Libraries in the 21st Century

Here’s a rather inspiring video from Ingrid Parent, former president of IFLA. Parent has a great outlook on library outreach. Check it out:

Also, please consider joining Librarians Without Borders, if you’re a part of the profession, or making a contribution if you believe in the power of information and equal access to it. I find their values to be very much in line with the spirit of this blog.

Libraries have a fundamental role as defenders of intellectual freedom and providers of equal access to information.

Access to information is vital in supporting learning and literacy, reducing poverty, empowering citizens, and building healthy, strong communities.

We do not draw cultural or linguistic boundaries – diversity is embraced; we will work with our partners in their own cultural context and in their own languages.

Our efforts are enhanced by working collaboratively, internally as well as externally with the domestic and international community, to further our mutual goals.

Some Examples of Cool LIS Stuff Happening Around the World!

So far, my blog has been fairly US-centric. It’s been difficult to find literature about librarian approachability in languages I can read. In order to give you, my faithful reader(s), some idea of what librarians around the world are doing these days, I now present

Librarians from Around the Globe on YouTube!

Librarians from the University of Sheffield previewing their talk at the Internet Librarian International 2012 conference.

A video with photographs from the launching of the International Conference on Academic Libraries based in Delhi.

A wonderful glimpse of the power of programming at the Mathare North Community Library in one of the poorest slums in Kenya. (Check out Book Aid International on YouTube for more amazing stuff.)

The Miami Dade Public Library put together this video about their International Art of Storytelling program.

An interesting video with Fiona Bradley from IFLA on international librarianship and where it’s heading in the future.

Basically, if you’d like to see more inspiring and informative videos about what librarians are doing around the world, I highly recommend a YouTube search for “international libraries.” You will find a treasure trove of great stuff!

 

Librarian Stereotypes and Approachability

Information professionals have long endured the stereotype of the shushing librarian. In fact, even Library Journal identified this trope in 2012: “My stereotype librarian is a pleasantly plump, middle aged white woman who really likes to help people and can’t understand why more people don’t want her help. Is there someone like that on your staff, or is it just the librarians I’ve known over the years?” 

Um, really?!?

What’s so sad (and angering) about this stereotype’s persistence is that librarians are a diverse group of people with a diverse range of skills and interests. Yet American culture, at the very least, continues to ignore that librarianship, with all its own issues, is opening up to more and more people of color, men, and queer-identified people. And the libraries in our communities also mirror that diversity, in programming and outreach efforts especially.

Just today, the Huffington Post published an article on diversity in libraries and targeted programming to “bridge” the cultural divide.

How do we as information professionals continue to break the stereotype of the middle-aged white female librarian and replace it with a more culturally accurate representation?

This is a challenge, for sure. As I mentioned in my last blog, the librarian trope has been moving away from librarianship as a “helping” profession and more towards the trendy, “hipster” image we’ve seen, especially in the librarian blogosphere. While it’s definitely important to acknowledge and celebrate the new generation of librarians and information professionals, it is still troubling to see so many young, white people (with tattoos and piercings and dyed hair and all of that) representing the profession in the culture. (Disclaimer: I probably fall into this category, although I’m not as young as many coming out of library school.) Where are the rural librarians? What about inner city librarians who get their degree and go on to help in their own communities? What about international librarians, who leave the relative comfort of their own country to work in other places? What about librarian-activists who work around these issues and get shut down by various LIS administrators?

Basically, as I see it, lip service to the goals of diversity does nothing. Only action will change the stereotype and widen the field for LIS professionals everywhere. For example, ALA’s decision to hold its annual conference in Orlando, FL in 2016 is a decision that affects African American librarians; the Black Caucus of ALA has decried ALA’s decision based on the grounds that Florida has appallingly racist pro-gun laws and was the place that George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering a black teenager. This is a very concrete example of how organizations deliberately ignore the needs and desires of the very professionals they claim to want to draw into librarianship.

All this to say… we can do better. For ourselves, for each other, and for our customers. Diversity shouldn’t be a buzz word in the literature or corporatized beyond all meaning; it should be a commitment to inclusion and a natural part of our work.

 

How Gender, Ethnicity, and Age Affect Approachability

When we approach a librarian at a reference desk or anywhere else in the library, do we feel that it’s easier to approach if the librarian looks like us? Is it easier to talk to a librarian who might share the same cultural experiences or who knows that the librarian’s life experience is similar? It’s entirely possible.

Quickly going back to the Bonnet and McAlexander study, Structural Diversity in Academic Libraries: A Study of Librarian Approachability, we see that the authors consider the fact that structural diversity, or the diverse hiring practices within a library system. They write:

While the term “diversity” comprises a wide constellation of experiences, skills, and cultural backgrounds (often termed “invisible diversity”), it also includes external, visible characteristics such as gender, age, and racial/ethnic affiliation.

These identities are part of every librarian, for sure, but they do not constitute the whole picture of approachability, nor of identity as it pertains to hiring practices.

I came across a brief, but important, review of the Bonnet and McAlexander study. In Gender, Race, and Age of Librarians and Users Have an Impact on the Perceived Approachability of Librarians, Dominique Daniel of Michigan’s Oakland University, suggests that the study is fairly accurate in its assessment that “visible demographic characteristics matter in people’s first impressions of librarians.” She agrees that diversity measures, or structural diversity initiatives, are vital to academic (and I would argue, all libraries) libraries in that they provide the user an opportunity to interact with people outside of their usual comfort zone and to challenge their own cultural assumptions. Furthermore, the need for male librarians is great if we are to break the stereotype that librarianship is a woman-dominated profession.

This is an excellent observation from Daniel:

The survey was administered at a Midwestern university, where the ethno-racial makeup and culture are somewhat different from other regions, but the authors offer seemingly uniform, nationwide recommendations about the need for diversity programs.

Indeed, the Midwest can be less racially diverse than the rest of the country, and the world, for that matter. I full-heartedly agree with Daniel that blanket recommendations are problematic. As I see it, library administrations must consider the cultural needs of their library systems, not only engaging in diversity initiatives, but also gearing their programming towards the needs of the community. That is how you bring more people into the library.

Dressing for Success? Librarian Approachability, Attire, and Affect in Popular Culture

One of the more interesting (and variable) parts of librarian approachability is the librarian’s attire and presentation. In fact, the media has been nearly obsessed recently with the “hipster librarian,” a new generation of tattooed, pierced, fashion-conscious, but well-trained and highly capable, librarians and information professionals. Even librarians themselves have perpetuated this new mythology about librarians; a few even started a blog called Librarian Wardrobe. Fashion designers pay homage to the librarian, devoting collections to the librarian “look,” whatever that happens to be at the moment. Younger librarians have become their own clothing collectors and curate websites devoted to such collections.

The backlash against the hipster librarian stereotype has definitely begun. In a Counter Punch article published in 2010, Linda Ueki Absher suggests that not all librarians live in such a fashionable, high-end world. She reminds the reader that not all perceptions of librarians are favorable; many people still believe that librarians are “losers” or “crazy cat” people. Her tongue-in-cheek article also points to the vast amount of student debt that library students incur to obtain the new, hottest degree, but that librarianship as a profession has failed to keep up with the cost of living.

Other librarians have tried to urge future librarians to consider their attire when interviewing and provide them with real-life skills – for both getting the job and keeping the job. Library Journal has also taken on the issue of librarian attire. The ALA’s publication features an op-ed column called Annoyed Librarian. In 2013, the Annoyed Librarian took on the subject of dressing for success. In response to an ALA survey, the AL wrote,

But the key part of the research, and I suspect the motivation behind it, is the question of whether “business attire will lead to increased salaries and increased professional status of librarians.”

See, it’s not just a “professional dress code.” They’re really talking about “business attire,” so every librarian everywhere would have to look like the army of indistinguishable drones in the corporate world.

The AL makes a good point about the librarian’s right to individuality and that it doesn’t necessarily translate into increased salaries. This statement also stands out:

In most libraries, no matter how you dress you’re not going to get paid more, and if the whole profession started dressing up for work, the only thing it would result in is more librarian salary going for professional clothes.

Bonnet and McAlexander’s 2013 article, “First Impressions and the Reference Encounter: The Influence of Affect and Clothing on Librarian Approachability,” is a study on non-verbal communication between librarian and patron, as well as an examination of librarian attire and how the patron’s perception of the reference interaction shifts depending on how the librarian presents her/himself. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, female librarians tend to be considered more approachable, since they smile more “sincerely” and are able to more effectively multi-task and divide their attention between patron and task.

Unfortunately, the study did not take into account the wide array of librarian attire, so it is difficult to match up the literature on approachability with actual perceptions out there in popular culture. The one takeaway from the study is that a smile is probably the most effective way to break any barrier to librarian-patron communication. Otherwise, the article’s emphasis on following ALA protocol, or at the very least, promoting formal and/or uniform attire for information professionals, leaves very little room for the librarian to self-express through her/his clothing selection, which often demonstrates casualness, thoughtfulness, and a desire to fit into the community while also individuating the librarian from other professionals.

I believe that librarian attire can affect approachability, but probably in a more positive way for the individual librarian, the library itself, and the profession. Librarians should be seen as open-minded and creative problem-solvers. Flipping the script on librarian attire allows the profession to be seen as interesting and engaging, creating an environment that is welcome to patrons.