Collective Wisdom: Notes from the Field v2.0
A museum professional’s take on the American Library Association’s 2016 Annual Conference
This summer, I’m taking part in a professional experiment of sorts, as one of eighteen cultural sector professionals who make up the Collective Wisdom cohort. We’re attending three conferences together to examine cross-sector opportunities for professional development initiatives in the library, archives and museum sectors. This past May, we started off our experiment at the American Association of Museums (AAM) conference in Washington D.C. and most recently took our project to the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2016 Annual Conference in Orlando.
As a museum professional attending his first library sector conference, I initially felt like a fish-out-of-water. When I say this, I mean it in a good way. Other than the cohort members I had met once — a month before at AAM — I knew absolutely no one. This is very different from museum conferences, where I have a chance to connect with colleagues I’ve known for more than a decade. This awkward independence gave me a chance to fully immerse myself into the ALA program, take copious notes and act as a cultural anthropologist observing librarians in their natural habitat.
After four days studying the intricacies of ALA’s operations, attendees and session content, and comparing these elements with my experiences in the museum sector, what emerged were a few areas of great interest and reflection for me.
Library Scale
Going into ALA, my cohort colleagues warned me. I knew it was going to be big. I was aware the projected attendance was 25,000. None of those advance warnings fully prepared me for the sheer magnitude of humanity that was ALA 2016.
Many session rooms were standing-room only. The expo seemed to stretch for miles. Lunch hour resembled O’hare in a blizzard — bodies strewn about hallways and all available corners, paper plate cuisine, not an outlet to be found. Cell charge be damned.
But along with the sheer numbers, I noticed interesting pockets of attendees. For example, I noticed many families with kids in attendance. A mother, father and elementary school-age son sitting together in a session about organizational culture. A mother and newborn strolling the aisles of the exposition hall. Perhaps the location of Orlando (with its family-friendly destinations) had something to do with this, but regardless, it was wonderful to see a conference structure that is able to support and accommodate families in this way.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
The themes of diversity, inclusion and equity were at the forefront of the ALA conference experience. They weren’t overt conference themes, or plastered above the fold on the cover of the program guide, but rather infused into ALA’s operations.
Upon checking in at the registration counter, every attendee was given a pocket-sized copy of ALA’s code of conduct. In my opinion this was a really smart way to actively set the tone for the conference, essentially declaring that ALA was a respectful, welcoming and inclusive area open to all.
I’ve seen this done at some museum conferences (MCN has a wonderful friendly space policy), but I feel the museum sector in general can learn from ALA’s progressive example.
In addition, ALA showcased its commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity in several other ways during the conference. There were gender-neutral bathrooms. There were ASL interpreters and wheelchair-accessible areas in session rooms. And perhaps most visibly, black armbands were distributed to attendees on which was inscribed one of three words: diversity, inclusion or equity. To see thousands of people with these words strapped to their arms was an amazing sight.
Unapologetic Politics
On the first morning of the conference, ALA began with a memorial for victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, which took place in Orlando two weeks prior. The memorial was all the things I’d anticipated it being: heartbreaking, moving and motivating. But it was also one thing I was not anticipating: political.
ALA was unafraid and unapologetic about having a political opinion about gun violence in the United States. So unapologetic, in fact, that a last-minute surprise speaker at the Pulse memorial was U.S. Representative John Lewis, who just days before had led a sit-in for gun control on the floor of House of Representatives. Lewis’ words at the ALA memorial were political, personal and powerful. Kudos to ALA for embracing this position and allowing for such timely and responsive programming.
Organizational Culture and Sustainability
Libraries, along with museums and archives, are naturally thinking deeply about organizational culture and sustainability. I attended two fantastic sessions related to these topics.
One of the most interesting sessions I attended was called Being Intentional About Your Culture, and featured organizational strategy case studies from Richard Kong (Skokie Public Library), Susan Brown (Chapel Hill Public Library) and Natalie Nation (Meridian Library District).
Building a great organizational culture is reverse-engineering delight. — Susan Brown
To hear the three presenters discuss how they’re working to intentionally and organically reimagine the culture at their respective institutions was energizing. Skokie Public Library’s culture statement is a premier example of how this kind of thinking can impact an organization.
There was also vibrant discussion at ALA about sustainability with respect to audience development. I got the distinct impression that libraries are doing a much better job than museums at articulating their brand messages toward the bottom of Maslow’s needs hierarchy. Where museums talk a lot about aesthetics, preservation and self-actualization, libraries are positioning their value propositions as basic human necessities.
In the museum world, and many other sectors, sustainability is a popular buzzword. It seemed to me, though, that the library sector is beginning to transcend the concept of sustainability by pushing past it with concepts like resiliency and regeneration.
In fact, the session Sustainable Thinking put forth a triple-tier concept of audience development where sustainability was at the lowest level because, effectively, to sustain is simply to endure. Speakers in this session posited that becoming resilient (bouncing back after disruption) and regenerative (to bring new energetic growth) were the goals toward which libraries should be striving. I haven’t heard this argument quite so well-packaged in the museum sector, but we should be thinking this way.
#BlackLivesMatter: Documenting a Digital Protest Movement
The most impactful and relevant session for me, hands down, was #BlackLivesMatter: Document a Digital Protest Movement. This session, featuring mic-drop presentations from Makiba Foster (Washington University), Charlton McIlwain (New York University) and Jarrett Drake (Princeton University), embodied the all the themes outlined above creating a perfect progressive mix of inclusion, equity, unapologetic politics and sector culture.
You can subvert or you can submit. Are you ready? — Jarrett Drake
Jarrett Drake’s portion of the session was piercing with passion, truth and an energy that’s rare to see in conference presentations. I definitely see some potential cross-sector connections or collaborations between Jarrett’s #ArchivesforBlackLives and the work Adrienne Russell, Aleia Brown and others are doing with #MuseumsRespondToFerguson.
Onward to SAA
The final gathering of our cohort will take place at the Society for American Archivists (SAA) conference, happening this week in Atlanta, GA. I’m again looking forward to being a cultural-anthropologist-museum-fish-out-of-water, and hope I can harness a unique perspective on this gathering of archivists. As always, the cohort will be tweeting our observations in real-time using the hashtag #LAMcw.
