Session descriptions
Are We What we Collect?, lightning talk by Alycia Sellie
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Library collections are often studied by librarians, and the contours of what constitutes the archive has been examined by many theorists. Yet as social justice work in libraries moves from merely what is placed on our shelves, how do we incorporate postcolonial, intersectional, and anti-racist critiques that ask for more than representation in our collections? Is examination of what is included in our collections still relevant? And how does the work of purchasing content today shape how we librarians think of ourselves and our role in our communities?
The Art of the Introduction: Encapsulating Identity, Agency, and Culture in Library Outreach & Engagement, a panel by Jennifer Brown, Sofia Leung, Jorge Lopez-Mcknight, and Nicholae Cline
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As academic librarians of color, we experience an intersecting layer of stereotypes related to our profession, with the relevance, value, and expertise of librarians questioned in an online, networked world. Before we even speak in professional settings, POC are sensitive to the possibility that others in the room have already formed impressions imbued with stereotypes based on appearances. Given our experiences with formulating purposive strategies to mitigate negative impressions based on non-professional identities, we are mindful of how we introduce ourselves as librarians to others. Consequently, when we introduce ourselves and interact with others, many of us develop strategies related to how we speak, what we say, how we sit/stand, and what we wear. These strategies are used with intent to convey professionalism, knowledge, experience, and expertise.
In this panel, we speak from a perspective that agrees and disagrees with Deborah Hicks. We agree that it is worthwhile to “focus on how librarians describe their profession...and how this construction shapes their interactions with patrons...” Yet we disagree that this professional identity “transcends other non-professional identities, such as one’s gender or race identity…” We believe these identities, intersect, and the ways in which librarians of color describe their profession takes into account that the value of their non-professional identities may also be questioned. It is worthwhile to discuss these descriptions and underlying strategies to better understand identity, agency, and culture in academic libraries.
A diverse panel will discuss how they introduce and present themselves in academic meetings in ways that address identities-related stereotypes and libraries-related stereotypes. Questions for the panel include - How do you consider your non-professional identities intersecting with your professional identity? How do you decide upon how much of your identities to incorporate while preparing for outreach meetings? There will be audience-participation exercises involving identity awareness.
The Alienated Librarian, or Why We are So Obsessed with Our Identity, panel by Callie Wiygul Branstiter, Quetzalli Barrientos, and Heidi R. Johnson
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Librarians have focused on developing their professional identity in the face of persistent and potentially degrading librarian stereotypes and other damaging public perceptions. This preoccupation with stereotypes has been dismissed by some (e.g. Jennings, “The librarian stereotype: How librarians are damaging their image and profession,” 2016) as perhaps a form of navel gazing that only serves to detract from the real work that they do. However, in this presentation, we would like to argue that there is an explanation for this obsession with stereotypes and professional identity. Moreover, we should understand the root causes of this obsession rather than simply dismiss it, which only serves to creates divides and minimize the pain caused by stereotypes and marginalization within the profession.
To explain how and why librarian stereotypes are an issue, we turn to the Marxist theories of alienation and estranged labor, theories that explain the nature of labor in a capitalist society. Librarianship tends to be viewed as a helping profession, and the products of librarians’ labor is largely invisible. Librarians rarely even get to see the ultimate products of their own labor - academic scholarship - much less have ownership over it, unless it is their own scholarship, which still tends to focus on the library profession.
The first panelist will review the literature about librarian stereotypes and offer a unique perspective about why they are important to librarians. The second panelist will explore how Marxist conceptions about the nature of labor under capitalism shed light upon this professional identity crisis that academic librarians and other librarians experience. The final panelist will discuss practical applications of the theories of alienation and estranged labor within librarianship and potential solutions. Discussion with the audience will focus on practical examples and solutions. While stereotypes may always persist, seeing them as a problem and understanding some of the root causes might bring us closer to dismantling systems of oppression.
But Is That Really Librarianship?: Academic Librarians, Academic Success, and Professional Identity in 10 Minutes, lightning talk by Alexandra Gallin-Parisi
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When a librarian starts to focus on teaching a non-library course for credit, chairing a university committee dedicated to non-library academic success services, and spending more time talking to students about their lives and less about their scholarly sources... is that librarian still a librarian? In this honest, high-energy, fast-paced lightning talk, an instruction librarian will share her story of trying to find her footing when her job description says "information literacy" but her heart says "student support." Our field’s literature points to the fruitful connections between librarians and student affairs, librarians and student engagement, and librarians and student success. This presentation will highlight what it actually feels like to work in these liminal places, these “in-between” spots, in higher education. As a tenure-track librarian with faculty status, the expectations for librarianship, scholarship, and service are clearly defined in P&T criteria, but the autonomy to forge one’s own professional agenda can mean straying from the path of “normal” librarianship into the muddy waters of academic success. Can librarians step out of the library world and still retain their librarian credibility? Does setting aside information literacy undermine the goals of the library on campus? Will dedicating too much time to students and their needs eventually become a detriment to your library career? Spoiler alert: This librarian doesn't have all the answers.
Constructing agency: Librarian status as contested terrain, presentation by Alex Hodges, Stacey Marien, and Melissa Becher
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Academic librarians’ professional statuses have always varied from institution to institution. Some institutions maintain a culture of faculty status (inclusive of tenure, continuing appointment, or contractual terms) that is at parity with teaching faculty colleagues, while others hold administrative staff positions that align with the work of other campus academic professionals. Still, other institutions cobble together multiple statuses in order to create flexible work environments. Whatever the situation, librarians sometimes struggle to maintain promotion tracks in their higher education organizations that allow them to build enough power and control of their promotion processes, and relative influence across campus. This presentation showcases the work of several tenured librarians, who serve at a mid-sized, Carnegie-classified higher research activity (R2) university. As tenure has become less of an option for this university’s librarians, the panelists have worked to create opportunity for other categories of librarians so that they, too, can develop careers and gain potent professional experiences through promotion and salary advancement, despite not being afforded the same agency (e.g. protection of academic freedom, partnership in curricular decision making, due process in grievable matters, or membership in campus committees) as faculty at the tenure-track or tenured status. The presenters will discuss how their library system manages several professional tracks for librarians. In addition, they will outline how changing expectations for scholarship, primary responsibilities, and service have formed new opportunities and challenges for the organization. Most importantly, the presenters will expose and deconstruct the various problems that can arise when power is stratified across these divided tracks and what new organizational culture(s) must be created in order to prevent the loss of librarian identity and agency across the greater institutional boundaries.
Creating a Contextualized Professional Identity, a roundtable discussion facilitated by Fobazi M. Ettarh and Rachel Fleming
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In this workshop, participants will explore how they construct professional identity within the context of their broader personal identity, and within the constraints of their workplace and the profession through reflection and discussion. The workshop will focus on three inter-related issues: Librarianship is rife with the narrative of “do what you love” (Tokumitsu, 2015) or job as vocation. However, the lens of passionate “whole self” work leads to emotional stress and burnout, but often limits the field of vision to one’s own position instead of pulling back and seeing how the parts affect the whole. Librarians are pressured to upholding the vocation of librarianship. Often, different fields of librarianship work as independent entities. Different specialties of librarians may be geographically or intellectually separated, creating many barriers to interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration. Library types are also often insular, looking only within their specific field for guidance. This narrow orientation further exacerbates siloing within libraries, and librarianship as a whole. The construction of librarian identity through a narrow lens has serious implications for diversity and inclusion. Although social justice and critical librarianship is becoming a formal and accepted part of librarianship, diversity work is often assigned to a few librarians (usually people of color) within the organization, adding emotional labor of decolonizing librarianship without institutional support to professional duties. Through widening the lens of professional identity, librarians can begin to resolve the cognitive dissonance between siloed job duties and the expectation of spiritual fulfillment. This workshop will create a space for reflecting on current professional identities in relation to the aggregate, as well as deconstructing notions of job as vocation. After this workshop, participants will have a stronger personal definition of professional identity, as well as an ability to contextualize identity within professional discourse and engage constructively with those discussions.
Creating Gender Equity in Library Leadership, a presentation by Melissa Kalpin Prescott and Robin Ewing
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In recent decades, the percentage of women in high-level leadership positions within academic libraries has increased to over 50%. While this seems like significant progress, women continue to represent at least 80% of the library workforce. The perception of gender equity distracts us from addressing persistent factors that limit advancement opportunities for women. As a female-dominated profession that considers itself inclusive, equitable, and progressive, we must critically examine our role in perpetuating a culture of gender discrimination. To maximize the potential of leaders at all levels, we must design a new model of leadership that does not define leadership qualities as gendered. In this new model, leadership abilities focus on effectiveness and inclusivity without gender bias. We assert that librarians must develop a critical awareness of the culture within academic libraries that continues to privilege men and masculine leadership traits. This consciousness raising will help us to unlearn gender stereotypes and biases (both explicit and implicit) and to reflect on our own gendered behaviors and how they perpetuate the current culture. In this session, participants will work together to identify the barriers that contribute to the disproportional representation of women in leadership positions. They will also reflect on the social structures that continue to marginalize women in the workplace and develop an action plan to address changes they will make personally, in their libraries, and in the profession.
The Creature Questions its Reflection: Lyrical Feminist Explorations of Reference Desk Interactions, presentation by Corinne Gilroy and Alex Hanam
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“The Creature Questions its Reflection” will be a polyphonic, call-and-response performance piece on the themes of agency, identity, and equity in library reference service. Our performance will be drawn from a working draft of the same name, set to appear in Maria T. Accardi’s The Feminist Reference Desk: Concepts, Critiques, and Conversations (Library Juice Press; Summer 2017; http://libraryjuicepress.com/feminist-reference.php). Our work draws on the lyric scholarship of Canadian poet-scholars such as Jan Zwicky, Anne Carson, and Kathleen McConnell, who challenge conventional prose forms of scholarship, and in so doing, provides space for literary, analytic, and artistic critique of library reference practice and interactions. We use lyric scholarship as a poetic and methodological tool for interrogating the dependence-driven customer service model found in many “pink collar” service professions, and gesture toward alternatives that cultivate independence and equitable interdependence.
Generational Rhetoric in Libraries: Towards an Intersectional Approach, a presentation by Carolyn Caffrey Gardner and Elizabeth Galoozis
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Everyone “knows” that Millennials are good at technology and like to work in groups, while Generation Xers are loners who like to buck the system. While meta-analyses in the social sciences have largely discredited the idea of common traits among generational cohorts, many pieces about age and generation in academic libraries continue to lean on flawed methods that fail to disentangle age, generation, and life stage. Library think pieces are also quick to rely on popular generational stereotypes. In this interactive presentation, we’ll explore how academic librarians use language about age and generational cohorts in both library-related publications and the workplace and what impact it has on both library workers and patrons. We’ll then discuss how these conversations apply single-axis thinking about identity and how an intersectional approach to age and generation can shift our professional culture.
Gender Performance and Identity in Librarianship: Preliminary Findings from a Qualitative Study, a presentation by Hilary Bussell and Tatiana Bryant
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This presentation will discuss the initial results of a qualitative study of gender performance in librarianship. Research into gender performance, and how these performances impact organizational structures in workplaces (including libraries), is well-established. However, much of this research approaches these issues at an organizational level. This study seeks to contribute new knowledge to this area by investigating how individuals working in libraries perceive their gender identities as a resource for their professional goals. Drawing on data gathered through in-depth, one-on-one interviews with librarians from a variety of backgrounds, this presentation will explore themes relating to gender performance and identity in library workplace culture. Themes explored will include whether the imperative to “fit in” at work impacts how individuals express their gender, in what ways different expressions of gender benefit or disadvantage individuals in pursuing their professional goals, and how expressions of gender identity intersect with other social identities including race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. After presenting their findings, the researchers will engage the audience in a discussion of practical implications for library workplaces and research areas in need of further exploration. The audience will be encouraged to consider how micro (or macro) aggressions around gender identity and gender norms impact retention and recruitment efforts, and how libraries can work towards cultures of openness and inclusivity.
Handmaidens, educators, scholars, and the spaces in between: Academic librarian’s constructed identities, a roundtable discussion facilitated by Veronica Arellano-Douglas and Joanna Gadsby
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Research into the construction of librarians’ professional identities indicates a strong emphasis on our work as service providers, from both within the profession and the larger academic environment in which we exist (Hicks 2016). When taken to its most extreme conclusion, the service ethos that informs academic librarianship can turn into what some some in the field informally refer to as “Handmaiden Syndrome”-- the expectation that librarians be at the beck and call of faculty, students, and administrators. In a forthcoming article in Library Trends, Lisa Sloniowski argues that this over-emphasis on librarians-as-service-providers devalues the intellectual work and emotional labor librarians do as co-educators (2016). What then, should form the basis of our professional identity as academic librarians? Are we educators, advocates, scholars, or some combination of all three?
The liminal space that librarians inhabit means that the construction of our professional identity is not static but rather, is constantly negotiated within the library and the larger institutions of which we are a part. This complex process of identity formation likely requires a high level of emotional labor on the part of the academic librarian, whose malleable identity creates a shifting sense of personal worth and professional value. We want to engage discussion participants in a deep conversation about the values and contexts that influence our professional identity construction in different settings. What version of “academic librarian” are we when we interact with students, faculty, staff, administrators, or other librarians? How do we negotiate these different constructions of our professional selves and at what cost?
Hicks, D. (2016). Advocating for Librarianship: The Discourses of Advocacy and Service in the Professional Identities of Librarians. Library Trends, 64(3), 615–640.
Sloniowski, L. (2016). Affective Labor, Resistance, and the Academic Librarian. Retrieved from http://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/31500
"I love being a librarian, but..." Reconciling Vocational Awe, Emotional Labor, and Social Change in Librarianship, presentation by Sveta Stoytcheva, James Castrillo, Fobazi M. Ettarh, Kelly McElroy, and Charissa Powell
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Social justice is enjoying unprecedented visibility in American librarianship and critical librarianship is becoming increasingly recognizable and institutionalized. At the same time, much explicitly “activist” discourse in our profession is inherently conservative and circumscribed by white, middle class professionals’ fear of risk. This panel will address this apparent contradiction through an interrogation of librarians’ affective investments in the profession. Specifically, we will discuss vocational awe, emotional labor, and work/life separation (or lack thereof) in librarianship. Vocational awe refers to the idea that libraries are inherently good and underpins many librarians’ sense of identity and emotional investment in the profession. Through the assumption that some core aspect of our work is beyond critique, vocational awe helps to reinforce aspects of white supremacy culture (Jones & Okun, 2001) in our organizations (e.g. defensiveness, paternalism, either/or thinking). Vocational awe intersects with librarians’ emotional labor. Librarianship as a service-minded, feminized profession already demands a large amount of emotional labor from librarians. This demand for emotional labor disproportionately affects librarians of color and other marginalized librarians, who are tasked with remaining “professional” in the face of regular microaggressions and colleagues’ silence during traumatic events (like police brutality). When there is immense resistance to merely acknowledging flaws in our professional values and practice -- such as our supposed neutrality -- how can we work towards meaningful change? We are also interested in unpacking how much emotional energy is wasted by white librarians’ fear and fragility and how that energy might be better spent elsewhere. Finally, vocational awe also intersects with the problematic rhetoric of “do what you love” (Tokumitsu, 2015), which enables the exploitation of librarians as workers by eliminating the distinction between personal and professional identities. How does this lack of work/life separation contribute to burnout? How might it circumscribe librarians’ identities as activists?
I Know I Look Like You But...: An Insider/Outsider Reflection on a "Feminized" Profession, a presentation by Beth Twomey
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The history of American librarianship as a feminized workplace and its intersections with class and religion are well researched and documented. Over time, research into academic libraries as a feminized workplace has tended to focus more on wages, management, and professionalism. However, the demographics of library staff have not changed greatly from 100 years ago and carries, in its norms and practices, a legacy from Victorian times. This presentation will focus on the gendered legacy of American librarianship through the lense of gendered language communities to interrogate the ways in which the norms and practices of librarianship may be unwelcoming to communities that do not share the same norms, especially as regards communication practices in the workplace. The presenter is a career changer who came to academic librarianship after 15 years working as a manager in a trade that is male dominant. Personal experience and reflection will be used as a springboard for exploring academic librarian professional norms, particularly as they relate to public services, instruction, and reference work, and contextualized within the body of both library and social sciences literature. Questions will be raised and offered for discussion about the implications for recruiting a more diverse workforce, how and what we teach, how we approach reference services, and how to position ourselves in a rapidly changing information environment.
Immigrant+Other+Citizen+…soon to be librarian, presentation by Simone Clunie
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In the Reagan Era of the eighties when I arrived in the USA as a resident alien, coming in with a parent and sibling, we, two generations, arrived to a very different status. This included continuously changing identities as well as ways of living, and the acclimatization to myriads of new social cues. One of the firsts was my becoming “black,” which has followed a meandering trajectory influencing my experiences and thinking. Discourse on identity politics, begat by the civil rights movement in the USA, the unfolding of discussions of the feminist movements, Black Power, AIM and other revolutionary movements that slid into the seventies and opened up tertiary institutions influenced my education, both officially and un-officially, as it progressed through the nineties and the 2000s in southeastern Florida.
Now, as a 10-year paraprofessional in an academic library undertaking a graduate degree in librarianship, I see a shift in attitude around me once my graduate school involvement becomes known, though my professional skills and education have long been with me. Emily Drabinski’s recent observations about librarianship’s rise to professionalism alludes to some of the hierarchical attitudes that continue to be perpetrated in librarianship, and I wonder: do we want to do this given the tenants of democracy and service at the center of what once was a trade? Do we want to become professionals, Librarians, specializing them-selves/ourselves in a model that has characterized both whiteness and hegemonic masculinity (patriarchy) as the norm, forming a pyramid from which to ‘rule over the masses as they are helping to inform?’
Similar to Michelle Cliff’s recognition, I walk in this world always an expat of Jamaica, now named “black” or African American with continually shifting identities. Now, I am about to take on a new one of “professional,” and it is through an intersectional and critical analysis of these ‘namings of identities’ I want to share how I work in a library setting performing a kind of professionalism, while continuously questioning the hierarchies of the neoliberal university environment.
Invisible barriers and subversive practice: Critical librarianship in higher education, presentation by Veronica Arellano-Douglas, Joanna Gadsby, Sofia Leung, Angela Pashia, and Eamon Tewell
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Academic libraries, as places of higher education and learning, should be environments where new ideas and socially-conscious practices can easily be explored. However, academic librarians engaged in these efforts often struggle to bring a critical perspective to bear upon their work within the confines of a larger institutional culture that is often opposed to radical change. Our liminal status can sometimes work to our advantage, allowing us to “fly under the radar” and experiment both in and out of the classroom. It can also leave us stuck in the margins, lacking the agency necessary to affect lasting change at higher education institutions rooted in a system of historical oppression and within libraries operating as supposedly ideologically neutral spaces.
How do we as academic librarians undertake social justice work while striking a delicate balance among the competing priorities of faculty, administrators, students, and other librarians? This panel will speak to the challenges and opportunities encountered by librarians who engage in critical practices within academic libraries and higher education. Topics will include instruction, including credit-bearing courses, one-shot sessions, and information literacy programs; reference; library programs and displays; and inclusive practice. Each panelist will briefly address one topic, providing their perspective on the possibilities and obstacles presented by the culture of academic libraries and how it contributes to or detracts from their sense of agency. The panel will then be opened to a facilitated question and answer session, where after having heard some examples of critical librarianship, attendees will have the opportunity to voice their experiences, concerns, and hopes for socially-conscious library work within an environment that is sometimes agreeable to these aims, sometimes hostile to them, but never neutral.
Lean In, If You Dare: White Feminism and Distributions of Power in Academic Libraries, presentation by Megan Watson
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The persistent homogeneity of the academic library workforce points to a nagging race problem which has only deepened over time. One explanation lies in equity agendas built on the tenets of white feminism, curtailing attempts to build truly transformative models of social justice. White feminism dismisses the importance of identity politics and fails to acknowledge or address the role whiteness and white privilege plays in the struggle for gender equality. Mariana Ortega refers to this as a “loving, knowing ignorance” which manifests as generalization, stereotyping, silencing, and victimization of feminists of color by supposed allies. These macro- and micro-assaults factor into all aspects of academic librarianship, specifically in relation to distributions of power. Women of color face a myriad of barriers upon entering the field and are often further marginalized for diversity work, hindered in efforts to move up the organizational ladder due to a lack of “legitimate” scholarship and service while being heralded externally as evidence of the institution’s commitment to diversity. The recent ascendance of neoliberal feminism adds insult to injury, reframing professional success (or lack thereof) through an privileged, individualistic lens. These layers of marginalization discourage women of color from pursuing leadership roles, while those who proceed face continued ignorance, pressures to assimilate into the dominant culture, and/or accusations of advancing a biased agenda. Attrition, then, serves to standardize and reproduce a white feminist approach in academic libraries, which can employ the language of equity while women of color are silenced and excluded through a potent combination of isolation and good intentions. This presentation will explore the ways white feminism influences individual and collective identity, limits the capacity for meaningful change, and reinforces white supremacy in academic libraries, closing with a discussion of potential disruption strategies to challenge this hegemonic approach in our institutions.
Mi otro yo: Culturally validating pedagogy in the information literacy classroom, presentation by Torie Quinonez
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As part of U.S. Department of Education grant to increase Latina/o graduation rates, faculty members at CSU San Marcos (CSUSM) convened a faculty learning community to develop culturally validating curriculum for Latina/os within a number of disciplines. Partnering with a librarian colleague, I set out to design curriculum for the two-week information literacy module included in our campus’s First Year Experience course. This intensive research workshop is centered around the concept of the student scholar identity. We define a student scholar as someone who can use an academic research process to create new knowledge, who comes away from the process with the ability to make meaning, and sees themselves as members of a scholarly community.
In this presentation, I will discuss the process of developing the above stated curriculum for our first-generation Latina/o students using Validation theory (Rendon 1994). At a Hispanic Serving Institution in racially segregated North San Diego County, culturally validating curriculum and pedagogy is especially meaningful. In a national climate of xenophobia and anti-immigrant/anti-Latino sentiment, affirming the intellectual and cultural heritage of our Latina/o students is a political act. Using critical pedagogy as a framework and a strategy, the goal of this curriculum redesign is to empower students to claim agency as creators of knowledge and valuable members of the academic community.
Guided by my own journey to higher education as a first-generation, Chicana, non-traditional student, my approach to the work is two-fold: First, I will describe my collaboration with the Faculty Learning Community and my own experiences of validation in educational settings. Second, I will address the anticipated challenges presented by my own identity and agency as expressed in the structures of power present in the classroom dynamic (e.g. gender, language, skin color, education).
Navigating Tacit Knowledge: Cultural Capital, First-Generation Students, and the Library, presentation by Elizabeth Galoozis and Caro Pinto
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Sociologist Anthony Jack has written, “disadvantaged undergraduates are expected not only to be less primed to take advantage of college resources, but also to participate less in college life, limiting their acquisition of social and cultural capital.” Many first-generation college students - who make up roughly a third of all college students - enter college with less tacit knowledge of the processes and structures of higher education than some of their peers, which often translates into less agency. This presentation will examine libraries as sites of translation for social and cultural capital in higher education, and librarians’ potential as interlocutors between students and the language and structure of academic experience, including the ways that library spaces and services are designed, and breaking down the jargon of scholarly publishing. We will challenge assumptions about first-generation students, breaking down the myriad definitions of “first-generation” college students, and lead a conversation about participants’ experiences and opportunities with these students.
Shifting Roles (and Identities) for Archivists in the 21st Century Academic Library, presentation by Kevin C. Miller
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Archivists in the academic library domain have typically maintained professional identities that are distinct but complementary to those of their more numerous librarian counterparts. This has ranged from training and education, to job descriptions and responsibilities, to professional societies and publishing circuits. However, today, in the midst of the slow sea change that will ultimately define the 21st century library, the roles and professional identities of archivists, librarians, and other information professionals are changing and blurring, shaped by the common forces of the digital information age. These forces include the open access movement, the increasing currency of research datasets and big data, the increasing complexity and distribution of the scholarly record, and the growing importance of special collections and institutional repositories to the distinctive identity of academic libraries. In this presentation, I will discuss how UC Davis has responded to these forces by reimagining the “university archives” (and its University Archivist) through its Archives and Institutional Assets Program (AIAP). At the center of this program is a pivot towards stewarding the born digital assets of UC Davis faculty and researchers in “real time,” tracking, preserving, and making accessible assets created in the course of research, teaching, and community service. Concomitant with this shift are new professional roles and responsibilities defined by partnerships and collaborations within the library and units across campus, new relationships with faculty and researchers, and a deeper involvement with technology and digital initiatives.
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Shifting Roles in the Profession: Staff to Library Professional, round table discussion facilitated by Raymond Pun, Lynn Nguyen, AJ Muhammad, Emily Boss, Moon Kim, and Danielle Rapue
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For librarian positions, many employers prefer to hire candidates from "outside." Some employers prefer internal candidates. What are the challenges, barriers and experiences of librarians who have transitioned from staff to library professional roles? Why is there stigma against staff promotion to librarians in some institutions? There is a collective body of library staff who wish to be librarians in their institutions but often face institutional discrimination or internal barriers. This roundtable discussion brings together several librarians from public and academic libraries who have moved from a staff role to a librarian position successfully. They will share the challenges, struggles, strategies and opportunities in moving upwards professionally. Attendees will be also able to share their own thoughts, experiences and open up the discussion on their own struggles and challenges in moving from staff role into a professional one.
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Toppling the ivory tower: Exploring the interpersonal identities of academic librarians and classified staff, presentation by Katy Mathuews and Paul C. Campbell
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The credentialing of librarians with a graduate degree potentially creates a dichotomy in staffing in libraries. One perception of this dichotomy includes the professional who works within academic pursuits and the staff member who tends to routine functions of the library. If this perception is true, it may create a class system within the library staffing model. Grounded in the work of Perini (2015), this presentation seeks to explore librarian and staff perceptions of their own identities, the identities of others, and how those perceptions impact the interaction of librarians and library staff.
Gathering responses from librarians and classified staff from Ohio academic libraries, the presenters seek to build a narrative of identity construction of librarians and classified staff. The research will explore the intersectionality of the identities, including the impact on working relationships, opportunities to collaborate, and the connections with services offered. Topics include demarcating duties, definition of “skilled” workers, valuing work, willingness to collaborate, and how technology may blur the lines between librarian and classified staff roles. Through unpacking these identities, the presenters hope to open the door to a more inclusive and collaborative relationship between classified staff and librarians.
Structures of Interaction with Academic Library Constituencies: Labor, Community, Bureaucracy, and Social Justice, a panel discussion by Gregory Leazer, Sarah Roberts, Safiya Noble, and Jonathan Furner
Panel discussion on how the conceptualization of various kinds of academic library constituencies effects our interactions with them. All four speakers address these structures of interaction from a contextual framework of social justice and political economy.
Prof. Sarah Roberts will discuss labor issues in the university, and how those issues mitigate the ways librarians interact with the administration, faculty and students, and vice versa. Of particular concern is how the the self-conceptualization of librarians as professional academic staff influence their interactions with the university community.
Prof. Safiya Noble will discuss the importance of critical librarianship, reframing information work as service-oriented rather than technological, with evolving concepts of what constitutes communities and information needs. This framework includes teaching critical theories of race, gender and political economy to demonstrate that in information environments, there are winners and losers.
Prof. Gregory Leazer will describe how librarianship traditionally bureaucratizes people and their information needs: how the reference desk, like other "street level" government services, transforms people into clients. That process includes: compression, and a disregard for the whole person. Librarianship works like other street level government social agencies like policing, the post office, DMV, medicine. Leazer will call for a more compassionate and therapeutic library service, and describes the need for librarians with broad cultural competency.
Prof. Jonathan Furner describes how UCLA’s Department of Information Studies is unique amongst iSchools in having a mission statement that specifically identifies social justice as one of its guiding principles. A mission statement, of course, is meaningless if its words are not translated into action. Furner will evaluate the ways in which UCLA’s MLIS program helps students develop their own practical understandings of how members of all social groups enjoy equitable access to the information.
That's Not My Name: Barriers of Trans-inclusivity within Academic Libraries, Lightning talk by Andi Johnson
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Trans people are often left out of discussion when discussing inclusive practices for all. In this session I hope to address some barriers that Trans people can face with access and use of academic libraries. I will discuss information gathered from academic libraries across the City of New York as well as students who use the libraries. In the conclusion I will reiterate the problems as well as solutions that the libraries can make to support their students.
The Professional Identity of Library Administrators and its Influence on Strategic Organizational Development, a presentation by Amy Andres
Leadership in higher education is generally characterized as top-down and hierarchical, further organized by formal, department-level administrative and supervisory roles. While having a formal administrative position within an institution gives meaning to a library administrator’s identity, there may be other constructs of a library administrator’s professional identity that are influential but not formally institutionalized. These other constructs may come from processes related to self-cognition and both intrapersonal and organizational dynamics. As a result, library administrators often navigate between multiple identities including those of leader, follower, and librarian.
Based on the results of a pilot study, this presentation illuminates the interplay of the multiple identities held by many academic library administrators. It outlines the historical and contextual factors that contribute to the salience of one identity over another and how these identities shift across time and situations. The presentation also highlights some of the struggles faced by library administrators who must resist role categorization based on professional stereotypes and administrative-academic boundaries. The presentation will include examples related to strategic organizational development.
Working at the intersection of leadership, followership, and librarianship can pose challenging issues for a library administrator. Understanding the social dynamic of multiple identities, within the context of organizational development, can help the library administrator better understand its influence and impact.
Transforming Imposter Syndrome: Empowering Librarians in Academia, a roundtable discussion with Paul Campbell and Katy Mathuews
New academic librarians often face the phenomenon of imposter syndrome as they navigate their early careers. As an extension, the notion that “Libraries Transform” acknowledges that libraries constantly face the challenges that imposter syndrome poses. Thus, this phenomenon may not be limited to new librarians, but to our profession as a whole including: librarians at all levels and specialties, physical spaces in libraries, library collections, and library services. Indeed, academic libraries remain in a state of constant transformation to stay relevant and better positioned to provide services that will meet the needs of current and future patrons.
The presenters seek to directly challenge the belief that imposter syndrome should be seen as a negative and temporary phase of our professional identities. True, imposter syndrome poses a great deal of anxiety for libraries and librarians, but it also identifies opportunities for professional growth, exploration, and development. For those who are brand new or veterans in academic librarianship, imposter syndrome should be embraced as an inspiration to continuously push our professional transformation.
In this roundtable, participants will discuss themes of embracing imposter syndrome as a positive part of our professional identities. The presenters will pose questions to identify the elements of our profession that contribute to imposter syndrome. The roundtable will then culminate in a discussion of the benefits of imposter syndrome in transforming our professional identities.
Who Are You?: Intersectionality in the Academic Library, a presentation by Desmond Wong
Academic libraries are focusing efforts towards the inclusivity and equity of their patrons. This presentation proposes that allied work is one of the means in which library staff can engage more deeply with their patrons. With the diversity of stakeholders that academic library staff serve/support/etc. on a daily basis, it is vital for us to recognize how our own intersectionalities affect our perception of library work and patrons. It seeks to define what allyship is and how it functions in the context of the academic library. Imperative to this discussion is acknowledgement of how libraries are complicit in the oppressive actions of colonialism and discrimination. In my own experience as a librarian of a visible minority working with the indigenous community, I must review my own intersections of privilege and power in order to identify potential areas of recreated hegemony. It is the responsibility of allied library staff to educate themselves on how best to support the communities with whom they stand in solidarity. In order to understand the history of oppression, all allies must constantly confront uncomfortable realities and analyze the structural legacy of their institutions before they can truly support all patrons. This presentation will also encourage participants to examine their own privilege in the context of intersectionality and how an understanding of that privilege must discourage replicating or creating new opportunities for colonialism or oppression.
Removing your mask: Impostor phenomenon among library leaders, a presentation by Elizabeth Martin
Imposter Phenomenon (IP) has been a popular topic in higher education for over 30 years. The term was coined by two psychologists, Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes, both of whom noticed reoccurring anxieties among successful women/men in managerial roles. IP is the constant feeling of being fraudulent in professional work and identity, and attribute professional successes as external to themselves. The presentation will give an overview of IP, discuss the literature of IP from other disciplines and how it relates to academic librarians, and will review the results of a survey/questionnaire conducted by the presenter regarding Impostor Phenomenon (IP) traits in library leaders. The IP portion of the instrument is the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Test (CIPS). The CIPS portion is then compared to a demographic portion of the instrument containing questions about age, race, gender, job classification, leadership role in their organization, their and their parent/guarding’s highest level of education. The survey findings are an attempt to link IP traits to librarian leader identity. Lastly, the presentation will discuss the correlation between leadership and IP, per the survey and the literature. Discussing how IP leaders have an outward appearance of confidence, drive, and poise, albeit inwardly they feel insecure about their own abilities. In addition, it will identify ways for IP sufferers to help shed their impostor masks and feel confident in themselves and their work.