Author: carli

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Day two of the Spectrum Institute included a panel on increasing diversity in library leadership, moderated by Tamika Barnes from Georgia State University Library.

Panelists reflected on their paths to their current leadership positions, and shared advice with a room full of current MLIS students and recent graduates. The panel included Anthony Davis from California State University, Fullerton; Nancy Kirkpatrick from Midwest Collaborative for Library Services; Cynthia Hohl from Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library; and Kirk MacLeod from the Open Data team for the Government of Alberta.

Although not everyone has their sights set on leadership positions, panelists encouraged us to recognize that leadership can take different forms. As library professionals, we lead people to information, share our ideas with colleagues, and grow in our professional credibility. With this in mind, we must consider the qualities that make a good leader: seeing problems as opportunities to create a shared vision, having enough self-awareness to know when you need to ask for help, and investing fully in whatever work you are doing with the understanding that it all has the potential to impact the direction of the profession.

Leadership positions, of course, bring new challenges. At times, promotions can prompt resentment among colleagues. As a leader, you must negotiate egos and consider whose perspectives are being represented or privileged, and whose are being silenced. Each of the panelists has experience being the only person of color in leadership, which comes with additional challenges, requiring them to think strategically about building connections. Nancy Kirkpatrick’s advice is to “make people comfortable if you can, but don’t be afraid to make them uncomfortable.”

For those at the beginning of their library careers, on their way into the job market, the panel urged us to remember that interviews go both ways. As we interact with potential future colleagues, we must consider whether we see evidence of the kind of work environment we are seeking. As professionals of color committed to diversity, we must consider whether we see evidence of that same commitment reflected in the current leadership of the institution, as this will deeply impact our day-to-day experiences. We must also go into an interview with a clear understanding of the community the institution serves and their information needs. This demonstrates engagement with the mission of the library and deeper level knowledge of the significance of the position to be filled.

The expertise offered by this panel will be put to good use as this year’s Spectrum Scholars take the next steps in their careers. By sharing their stories and the lessons they learned along the way, Barnes, Davis, Kirkpatrick, Hohl, and MacLeod allowed us to picture ourselves following in their footsteps.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Indisputably relevant to our current times, the Saturday session “Fake News or Free Speech: Is There a Right to be Misinformed?” found itself bursting at the seams at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Long before the session was due to begin, every seat was full. Attendees were sitting on the floor and more were standing along the walls. Moderated by Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom James LaRue, this panel featured Nicole Cooke from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Damaso Reyes from The News Literacy Project, Joyce Valenza from Rutgers University, and Mary Minow from Harvard University. Each speaker offered a piece of the puzzle on how librarians can address the concept of “fake news.”

Mary Minow of Harvard University opened the panel by asking what our legal choices are when it comes to responding to “fake news.” She discussed US libel laws in contrast to free speech protections. The laws protecting free speech continue to expand and strengthen, and they include protection of the right to lie. Essentially, the government does not get to decide what is true or not true. Libel laws stand as the only counterpoint to free speech. To be considered libel, the offending speech must be published, untrue, harmful to your reputation, created with malice, and intended to inflict emotional distress. Only the creator of the content can be sued for libel, not the distributor, e.g. a social media platform. Libel lawsuits are difficult to win, and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.

Damaso Reyes, director of partnerships at The News Literacy Project, built on Minow’s presentation by suggesting that we cannot sue ourselves out of the problem. Reyes reminded us of the days when, if you wanted to watch the news, you had to turn on your television at a particular time. If something called itself “news,” we could count on it being created by journalists and reviewed by an editor. The speed at which we are being bombarded with stories claiming to be news has created a world in which a person who is unable to differentiate between true and untrue stories is functionally illiterate. This means that media literacy is as vital as it ever was. The News Literacy Project produces a weekly newsletter called  “The Sift” and offers a news literacy curriculum at checkology.org.

Nicole Cooke, assistant professor and MS/LIS program director at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, encouraged us to remember that everything we have always known about evaluating information still applies. The issue of “fake news,” and even the term, first appeared in the 1930s. It is not new and it is not going away. What is new is that we now have thousands of news sources coming to us through our social media feeds. We constantly encounter information that produces high levels of emotion, which can be a barrier to critical thinking and evaluating the reliability of the information we receive. Cooke reminded us that there will always be false information parading as fact. Our teaching needs to focus on how to think, instead of what to think.

Joyce Valenza, assistant teaching professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, concluded the panel with a discussion of negotiating nuance. The prevalence of false information being spread quickly through social media creates an opportunity for librarians to lead. Valenza sited a Pew study showing that a majority of people crave unbiased news. Several companies have attempted to create processes and algorithms for sorting reliable from unreliable sources, but this discernment is not easily automated. Librarians, as professionals highly trained in evaluating information resources, can step up and fill this need. Valenza exhorted us to begin thinking about how we can curate resources for credibility and discovery. She insisted that under current conditions, there will be no prizes for predicting rain, only for building arks.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. Click here to see this post in its original context.

The ALA Spectrum program is celebrating its 20th year working to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the librarian population. As part of the ALA Annual Conference, Spectrum hosts several events for recipients of the Spectrum Scholarship. At Thursday’s opening reception, current scholars, alumni, and program leaders intermingled at tables. There were plenty of “long-time-no-see” greetings crisscrossing the room, as well as the beginnings of new connections.

We heard from Jody Gray, director of the ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services, about the history of Spectrum, including the year they thought the program was coming to an end, and the year the institute met in dorm rooms in Florida and found themselves sharing space with some local lizards.

We heard from ALA President Jim Neal, President-Elect Loida Garcia-Febo, and Executive Director Mary Ghikas about their hopes for the scholars, the Spectrum program, and the future of librarianship.

Following dinner, we scattered to prepare our “I come from…” poems, an exercise that challenges us to describe the complexity of our identities using concrete and abstract details. Scholars included descriptions of their childhood homes, unique advice and reprimands they received from elders, religious practices, family stories and traditions, meaningful foods, and geographic locations.

The institute leaders invited those who wished to step up to the podium and share their work. As the evening continued, we learned that there were people in our group from California, Chicago, New York, and right here in New Orleans. We laughed when we recognized connections to our own family histories.

When our colleagues’ words overwhelmed us with emotion, we passed tissues, responding to revelations both beautiful and painful. We heard memorable family sayings in Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, as well as English. We could almost taste the foods described, from Double Stuf Oreos to black-eyed peas. We applauded the courage it took to stand in front of a room and share the truth of who you are.

The message of the evening was that our complexity is welcome in this space, and that the leadership of ALA is looking forward to our contributions to the profession. As a Spectrum Scholar myself, I am looking forward to learning all that I can from the Institute experience.