Midwinter Postmortem

Just wanted to do a little post mortem on the rest of my experience at the Midwinter conference in Philadelphia, which I rather criticized in my last post.  Overall, the experience was very positive and helpful, and again, I don’t blame ALA for the problems I pointed out last time.  LGBTQ literature, while important, is still very niche, and it is up to those of us with a stake in the benefits its existence provides to see that our organizations and publications reflect our need.  Onward!

My experience in Philadelphia was very food oriented and very game oriented.  The food part had little to do with actual conference happenings--it was most thanks to the Reading Terminal Market and the very good taste of my local friend Brendan--but I did attend one of those “What’s Cooking at ALA?” sessions on the exhibit hall floor, goofy as such things are, and had a great time.  The one I hit was pizza-based, hosted by pizza expert, tour guide and box art specialist/record holder Scott Wiener, who was very engaging on the subject for ten o’clock in the morning.  He coached the small but enthusiastic crowd on proper pizza technique (I now know how to avoid tip sag) and cooked us up a pie to sample while waiting for him to sign free copies of his book on pizza boxes for us.  I liked his signature line style--he had a ready stream of questions for each of us that ensured non-awkward interaction and gave the impression  of complete personalization.  Mine was “What’s your least favorite pizza topping?” to which I quickly answered “black olives,” so he drew me a black olive with a no-smoking sign through it.  What  a sweetheart.

A more unfortunate floor experience came when I accidentally got a book signed by Cal Thomas before I realized he was an archaeoconservative homophobe.  I would have felt bad snubbing him, though.  (I have to snicker at “the Queen Latifa” and “Ellen Degenerous” though, but seriously, stop shouting in all-caps, Cal!  We can hear you.)

But games!  You know I love games, dear readers, and their potential for library use and enrichment.  I attended two sessions hosted by the GameRT (Game Round Table--there’s a group for every interest at ALA!) in general, one by the Game-Making Interest Group in particular.  Got some great ideas on how to host a board game program at a library, particularly one focused on introducing seniors to “modern” board games.  There’s research to be done here, folks!  Also a great description of a really fun-sounding murder mystery event out near Seattle.  I would love to hold such a thing.  It all goes to show that there’s a world of possibility for the incorporation of existing games and game-like behavior in libraries, and there’s an audience and a purpose for it.

The game-making event was more generally informational, which was great in its own way.  To my pleasant surprise, the best practices that the facilitator mentioned were provided by Mary Broussard, librarian at my alma mater!  She bases her pointers off the success of her anti-plagiarism game.  Very cool to hear about Lycoming College in a non-alumni setting.  The Game-Making IG is in need of more active members; I don’t know, should I volunteer?  (If you’re interested in the best practices, other game making resources, and coding self-help that was mentioned at this session, dear readers, please let a blogger know; otherwise I shan’t trouble you.)

http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/tutorials/plagiarismGame.aspx

The president’s program was also a great time, and got me on to a new-ish organization that I hope to involve myself with at some point.  The Harry Potter Alliance aims to use the power of fiction, and the enthusiasm fiction inspires, to tackle real-world problems.  I’m overjoyed, because I’ve long felt that fandom generates a lot of energy that is--well, I won’t say ‘misdirected,’  because a lot of creative stuff comes out of it, and we don’t have to judge people for simply enjoying anything and never taking it further.  But I will say that with all that energy in the world, it’s good to have an alternate outlet for it towards issues of social justice and need.  The organization’s founder gave a very inspirational speech, if annoyingly read directly from paper (he had been sick and had probably not had enough time to prepare; still, the parts where he went off script, either for humorous or passionate effect, were the most worthwhile parts of his two-hour talk).  I encourage all of you involved in fandom of one ilk or another to check out HPA’s website and think about getting involved, especially as their very grassroots campaigns have begun to branch out from strictly Potterverse flavors.  (What kind of social problems could the Game of Thrones fandom address?  Several funny answers spring to mind, but war refugee relief would be a good, serious one.)

There were a few other bits and pieces, but those were the highlights for me.  All in all this was a lonelier experience for me than ALA Annual was, lacking my buddies Esther, Natalie and Bryan (missed you guys!).  But special thanks to the aforementioned Brendan, as well as Natasha and Alicia, for being stalwart dinner companions and makeshift innkeepers, and to librarians Matt and Cheng, friends who I met up with along the way (sometimes unexpectedly) to make the between-session time pass more pleasantly.

Now, on to Vegas!

ALA Midwinter Update

24 January 2014
Frigid Tundra (Philadelphia)

After an arduous journey by amtrak-coach during which all possible indignities were thoroughly experienced (a seat partner in the last third of the trip!  A power outage-caused hour-plus delay!  Old jerk bonhomie train conversation!  Blatant hat-head!), I made it to New-York City and thence, this morning, to Old Philadelphia, where ALA is holding its midwinter hibernation stretch.  A much-needed Indian supper was had at Reading Terminal Market before I plunged into the conference...

...where the session I was aiming for was canceled, the exhibit floor doesn't open 'til 5:30, and these young librarians playing Librarians Against Humanity don't seem open to outsiders inviting themselves in.

So I made my way down to the ALA store, where, after a few glimpses through some indexes to determine the quality of the publications (thanks, Dr. Nesset!), I noticed something distressing.

Very few of the books published by ALA and available right now have anything to say about the experiences of LGBT patrons and employees.  Indeed, by my best estimate, not a single book available at the ALA store is focused primarily on this demographic.

Now, did I look through the index of every book in the room?  No.  Nor, I'm sure, did I see the title, spine or cover of every available publication.  I very well could have missed something.

And there were a couple of signs of LGBT presence in our professional thought processes.  Two books on kids and young adult services, admirably, possessed some glancing mention of LGBT needs.  So there's that.

But all these things serve to underscore several points that are rather unfortunate:

1.  ALA (and by extension, librarians) are still thinking primarily in terms of LGBT youth when they think about LGBT people at all, ignoring millions of people with critical needs and wants.

2. If there are more books on this subject currently available, the ALA store at this conference did not do a good job featuring them; none of the out-facing books had anything to do with writings on the LGBT experience.

3.  As a publisher, ALA displays a lack of consistency in classifying and indexing LGBT-focused passages, which may have led to my missing any more such passages than I found; in the books that did feature some indexing on the subject, they were indexed under different terms, with less than exhaustive cross referencing in all cases.

4.  Assuming I didn't miss anything due to (2) and (3), few ALA writers are interested in addressing this demographic's service needs in a long-form format.

I point no fingers; a publishing concern can't control the topics submitted by its writers in more than a rudimentary way, and convention staff can't feature products that aren't there.  There could be more control exerted in indexing standards (how hard would it be to adopt a consistent form across ALA publications?), but if there isn't huge interest among the professional body to address these topics in book form, there won't be any published products.

Which means those of us librarians so concerned need to address this lack.

FAU Library Denies Access for Maybe Legitimate Reason; Still Fails All Around

Looks like a nice enough place... [http://www.library.fau.edu/treasure/Library_files/FAU112.jpg]

A very unfortunate thing happened at the Florida Atlantic University library a few weeks ago.

(WPTV) Turned away for looking like a woman. That is what a gay, male Florida Atlantic University student claims happened on Wednesday at the campus library.

Abdul Asquith said he was trying to check out a laptop to study for his communications classes.

"She looked at the ID and looked down at it. She said, 'You sound, look and act like a girl and in this ID is a man, therefore I'm not giving you a laptop,' " said Asquith.

Asquith said he was wearing an FAU hoodie, shorts and had his long hair pulled back. (http://www.wcsh6.com/news/national/article/261226/45/Florida-student-says-he-was-turned-away-for-being-gay)

Asquith apparently made his way through several levels of what he and the media refer to as librarians, each impugning his identity, before he was finally allowed the use of a laptop.

I have two rants to deliver on the subject of this appalling story: first, about the library staff’s ignorant and hurtful behavior, and second, about deeper issues of perception and trust that the incident places in stark relief.

The incident: A breakdown of librarian values

The following is predicated on the assumption that the staff who denied Asquith a computer were, in fact, making the call on the basis of discomfort with his gender expression.

I’m sure that there are plenty of librarians out there who would personally disagree with my avowed progressive, humanist philosophy, a personal philosophy that nevertheless deeply informs my approach to librarianship.  It’s entirely possible to be a good librarian without having voted for Barack Obama or whatever other political benchmark you want to set.

That said, there’s a certain minimum standard we need to meet in order not to betray the ethics of our profession, and that standard does align with a liberal worldview.  It’s right there in the very first point in the ALA Code of Ethics:

1. We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests. (emphasis mine)

So, I’m sorry--whomever you pull the lever for, whatever you rally for, whatever unfortunate opinions on issues of race, gender, sexuality, etc. that are counted as a-ok wherever you were raised or currently live--you have to leave all that baggage at the door when you walk into the library, because if not, you are going to be a terrible librarian.  And we all want to be good at our jobs, don’t we?

I’m really trying not to have a big subjective political screed here, but our professional forefathers got together decades ago and looked at what we do and how we do it and laid out, in simple terms, the basic things we must accomplish in order to consider that we are doing our job ethically.  If you have a serious issue with ‘unconventional’ gender expression and you can’t look past it for eight hours a day, you should perhaps consider another profession, one that isn’t so rough on your prejudices.

Again, I’m sure that lots of librarians who are perfectly decent human beings hold differing thoughts and feelings from me, and then manage to behave appropriately and helpfully to all patrons they encounter at work.  But the folks at FAU failed that big time, even if they denied Asquith the laptop under the most generously-assumed version of events, and we should talk about why and how that happened.

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/122-youre-doing-it-wrong

To be sure, this would not be the only time that libraries have flirted with the worse angels of the American character.  During the Jim Crow era, many southern libraries and library systems practiced segregation--but even then, it was recognized that this spat in the face of library ideals, and libraries ended up desegregating at a much faster pace than other institutions.

Now, I have more than a suspicion that at least a couple of the ‘librarians’ who behaved so execrably to this student were no librarians at all, but most likely FAU students hired to man the various service desks, or possibly paraprofessionals.  That doesn’t get the FAU librarians off the hook, though.  If we are going to populate library service jobs with non-librarians--as is increasingly the case--we need to make sure that those employees are as on-board with our professional ethics as we are.  We’re not really fulfilling our role, and the ALA code of ethics, if we are letting anyone make our patrons feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in our institutions, chilling their pursuit of information and entertainment and building walls between libraries and some of the most information-hungry segments of society.

That is the main issue, and whether or not discrimination was intended, FAU should apologize to the individual affected and to the community at large (which I cannot find any indication that they have done).  The fact is that the appearance of discrimination is troubling enough, as is the appearance that the library and university don’t care enough to bother setting the record straight.  Which leads nicely to my second rant...

The aftermath: An imbroglio of public perception

And now to address the controversy under the assumption that staff did not intentionally discriminate against Asquith.

Despite the awful way this situation was handled, some commenters have pointed out at least one justification for the library’s vigilance, if not the tactics employed--a justification I am inclined to be sympathetic to, as it corresponds with efforts to carry out and protect the library’s mission.  Basically it boils down to protecting the library’s property from what employees perceived as a possible fraudster--an individual misrepresenting him or herself as a student to gain access to potentially valuable equipment.  This is possibly, then, a case of the failure of appropriate training, and not one of sexual identity discrimination (another point that makes me feel that these weren’t actual librarians, as we tend to be sensitive to the need for verification before denying access to anyone).  And yet nowhere is there a statement from the library or the school explaining their rationale, however misguided, for challenging Asquith’s right to equipment--leaving a resounding silence filled with uncomfortable questions.

(And can I say, for just a moment, how stupid it would be for a female identity thief to present the ID card of a male student in order to pull off this fraud?  I know that criminals have done dumber things, but really, let’s think this through before jumping to point ‘z’ here.  Yet another factor that leads me to believe that these were not librarians, and probably not adults, but, in fact, somewhat dull student assistants who really should have gone to a supervisor immediately.)

So, on top of all the other failures here, we have a failure of that activity that we as librarians seem to have an ongoing problem getting right, despite the exhortations of our most visionary library school instructors: PR.  This has been a disaster of perception not just for the FAU library, but for librarianship as a whole.  I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with colleagues who cause comments like this and let them go unaddressed:

“Three different librarians?  Wow.”

“Asquith: 1; Library Nazi: 0.”

“Now the librarians are stupid? Time to run for the border.”

(All from the comments section of the story on ThinkProgress.)

All three of these representative reactions demonstrate a different PR nightmare that FAU could have ameliorated with a sincere and accurate statement responding to the controversy.  The first quote demonstrates the uncritical view that anyone working in a library is a librarian.  The second shows what may be a pre-existing animus towards libraries (perhaps another symptom of the same kind of anti-librarian sentiment I explored in this post), or at least a willingness to ascribe a general skepticism of authority figures to librarians, as well.  Finally, the third quote, perhaps the most upsetting of all, seems to come from someone who initially had faith in librarians’ positive role, but for whom that faith was shaken by our complicity in the mistreatment of Asquith.

Why, why, why, FAU?

It would be so easy to set people’s minds at ease, let them know that this isn’t what librarians are all about, and that you will try to fix the issues at your institution.  But no--nothing.  Please let me know if I missed it somewhere, but I have found nothing by way of a response.

And if they think that there’s no reason to respond to such a “small” story that has no doubt been blown out of proportion by at least one “liberal media source”--sorry, no.  Even if ThinkProgress hadn’t picked the story up, FAU still owes its community an apology.  That done, the library owes our profession a signal of its efforts to restore the reputation that its failings have marred.

This isn’t the only recent story that paints librarians in a bad light and has left a bad taste in the public’s mouth.  Remember the librarian that “robbed” a child of his reign at the top of the summer reading program?  At least that library responded to criticism, to its credit, but for some reason our message has less of a chance of bursting through the narrative when it comes to negative PR.  We do a great job with the positive stories most of the time, for which I am grateful, but the negative stories catch us flat-footed and paint us as totally out of touch--even when there is another side to the story.

What a disaster. And what's worse, now there's ammunition people can use against us from both political sides. There are the perennial rightward attacks about too much access and the children, my God, the children! (as most recently embodied in the current dust-up in Illinois where it's claimed that libraries allow kids to access porn)--now there's a little more weight to the paranoid Left's potential criticisms that we are yet another institution that punishes diversity, no matter how isolated such instances are, and no matter how much evidence there is that we are actually, generally, great allies and resources for everyone in the American tapestry. Check out LAMBDA for one great recent example of our efforts as a profession to reach out.

So, FAU library and librarians, you have failed.  If your administration gagged you and you went along with it--sorry for the rough decision, but, well, fail.  

And I think that’s it.  That’s what gets in the way of librarians really fostering an ability to “do” PR and shape negative public perception in positive ways.  That’s why we might be okay as long as we’re promoting cutesy and successful kids’ programming, but we’ll always be behind the curve when it comes to image damage control.  This is it: we don’t want to rock the boat.  We want to believe that if we keep our heads down, it’ll all go away and everything will work itself out.  Anything else is just too uncomfortable.

Until the profession can move beyond this discomfort en masse, we’ll keep sending mixed signals as in the Asquith case, and we’ll keep leaving too many resounding gulfs of unanswered questions.

Opening Up a Can of Libraries on All the World's Problems

I’ve been thinking a lot about the world’s big problems lately.  Fracking poisoning our water supply, pesticide cocktails killing off the bees, climate change, privacy and the government’s reach (and the public’s inability to adequately gauge appropriate levels of either)--it’s all so overwhelming.  I believe that staying informed and voicing our opinions on these issues can help, but it’s a minor kind of help at best, a lot of the time.

So I like to go looking for domains in which the efforts of the little people can have outsized positive consequences. Luckily, my own lovely librarianship is one where small-scale and grassroots efforts are doing incredible things for communities, the country and the world by bridging access gaps, addressing special needs, promoting literacy and so much more.  Here are just a few of my favorite examples of such efforts--I hope they brighten your occasional gloomy outlook!

• The Volunteer Librarian Brigade: This radical, grassroots effort based in New York City brings the ‘roving librarian’ concept to a whole new, and necessary, level.  It doesn’t occur to many people out on the street to go to a library to get help, so these folks bring the library to the streets.  Professional librarians train volunteers in the basics of reference and research work, then they all head out to make a difference.  If you’re in the New York area, consider joining up!
• Librarians Build Communities: In the same wheelhouse, this is a web-based service pairing librarians (and their skills) with communities and organizations in need.  It’s another kind of roving, this time focused on the things librarians do that are not necessarily book-oriented.  Why haven’t we been doing this for decades?
• The Internet Public Library: Another go-where-they-are entry, this website brings reference services to the masses over the non-threatening medium of the Internet--and as a bonus, it provides real-world experience for LIS students, which is always great (and somewhat rare!).  Search their site or submit a query, and dedicated (or dictated) volunteers will soon have a detailed answer for you.  It’s hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology, so you can trust their quality-control to have some cred.
• Little Free Library: As far as i’m concerned, this one is almost venerable at this point--not because of age, but because of the impact it’s made during its existence.  So simple, so good.  The mini libraries built with the support of the folks running this show are cute, artsy, and/or surreal in form, and they’re popping up all over--taking ‘take a book, leave a book’ up a level or twelve.
• ALA Think Tank: Social media drives this community that underscores the quirky, funny, and unabashedly rough-hewn side of librarianship.  This group is an incubator for great ideas and great librarians.
• LibraryReads: This is a brand-new book recommendation initiative.  It’s extremely open--any employed public librarian will be able to contribute recommendations and reviews once the service launches in the fall.  Sure, it’s a major undertaking with a snazzy website and everything, but by its nature this kind of reader’s advisory has a very personal touch.  And of course, pulling book recommendation out of the hands of the publishers’ echo chamber and the rarefied ivory tower of the critics can only be a good thing for readers!
• Libraries Changed My Life tumblr: A great public outreach tool.  What better way to pump up the public than by asking them to share their own beautiful bibliotecky memories?  The posts so far are funny, sweet and throat-lump inducing.  And it’s a tumblr blog, which is just so full of win right now, to use the argot of the day.
• Queer For Books: An individual effort that fills a serious gap, this evolved from an LIS student project into what is, in my ever so highly qualified opinion, the go-to resource for LGBTQ resources and knowledge for the information professional.  LGBTQ patrons tend to languish on the underserved side of public institutions, due to the population’s innate tendency toward invisibility and a lack of awareness of those knowledge gaps on the part of non-LGBTQ professionals.  This fills those gaps most admirably for librarians.  Big kudos to my web-friend Sami Gardner for building this.  If my readers do nothing else with my blog, please put this site in your toolbox!
• The librarian who banned a book: I love this guy and what he did and why he did it.  He made a stir over what is often an ossified  issue that is often condemned by rote, or worse, ignored entirely.  Of course we all mostly oppose book banning, but until it happens in our community, we are rarely moved to agitate for the right of freedom of expression and inquiry.  If that sounds gloomy for this hope-oriented post, take a page from DiMarco and...ban a book at your library?  Never thought I’d be saying that...
• Librarians LOUD: Okay, so this might be a little bit of tooting my own horn. I was part of a group of library students at the University at Buffalo who staged this three-day event last year, which included a game-filled festival, lively panels, an information booth, visible read-outs around campus, and a rally outside the university president’s office building.  The goal?  To raise awareness that we exist, that we have voices, that yes, you need a  master’s degree to be a librarian.  We hoped to get students and faculty talking about those noisy, kooky kids with the silly signs out on the pavement--and we succeeded.  Now we’re planning Librarians LOUD 2--Louder and Librarian-er! (That’s not what we’re calling it.)  This year, we’re hoping to get other schools and libraries involved, too.  Wanna be loud with us?  Email me at andalex34@gmail.com!

The point of all of these examples is that everything librarians touch turns to gold.  Okay, maybe not gold, but we do a lot of things to make a lot of things better--our patrons’ lives, their communities, and our own profession.  Radical, individual, and/or grassroots expressions of the knowledge, power and importance of librarianship help move society forward.

That makes me feel better.