Eat, Read, Connect and Learn

The library no longer works as a silo. We now recognise that collaborating and connecting across the University is the key to student and research success. It allows us to offer a more cohesive, holistic service to our users, reduces the duplication of work, and gives those involved a clearer understanding of the work and services done across the University.

But what does a successful partnership look like? What have other libraries done? What are we already doing, and what potential opportunities might there be?

Walter, S. (2018). Communicating value through strategic engagement. Library Management, 39(3/4), 154-165.

Scott Walter describes his insights into enhanced opportunities for collaboration across the university on strategic initiatives including student success, innovation in teaching and scholarship, and community engagement.

Library Journal: Movers and Shakers-Textbook dealmakers

How a partnership from the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Open Educational Resources and Affordable Learning initiatives (OER) allowed students increased access to eTextbooks, saving them the money and stress of accessing required readings.

https//www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=amy-pawlowski-and-gwen-evans-movers-shakers-2019-change-agents

UHMLG Spring Forum- Partnering for literacy

Collaboration can improve literacy in a variety of forms. The LEAP study skills-learning project developed by Bolton University is a fantastic case study of library, academic and student collaboration in developing study skills training.

https//thelibrarianerrant.wordpress.com/2019/03/11/uhmlg-spring-forum/

Recent surveys have shown that librarians are one of the most trusted professions in the world. As we increasingly engage with students, researchers and more members of the La Trobe community, we need to understand the complexities of trust relationships and what it means for our practice.

With special guest Hugh Rundle – Manager of Member Services at CAVAL and known for his strong opinions on well, just about everything.

In Libraries we trust

How libraries secure trust in the research process of the 21st Century

Compliant Trust: The Public Good and Democracy in the ALA’s “Core Values of Librarianship”

And from our special guest: Libraries are trust all the way down.

The festive season is a great time for reflection on life, the universe, and everything. We came together to critically contemplate notions of resilience and mindfulness as solutions to managing adversity in higher education and libraries.

We had special guest Tseen Khoo, who is a Lecturer in the Research Education & Development team. Tseen recently published a chapter in the book Mindfulness in the Academy: Practices and Perspectives, titled The Right Kind of Ambition.

READINGS:

Getting started: 

Responding to and reimagining resilience in academic libraries By Jacob Berg, Angela Galvan, and Eamon Tewell

Abstract: This article briefly introduces library staff to the concept of resilience, beginning with its origins and how it came to academic libraries. The authors posit that the resilience narrative obscures structural issues, particularly those relating to socioeconomic status, and shifts responsibility to library workers who must then overcome barriers to success. The authors challenge the concept of resilience as used in library workplaces, offer potential responses to it from library workers and supervisors, and conclude that applying resilience in and to libraries causes more harm than good.

http://www.newlibs.org/article/3218-responding-to-and-reimagining-resilience-in-academic-libraries

Learn more:

Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Fobazi Ettarh

Abstract: Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.

http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

The Innovation Fetish and Slow Librarianship: What Librarians Can Learn From the Juicero by Julia Glassman

Abstract: This essay reflects on the effects of capitalism and corporatization on the work habits of librarians, and critiques the profession’s emphasis on innovation for its own sake. First, the essay compares Juicero Inc., a Silicon Valley startup that faced criticism for producing an expensive machine that squeezed premade packets of juice, to projects undertaken by librarians for the purposes of career advancement and prestige that may unnecessarily complicate the services provided to patrons. The essay then outlines the burgeoning Slow Movement within libraries and recommends that librarians leverage the movement’s principles to push back against corporatization in librarianship.

http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2017/the-innovation-fetish-and-slow-librarianship-what-librarians-can-learn-from-the-juicero/

Challenge me: 

Reynolds V. (2011). Resisting burnout with justice-doing. International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, (4), 27.

Abstract

In this writing I critique the individualism and neutrality of burnout, and offer an approach for resisting burnout with collective sustainability that is shouldered-up by justice-doing. This requires an understanding of collective ethics, and the spiritual pain that we hold as community workers and therapists when we are forced to work against our ethics. I describe the role of justice-doing and solidarity in relation to our sustainability, and practices, which can foster our sustainability collectively, including embracing Earth Democracy, co-creating collective ethics, contesting cynicism, attending to immeasurable outcomes, and giving-it-back practices. I connect staying fully alive in our work with therapeutic and possibly revolutionary love, and reflecton the powerful transformations our work offers us. I address the possibilities of connecting with the social divine and transforming the contexts of social injustice in which clients live and we work.

https://search-informit-com-au.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=032969968360766;res=IELFSC

This month’s journal club will feature a special guest from our Shepparton campus library, Suzanne Muntz, who has recently finished a Masters of Education research project on affirming trans and gender diverse students in non-metropolitan schools. Come along to hear a little bit about this project and discuss ways that libraries and library staff can support and affirm trans and gender diverse people too. We have included three main readings, including one that is specifically related to academic libraries, that give a broad overview of issues and provide resources to help library staff be more inclusive of trans and gender diverse people. There are also some audio-visual resources that illustrate the power of story time in libraries and some further resources related to bathrooms; trans allyship; and fostering positive mindsets toward non-binary gender, genderqueer, and gender ambiguity follow this for anyone who is feeling particularly interested in this topic. All readings and resources are optional.

Get started (key readings)

• Things I never learned in library school: training staff to work with transgender teens by Karen Jensen
• Developing Best Practices for Serving Transgender Patrons at Academic Library Service Points Rebecca M. Marrall
• Intersections | Improve your Customer Service Skills: Go Gender Neutral! By Micah Kehrein

Story time! 

• Genderqueerness in the library: https://bookriot.com/2018/04/10/genderqueerness-in-the-library/
• How Two Moms Took on Trolls to Support an LGBTQ Kid: https://youtu.be/IY-kQtI2hY4
• Roxee Horror at Wollongong library: https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5530775/wollongong-drag-queen-reacts-to-librarys-story-time-backlash/
• Stalled! Online project – not specifically library-related, but it has a nice video and many resources around the historical and design context of inclusive bathrooms

Learn more (contains traces of theory)

Becoming a Trans Ally:Social Justice Work through Libraries and Archives by Jeannie Bail 2017

Libraries and Gender Neutral / Inclusive Bathrooms: Case Studies on Promoting Information, Inclusivity and Access in Open Spaces -Raymond Pun, Kenya S. Flash, Dennis Nangle and Jonathan Hernandez Perez 2017

Public bathrooms are gender identity battlefields. What if we just do it right?By Simona Castricum