TILT #87 — Working with the population we have

Hello and thanks for reading. It’s been a while! For me, the very strangest thing about all of this is that my perception of the passing of time is all ferkakte. I’m still hunkering. Many people aren’t however, some because they’re going back to work or school, and some because they’ve got… isolation fatigue? As libraries are well aware, you have to work with the population you have, not the population you want. I know it’s hard.

The above cartoon about library solidarity (older, but still from the Now Times) is a good read. The below cartoon spoke straight to my heart.

My last newsletter was before ALA’s annual conference in June. I attended virtual Council meetings. I gave what I hope was useful feedback on the many tiny UX choices that ALA staff made without Councilor input, and I saved my state library association four figures in airfare and hotels they didn’t have to pay for. We have a tiny budget; this is our largest annual expense outside of the conference. I hope we can continue to meet virtually.

An additional benefit of virtual conferencing for night-owl me is that since the Hawaiian Councilor (hi Drew!) can’t reasonably be asked to attend meetings at 3 am, all meetings started at the quite reasonable time of 1 pm EDT. I am very optimistic about incoming ALA president Julius Jefferson, though his Zoom game was hampered by digital divide issues — bad lighting in the part of the house with good internet. Points for the background though.

When tweeting about the conference, one thing became very clear: many librarians have no idea they are represented at ALA by a Chapter Councilor. I am always surprised that a profession that is so good at information sharing seems to struggle with it at a professional association level. VLA has decided to have an informal Zoom “happy hour” each month for casual discussions about topics, and every other month’s discussion will have an anti-racist theme.

Segueing to trans rights, and attention that can be directed that way.

• Did you miss ALA’s statement affirming the rights of transgender people? It’s pretty good.
• Want someone to present on Trans Inclusion in LIS? Here’s a list of presenters. If you know others, please let Stephen Krueger know.
• The Trans Journalists Association has a style guide which is useful for people who want to accurately and sensitively talk about trans issues. Remember: it’s okay to not know how to do some of this stuff well, it’s less okay to not seek informed guidance on how to do this better.

Black Lives Matter:

• Limiting Broadband Investment to “Rural Only” Discriminates Against Black Americans and other Communities of Color, and another plug from me for the NDIAs newsletter.
• Lincoln [Presidential] Library Cancels Exhibition Over Racial Sensitivity Concerns. Good.
• Learn more about the word BIPOC and who uses it.
• A look at why searching Google Images for “White American doctor” shows you images of Black doctors. Google’s also, unrelatedly, offering a “fact-checking feature” in their image search. Those quotations around fact-checking are doing a lot of work there.
• This is a Black Excellence in LIS syllabus. Short link https://bit.ly/blacklis
• Weeding Out Racism’s Invisible Roots: Rethinking Children’s Classics. Libraries are doing okay at this, we can do better

Insisting on exposing diverse children to racist classics in which they see characters like themselves demeaned, or, at best, entirely excluded, is not just insensitive, but downright cruel. Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie endorses terrible historical injustices. It also, like most fairytales, perpetuates the myth that dark skin isn’t beautiful. Such ideas can damage the self-esteem of readers with diverse backgrounds.

Access and accessibility:

• Twitter rolled out a “voice notes” feature and was immediately and rightly lambasted for lack of accessibility options. Reminder: “It’s just a beta!” is a terrible excuse for lack of accessibility.
• Do you use Microsoft Word? Did you know it had an inclusivity setting in the editor? I sure didn’t.
• If you want a deep dive into internet access issues, including a vocabulary list and a bibliography, then this article from the EFF is for you
• Librarians getting scrappy (bonus content) in finding ways to meet the tech needs of their communities. Every time I hear about online back-to-school plans (the safer option by far) I think of this chart.

Odds and ends:

• Remember that book robot thing that was supposed to drop off and pick up books to people in Mountain View CA, the one that mostly didn’t work? Well here’s a feel-good story about a Google drone service delivering summer reading books to kids.
• The Internet Archive has responded to the lawsuit against it. ARL has suggested that he lawsuit be dropped.
• Mary Minow, one of my favorite law librarians, has a timely column: Are There Exceptions to Face-Mask Requirements?
• Please enjoy these images of men tanning fish for use in… bookbinding?

Recent books include two slightly gruesome but fascinating ones, and two books by the same author. All pretty much recommended.

Today in Librarian Tabs is written irregularly by Jessamyn West who also maintains librarian.net. It’s available in more-accessible format your inbox via TinyLetter. Thanks for reading.