Beyond Diversity Speak: Practicing Cultural Humility in Your Library
October 25
9:00am – 3:30pm
Cedar Crest College
Beyond Diversity Speak: Practicing Cultural Humility in Your Library
October 25
9:00am – 3:30pm
Cedar Crest College
Attendees: Karen, Mary, Adam, Jess, Stephanie P., Stefani, Elise
June Meeting Minutes approved and posted to the blog
Financial Report – Adam
Fall Conference – Stefani
Chapter event: free film screening of The Public
Social Committee update
Blog update
Web update
Next meeting: September 18
Join us for a pre-screening social networking event at 5:00pm at Bonn Place Brewery in the Southside Bethlehem — even if you are unable to attend the screening!
Call for proposals: Beyond Diversity Speak: Practicing Cultural Humility in your Library
ACRL DVC 2019 Annual Fall Program
October 25, 2019, 9:00am – 3:30pm at Cedar Crest College
This year’s program will be focused on incorporating cultural humility into equity, diversity, and inclusion professional development in academic libraries.
Sara Ahmed (2012) describes diversity initiatives as frequently being “happy talk” that institutions write into their strategic plans and mission statements to manage their image but then do not integrate into everyday practice. While some libraries make a concerted effort to provide diversity or cultural competency training opportunities, often the attention is superficial and/or uninformed. Nicole Cooke (2016) stresses the importance of cultural humility in serving diverse populations.
Cultural humility is a cousin to cultural competency, but while cultural competency means learning about other cultures, cultural humility means continuously working to uncover how we and the institutions in which we engage are complicit in underserving some and overserving others and making ourselves accountable for rectifying the disparity. To do this, librarians and libraries need tools to help them reflect on themselves and their institutions, facilitate difficult discussions, and imagine new possibilities.
Lorin Jackson, the Research and Instruction Resident Librarian from Swarthmore College and co-founder of WOC+Lib, an online community dedicated to amplifying the voices of librarians of color, will run an interactive workshop in the afternoon on cultural humility that promises to be fun, enlightening, and practical.
We are now looking for proposals from academic librarians, staff members, and administrators for the morning session that examine the successes and failures they have experienced during their attempts to develop an environment of cultural humility within their libraries.
We also welcome theoretical explorations of the concept and practical discussions on how to apply these principles. We are accepting proposals for presentations, panels, and lightning talks. You may submit your proposal here. Please include the following information:
Email acrlpa.dvc@gmail.com with any questions about the process. We look forward to hearing from you!
The deadline to submit your proposal is Monday, September 23 with notification by Friday, September 27.
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cooke, N. A. (2016). Information services to diverse populations: Developing culturally competent library professionals. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
The ACRL DVC Board invite you to save Friday, October 25 for our 2019 Fall Program on cultural humility at Cedar Crest College from 9:00am – 3:00pm.
Sara Ahmed (2012) describes diversity initiatives as frequently being “happy talk” or “papered diversity” that institutions write into their strategic plans and mission statements to manage their image but then do not integrate into everyday practices.
While some libraries make a concerted effort to provide diversity or cultural competency training through professional development opportunities, often the attention is superficial or uninformed. By incorporating cultural humility into equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives, libraries can help shift their institutional cultures rather than simply check off the boxes.
Cultural humility is a cousin to cultural competency, but while cultural competency means learning about other cultures, cultural humility means continuously working to uncover how we and the institutions in which we engage are complicit in under-serving some cultures while over-serving others and making a commitment to rectify the disparity.
Through speakers, lightning talks and workshops, this program will give librarians tools to self-reflect, facilitate difficult discussions, and imagine new possibilities.
We happy to announce that Lorin Jackson, the Research and Instruction Resident Librarian from Swarthmore College and co-founder of WOC+Lib, an online community dedicated to amplifying the voices of librarians of color, will run an interactive workshop in the afternoon on cultural humility that promises to be fun, enlightening, and practical.
Please put October 25th on your calendar and start to think about whether you might like to present – the Call for Proposals will go out soon!
We look forward to seeing you all again and to continue to build our community.
*Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, ND: Duke University Press.
Attending: Jess Denke, Stefani Gomez, Meaghan Moody, Jessica Brangiel, Adam Mizelle, Megan Donnelly, Sarah Wingo, Leslie O’Neill
Minutes from the June 2019 meeting were approved.
Megan Donnelly has accepted a new position with the Claremont Colleges. Congratulations to Megan! Karen Sheldon has agreed to continue as the webmaster.
Sarah brought up the legislative board position.
Administrivia
Adam provided the financial report
Spring Program Review
Open Scholarship Learning Community
Blog Update
Web Update (Karen)
Archive Update
Fall Program Planning Committee Update (Stefani)
Spring 2020 Program (Stefani)
Social Committee Updates
DVC has planned a screening of The Public at the SteelStacks Theater in Bethlehem
Fall social program in the city? Free Library of Philadelphia space maybe?
Mentor Program Update (Stefani)
Resume Review Update (Stefani )
Transitions
Next Board Meeting
I’m Mary Huissen, the new editor of the ACRL DVC blog. I’m the Librarian for Assessment + User Experience at Swarthmore College, which means (to steal a sentence from my job description) I’m responsible for providing “vision, leadership and strategic direction for assessment activities within the college libraries, with particular focus on the users’ experience, encompassing library services, digital interfaces and physical spaces.”
I’m passionate about my work at Swarthmore, and since the position is a new-ish one, I have learned how vital it is to communicate with colleagues both inside and outside the libraries about what it is I do, why it is important and the impact of my research.
In a similar light, I hope that this blog will help spread the word about the great work of the ACRL DVC. I’ve been inspired by every program I’ve attended and deeply appreciate the opportunities the Chapter provides for professional development and for getting to know colleagues at other institutions.
In addition to being happy to go to work each day, I really enjoy outdoor activities, travel, (combining those two things with tent camping, especially if there is a lake nearby) spending time with my friends and family and the company of my faithful companion Owen, a rescue dog of nondescript breed.
I hope to post news regularly so look for the Subscribe button on the lower right of this page and sign up to be notified of new content. And if you have ideas for blog posts or are interested in posting something as a guest, please let me know!
The Blog Editor position of the ACRL DVC Board is now open!
I, Megan Donnelly, previously Research Librarian/Instructor at Millersville University, have filled the position for the past year. I am leaving the position because I accepted the position of Teaching and Outreach Librarian at the Claremont Colleges Services, located in Claremont, CA. As an early career librarian, serving on this board not only looked great on my resume while I was interviewing but this experience also gave me an opportunity to network with other librarians in the region. I was able to meet new librarians and learn about their institutions while also building an understanding of how serving on a board works. I was also able to use my blogging experience on the board to publish a guest post for the ACRLog’s FYAL (First Year Academic Librarian) Series. Serving on the board has been a great experience for me and I highly recommend getting involved with ACRL DVC.
The Blog Editor attends virtual monthly board meetings and one in-person meeting per year and writes blog posts that advertise and recap chapter events and programs, present meeting minutes, and explore other areas of interest to librarians. This position also posts to Twitter and live Tweets from programs.
If you would like to be ACRL DVC’s new Blog Editor, please write 180 words presenting any relevant experience you have and why you’d like the position and send it to ACRL DVC President, Stefani Gomez at acrlpa.dvc@gmail.com.
April 17, 2019
ACRL DVC Board Meeting
Attendees: Jess, Elise, Jessica, Megan, Carol, Sarah, Stephanie, Stefani, Adam, Sara
Board has agreed to update membership fees to $15 for ACRL national members and to $20 for non ACRL national members as of July 1. The chapter will offer free membership to students and first year librarians.
Next board meeting: June 18, 2019 10 AM – noon at the Tredyffrin Public Library (582 Upper Gulph Rd. Strafford, PA 19087)
ACRL Delaware Valley Chapter Spring 2019 Program
April 26, 2019 at Penn State Great Valley
On a spring morning, librarians gathered at the Penn State Great Valley campus to engage in the interactive ACRL National, Scholarly Communications RoadShow. The workshop was led by two expert presenters, Carla Myers, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Scholarly Communications of Miami University Libraries, and Will Cross, Director of the Copyright and Digital Scholarship Center of North Carolina State University. The workshop started with an introduction to the field of scholarly communications and copyright.
Afterwards, lunch commenced! When lunch was finished, the business meeting was held. President Jess Denke and Vice President Stefani Gomez discussed opportunities for members to participate in chapter activities including the mentoring program, resume review, social committee, board, and new Open Scholarship/OER learning community. The mentorship relationships that have been established by the chapter over the past year are going well. The resume review is ongoing. Jess also announced a $5 increase in membership dues annually and provided opportunity for comment from attendees. This increase is an attempt to provide financial stability to the chapter while increasing equitable access to membership. This year the chapter has extended free membership to students and first-year librarians.
In the afternoon, the presenters focused deeply on OER and accessibility. Presenters prompted discussion and facilitated interactive learning activities throughout the day. If you would like to take a look at live tweets from attendees, follow the hashtag #acrldvcspring19 on Twitter.
Here are brief summaries of what was shared during the workshop with links to the presenters’ slides.
Will started the day framing the big issues surrounding scholarly communication in the field. He began by stating that scholarly communication should be a part in every job description because it is something that all librarians do in some way, shape or form.
All areas of library work fit into scholarly communication from acquisition and content licensing to discovery and access for all. He explained that scholarly communication can be thought of as a system of interconnected systems starting with a research idea, moving into the creation of a research project, formulating ideas and findings that can be shared for replication and testing and then resulting in a final published format to again be shared and made discover-able to the larger community.
Will highlighted the fact that throughout the scholarly communication process we see various pressures applied to those engaged in scholarly communication. For example, “prestige publishing”or publishing in the “right” journals is a form of social pressure faculty encounter when up for tenure review. These “prestige” publications also exert economic pressures on library budgets struggling to afford subscriptions to these high priced publications and on researchers who may not have access through a library and are faced with expensive article charges. Additional pressures within the scholarly communication process include both technological and policy related. Scholarly publications have been slow to change from the print model which was time consuming and priced according to physical publication requirements. The digital world has made the production, reproduction, and publication process much quicker and easier but more difficult for traditional publishers to wrangle. This leads us to the questions: “Are the prestige journals still needed if research results can be published much quicker and easier to GitHub for example? ” and “How do researchers meet scholarly communication policy pressures – for example open access mandates? “. These are all issues researchers, publishers and librarians are grappling when it comes to dealing with scholarly communications. These same pressures also present opportunities for change within the scholarly communication system. New publishing models have come about and in some cases expanded standards for tenure review (i.e. the acceptance of blog postings as published works.)
→View presenters’ introduction slides.
In the morning, Carla talked in depth about issues of copyright. First, she reviewed the basics of copyright. Carla covered what is copyrightable and not copyrightable; what rights are granted to copyright owners; who owns copyright; how long copyright lasts; and a whole host of exceptions, including Fair Use. She also discussed licensing works and different types of licenses, as well as publication agreements.
In the afternoon, Carla spoke in depth about the need for accessible content and systems for our patrons who are living with disabilities or may need assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to utilize library materials. She touched on the following points:
In the afternoon, Will led attendees in a discussion on Open Education Resources (OER)—from textbooks to isolated resources—such as single exercises—to entire open courses. Will defined OER as free, educational resources but those still requiring permission to use them—like any copyrighted materials. This tied in nicely with Carla’s discussion of various licensing agreements, including Creative Commons licenses. Will discussed the advantages of open education resources, as well as potential barriers (and incentives) to their use and creation.
Thank you to everyone who attended the program, as well as Carla, Will and the board for making the program a success!