great talent sincerely appreciating all the accolades she so clearly deserves.

Vera Fattah

Librarian Supervisor II, Reisterstown Rd. Branch