We Need to Do Something

As I sat down to write this week's post, I learned about the tragedy of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. As of my typing this, there are 50 confirmed dead and 53 injured. Pulse, the location of this horrendous hate crime, was a gay club. It is Pride Month and it was Latin night. The victims of this completely preventable crime were there at a club that was likely a home away from home for them and on a night that was honoring and valuing the latin@s in the community. They should have been safe. This shouldn't keep happening. It just shouldn't. So if you're looking for a library oriented post this week, you'll have to wait until I publish the guest post on Thursday. I need to write about gun violence in this country.

i find myself searching for this tweet every few months pic.twitter.com/Nfb3o2WFM7

— EMO SLUT (@princess_labia) June 12, 2016

I understand the implied fatalistic attitude in that tweet, but I can't give into it. This is not inevitable. Nobody should have to live in constant fear that they will be the random victim of a bullet, and we all do now. We all do. Schools aren't safe. Libraries aren't safe. Churches aren't safe. Night clubs. Movie theaters. Nowhere is safe. And we deserve to feel safe. We need to do something about this.

Please, if you live in the US, contact your elected officials. Here are a few links you can use:

• Contact your senator. (I haven't found a way to link directly to the list, but that page has a pull down menu in the top right corner that is labeled "Find Your Senator".)
• Contact your representative.
• Contact your governor.

I'm not going to argue with anyone about whether or not we need gun control, so I'm turning the comments off for this post. If you try to bully me on other posts or on Twitter or wherever you can find me, that won't work either. I'm also not going to post all the countless works that have been written about how guns just mean more gun violence, not safety. If you haven't come to believe that yet, nothing I link is going to convince you. Guns are too easy to obtain. That's it. Or, in the words of my friend, Donna Lanclos:

Spew homophobic poison & insist on arming bigots & have the NERVE to offer feeble prayers instead of moral and legislative courage FUCK YOU

— Donna Lanclos (@DonnaLanclos) June 12, 2016

And here's one of the cutest gifs I've seen in a while as a way to thank you for taking action:

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Know When to Hold 'Em and Know When to Fold 'Em: On Being Privileged Sometimes

"Privilege" is a word that comes with steamer trunks' worth of baggage. For the purpose of this post, I am using this word within the context of social inequality, the unearned kind of privilege that comes at birth. For background, please refer to "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" and "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is."

One further warning: this is a post where I'm not sure yet of the answers to my questions, but the ideas are still important to me.

I think of myself as fairly privileged. I grew up the only child of two working adults at a time when that wasn't common, so it put my family solidly in the upper-middle-class income bracket. I lived in a fairly affluent neighborhood of a Boston, MA bedroom community. Heck, I lived down the street - for a year or two - from someone who played for the Boston Bruins. Nobody you'd've heard of, but still he and his wife lived there. I'm also Caucasian and able-bodied. I never joined and have always been vaguely but insistently embarrassed by this, but I could be a member of Daughters of the American Revolution since I'm a direct descendant of William Whipple.

So imagine my surprise when I got this result for a BuzzFeed quiz on privilege:

The thing is, that 63% of not being privileged doesn't show for the most part. There are questions on that quiz about never having to hide aspects of yourself, and wow I have done that. I've rarely told outright lies, but I've lost count of how many times I allowed assumptions to stand when I was a kid.

Yes, boys and girls and variations thereupon, I lead an intersectional life. I am a mixed up, messed up, wibbly-wobbly ball of privileged and oppressed.

And I'm not the only one. I've seen a number of people tweeting about this topic lately, but two individuals stand out:

Being white, my ONLY role in the black community is to listen to their lived experience and use my privilege to educate other white people.

— Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) July 24, 2015

If you're unaware, Brianna Wu is a video game developer and a self proclaimed "Gozilla of tech feminists." (She also has great taste in fictional leadership role models.)

Screen shot was the only way to get it all. Sorry. Source.

Daniel Solis is an art director and a game designer. Yes, I own games of his. I also had the fun task of doing some editing for him recently.

Most of us have lives like this: some truths about us that are oppressed and minority, but other qualities that are considered "normal" and carry privilege. I know this isn't a particularly library/librarian oriented post so far, but it's so important to discuss this kind of thing. We, as librarians and educators, need think about our privilege and/or lack as we move through our worlds. It's especially important for us to consider other voices in our collections and our programming and our hiring. But the most important thing, to bring it back to where I started, is for us to know when to speak and when to shut up. The second one is so hard for me, I have to admit. I'm so used to being the one shouting about my own stuff that I sometimes forget to be quiet when it's not. But I'm learning to listen. I'm learning not to center my concerns when it's not about my experiences.

How about you? How do you handle the intersections in your life of privilege and the lack?

Even For Academics, Selection Is Privilege

I try to keep abreast of what is going on in other spheres of the library world besides my own, especially the awards like the American Library Association Youth Media Awards. We have children's literature collection in my current library, a collection that supports an education major among other things, so you can see why it's a no-brainer for me to pay attention to these things.

So... when I learned about this year's list of winners, my first thought was about the purchase order request I was going to have to fill out soon. My second thought was elation because When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds was recognized for the awesomeness it contains. My final thought was that I really have to get around to reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson because holy guacamole it keeps winning awards. And that was where my thoughts ended... until now.

What happened? I learned that there are people - librarians! - who are upset at the fact that the winners were more diverse than they have been in a long time. My reaction:

Amy Koester wrote about how this all happened in a piece titled "Selection is Privilege." Her argument is a good and important one. Of course, Koester's focus is, understandably, on best methods for serving her public library community. Her perspective is somewhat different from how I've worked in the past, but the truth is, this focus on diversity is no less important for those of us in the academic library business. Diversity in my children's literature collection that we maintain to support the education department? Crucial. Diversity in our popular reading materials? Equally important. Beyond that, providing access to a broad range of authors and topics is key to the role of a library at a small academic library that serves the community at a liberal arts college. The materials we have here absolutely must be both broad and deep. Our budget is small, but I've made sure that we spend at least a small portion every year on books about and by underrepresented groups. It's important to my community and to me, and it has been important for a long time.

I'm grateful to Koester for making me think about this and for starting the conversation. Part of me had started to take it for granted that everyone thinks this way, especially since I tend to surround myself with like minded people. But I know this approach has been an evolution in the way I do collection development. I have to admit I wasn't as thoughtful in my approach when I was a new librarian. Ms. Koester helped me remember that not everyone has had the same realizations and opportunities I have.

I'm not sure what else I want to say about this because, to me, it's not a matter for debate. However, it seems that public libraries are sometimes as resistant to diverse books as the publishing industry. I'd like to hear about how other academic libraries handle diversity in their collections. Is it a conscious effort? Or is it a catch-as-catch-can kind of thing where you just buy what you buy without any kind of thought about representation? Or, worst of all, do you find your collection development is dictated by the same kind of cop-outs Koester quoted in her post, such as "We have a copy, but I can count the number of black patrons my library has in two weeks on one hand."?

I know I'm often preaching to the choir here, but more than most posts, I hope this has given you something to think about.

Black Lives Matter

Let this be the picture of Eric Garner that circulates tonight. pic.twitter.com/xUNqM5OgGg
— erin ashley (@ellhah) December 3, 2014

Normally, I write these fun little blog posts once per month. The series began when I'd run out of guest posts and had to pinch hit. I write about comic books and funny animal videos and music. I had one of the last planned for today - a little homage to Neil Diamond with some of my favorite songs and a story about the time I saw him in concert.

But then the grand jury failed to indict the police who were filmed choking Eric Garner - a choke hold that eventually killed him. Garner's last words were, "I can't breathe." If you'll click the link earlier in this paragraph, you'll find a political cartoon that captures exactly how I feel right now.

Let me backtrack a bit. I know it's a manifestation of my privilege that when I first encountered the hashtag #blacklivesmatter my response was, "Of course black lives matter! How is that even a question?" But there is no denying that my feelings aren't common.

Like any good academic librarian, I've spent time studying at the students at my school, a minority serving institution. They are annoying and sweet and angry and dumb and smart. We sometimes have to call security because things get too loud in the library and the students stop responding to staff. Things are sometimes so quiet in the library I feel guilty not tiptoeing. But when I look at our students, our students who look more like Trayvon Martin and Tarika Wilson than they look like me, I get scared to a level I can't capture in words. Me, a pedantic little wordsmith, unable to communicate my grief and fright.

I know I might be speaking into an echo chamber by writing this post. But maybe, if I'm lucky, the echo will resound beyond this chamber. Because really, black lives matter.

Politics Schmolitics – What Do Politics Have To Do With Libraries?, by Abigail Phillips

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Public libraries are very political. But, strangely, no one tells you this while you’re working on your MLIS, and I’ve always wondered why. Libraries exist in a political environment that has the power to cut our funding, damage our image in the community, and question our existence. Yet, we are taught almost nothing about dealing with politics during our MLIS coursework. While the political climate varies from library to library, the influence of politics is always present. [Editor’s Note: This is also true at academic libraries. Town/gown relationships can be minefields.] Young librarians and MLIS students should be aware of this since it has an impact on their day-to-day work experience, job security, and job satisfaction.

When I talk about “politics” in this post, I’m referring to outside political pressures, for example, city commissioners, school board, the media, and the community. In this post, I’m focusing on local politics. State and national politics more confusing than I have room to discuss. Neither am I discussing internal workplace politics are important and worth discussing. Workplace issues are often mentioned in MLIS coursework and seem to be better understood by new librarians. Anyway, workplace politics aren’t solely a library phenomenon; they exist in every work environment.

Back to the subject at hand: local politics.I learned about this early on in my library career. In my first position, I worked at a small rural library system in southwest Georgia, and my director was very good at playing the political game. (Minor disclaimer: almost all of my work experience has been in rural public libraries, so my experiences with politics come from a rural background.) When she started as director, she attended every meeting of the city council, board of commissioners, school board, etc. By doing so, she served as the face of the library. When county commissioners, members of the public, or local press had a question or critique of our library, she spoke up. Having a library representative available to politicians, the local press, and others, helped shorten the distance between the library and the local political world. Not only do libraries need to be engaged with patrons, but they also must be involved in political discussions. Maybe in larger library systems a public relations person takes over most of these duties, but for small libraries with limited funding and staff, these tasks often fall on the director and other administrators.

This is might sound terrible, but a good chunk politics for librarians involves playing nice. Whether it’s sending a birthday card to the husband or wife of a local representative, providing one-on-one tutorials on downloading ebooks to the chair of the zoning board, or personalized readers’ advisory for a county commissioner, catering to the political elite is often necessary. I don’t want to sound like public libraries should provide better service to politicians or big wigs than to the rest of the community. These are the same services we offer to all of our patrons, but the intensity is upped. I’m not sure if this is more true for rural communities than for others, but for rural libraries, the connections are so close and so critical. Everyone knows everyone’s business. People go to the same churches, know the same people. Gossip spreads easily. The school board member who you see at the gym may be the same person who votes nay on continuing library funding. You want these people to be on your side, rooting for the library or at the very least not attacking it in the press.

I would encourage young librarians to figure out the political landscape of their community, even if you aren’t at a rural library. If you don’t already know, figure out the answers to these questions: Who funds my library? Who are my county commissioners, school board members, and other local representations? How does the local press represent my library? How important is my library and our services to these individuals?

You may have no interest in becoming a director or administrator (I know I don’t), but it’s worthwhile to know how politics impact the work you do.

Abigail Phillips is a third-year doctoral student in the School of Information at Florida State University. Her research interests include social media, young adults, information behaviors, cyberbullying, information literacy, librarianship, and libraries. She tweets about all these things and much more @abigailleigh. Abigail also blogs about her experiences as a doctoral student at http://abigailleighphillips.com.