Monthly Archives: June 2021

Resilient/Sustainable workplace: A collaboration and research project

Helsingborg Public Libraries has during the beginning of this year moved into a two-year project in collaboration with the Department of Psychology at Lund University. “The Resilient/Sustainable Workplace” is a project that with help of modern psychological and related research develops the business so that organizational structure and organizational culture becomes more sustainable and resilient in relation to changing roles, tasks and technological stress/digitalization. The work is in line with several of the city’s focal points “Increasing expectations from residents”, “Increased focus on security”, “Residents in different worlds”, “New demands on communication”, “A society with greater vulnerability” and above all “Right skills/ability at the right place”. https://trendomvarld.helsingborg.se/#brannpunkter

The process is a needs-driven innovation closely linked to both assignments and societal changes and rigs the organization to meet challenges with a focus on the user. The work is based on research and the needs that exist in a modern workplace with continuous demands for constant change, leadership, increased need for involvement of residents, increased mandate for employees and the need to find security and sustainability in everyday life.

During 2014 til 2016, Helsingborg Public Library carried out a collaborative project together with the Department of Psychology at Lund University. The project was called “The Healthy Workplace” and aimed to improve the organizational and social work environment in the business based on modern research and focused on both the importance of the structure and the individual’s conditions.

“The Resilient/Sustainable Workplace” is a new project that to some extent builds on “Healthy Workplace”. The work will be a pilot that could be scaled up and used in other activities. The content will touch on the areas of trust, work in change, identify strengths, and work on social identity.

Why?

The library’s main task is to give everyone free access to information and knowledge, create inspiring meeting places, work to promote reading and work with digital inclusion, this in order to secure freedom of opinion and expression and participation in the democratic society. The entire information landscape is changing with increased digitalization and globalization. In previous work, it has emerged that the staff experienced the libraries’ changed role, the many new tasks associated with this change and technology stress / digitalization as stressors in today’s library environment.

These factors have also been identified as problems in international research and indicate a challenge for the library of the future both in Sweden and internationally. More specifically, they signal a need to build a sustainable and resilient library organization where employees both learn to deal with these problems and who also address the changed librarian identity that follows from this changed role.

The project goal is to lead to a more sustainable and resilient library organization as well as a better working environment and a higher level of well-being for staff. In addition to this, the project will generate new scientific knowledge for the library community, nationally as well as internationally.

 

How?

The project runs over two years and will combine competence development and interaction with all library staff in Helsingborg with ongoing research projects. At least four workshops / seminars will be conducted with all staff connected to how both the organization and employees can become more resilient to stress, manage uncertainty and change work.

It is important during the project and workshop that the staff group feels involved, which is also the key to success. Commitment leads to participation and is essential for it to work and be fruitful.

The previous project generated two scientific articles, both of which were cited, received positive attention in library research and has led to new initiatives. It is these that lay the foundation for this new work.

 

Previously published articles on this work:

Organizational stressors and burnout in public librarians. Magnus Lindén, Ilkka Salo & Anna Jansson, 2018, I: Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 50, 2, s199-204

The healthy workplace: the library in collaboration with a psychology researcher. Catharina Isberg, Fanny Mikkelsen, 2016, InfoTrend, Vol 69, Nr 1/2, s5-12

 

/Catharina Isberg, Library Director, Helsingborg Sweden and Tina Haglund, Digital Library Media Department Manager, Helsingborg Sweden

Congratulations to newly elected SC members of CPDWL!

 

Thanks to all candidates for agreeing to run and serve as standing committee members of CPDWL! We are excited to announce new SC members joining us!

I am Chinwe Veronica Anunobi , a former university librarian Federal University of Technology Owerri but will resume as lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science , Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka , Nigeria . I am a passionate LIS professional; served as Secretary IT Section of the Nigerian Library Association and currently a Council Member and Member of the Training Team African Libraries, Institutions and Associations ; and a Corresponding member of CPDWL since 2017. I have participated in WLIC since 2016 where I had opportunity of sharing ideas and knowledge through paper presentations.
My name is Tina Haglund, I am living and working in Helsingborg, in the southern part of Sweden. I am presently working as a manager of the digital library/ media department at the public library of Helsingborg City Libraries. I attended the WLIC conference in Athens in 2019. During the conference I joined as an observer at one of the CPDWL meetings, I also took part as a coach at the coaching session and as a secretary at the Knowledge café session. I have attended and contributed to the IFLA Global Vision at workshops with the The Swedish Library Association.
My name is Dr Alan Brine, I am the Deputy Director of Library and Learning Services at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom. Although I have not been a member of committee before I have previously worked with the IFLA section on Education and Training, particularly in library education and presented at satellite and main conferences particularly looking at skills development in the profession. I have spent many years working with Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip UK) and am currently Chair of the Professional Registration Panel.
I am Mantra Roy, Collection Strategy Librarian at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library of San Jose State University, USA. I am a member of ALA and ACRL. Open Access, multilingualism, global scholarly communications, and access to professional development opportunities among librarians in the Global South constitute my core research interests.
My name is Ivana Todorovic and I am a senior librarian in the Department of Education, Research and Development of Library System in the National Library of Serbia. With more than fifteen years of experience in library field my responsibilities envisage, among other, providing professional assistance for libraries, monitoring current state of libraries of Serbia and suggesting measures for their improvement. I also participate in continuing professional development of library professionals as a lecturer and training coach for several accredited programs. As a member of the CPDWL Standing Committee, I am running my first term since 2017.
My name is Jarkko Rikkilä, I’m a 41-years old coordinator from Finland. My work is concentrating on the professional development of library workers. We produce staff training, organize platforms for co-operation and make colleague support available. Previously I’ve worked as a service manager, department head and as a librarian. I’m the father of 10-year old twin daughters and they keep me fairly busy in the spare time. My other interests include design, music, photography and ice hockey, especially in outdoor rinks. Just recently, I’ve learned how to make the best latte in home conditions with my espresso machine!

Global Community Kitchen: A CPDWL Project

Colleagues, we are excited to announce a new project to highlight our standing committee members and their interest in food and cooking! The Global Community Kitchen showcases SC members’ favorite meals and planning!

Take a look and welcome others to contribute to this project by sending an emailing to cpdwl.ifla@gmail.com including your name, the title of the recipe, a picture/video of the recipe and instructions and favorite memories of it! We wanted to find a way to engage with one another in a fun and creative way!

Hope you enjoy these new dishes!

Participants announced for the Regional AFLI Project for professionals’ excellence in university libraries

The Arab Federation for Libraries and Information (AFLI) announced earlier this month participants accepted in the training program entitled “AFLI Regional project for professionals’ excellence in university libraries”.

The program seeks to achieve the following outcomes:

  1. Developing skills of library specialists from university libraries in the Arab countries.
  2. Increasing awareness of the importance and role of university libraries in education and scientific research.
  3. Implementing joint or cooperative projects aimed at serving and developing university libraries.
  4. Involving civil society in implementing the sustainable development goals and promoting them through project implementation.

Sixty-two participants from 13 Arab countries were selected according to the criteria announced at AFLI website earlier this year (Egypt; Sudan; Libya; Tunisia; Algeria; Morocco; Palestine; Jordan Lebanon; Saudi Arabia; Iraq; Oman and Yemen).

The Regional AFLI Program for professionals’ excellence in university libraries will be held from mid-June until October 2021. Librarians will be trained on Data management; Change Management; Libraries and Development: (USDs) using Moodle -the open source e-learning system- to provide the participants with the educational modules.

Number of lectures, workshops and webinars will be conducted during the specific period on knowledge management; modern forms of scholarly communication; open access; performance indicators; AFLI unified standard for university libraries; recent trends in services; modern technologies in libraries.

It is worth mentioning that the regional program will be conducting in partnership with the Bahrain Library and Information Association; Tunisian Federation of University Libraries; Associations of Algerian libraries and information; Saudi Libraries and Information Association; Sudanese Association of Libraries and Information ; Iraqi Association for Information, Libraries and Documentation Specialists; Omani Library Association; Library and Information Association in Qatar; The Palestinian Library and Information Association; Library & Information Association of Kuwait; Libya Library Association;  Egyptian Library Association; The General Authority for Book, Publishing and Distribution in the Republic of Yemen; The Deanship of Library Affairs at Jazan University; and the Saudi Digital Library (SDL).

 

 

An Interview with Debra E. Kachel and Keith Curry Lance on the IMLS project, “SLIDE: School Librarian Investigation: Decline or Evolution?”

I had the opportunity to interview two researchers Debra E. Kachel and Keith Curry Lance in the United States examining their project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on “finding some trends on exactly what’s happening behind the national data that shows an almost 20% decline in the number of school librarians [in the United States] over the last 10 years.” This interview conversation centers on this research project as well as the research processes on school librarians in the United States.

Ray: Thank you both for taking the time to talk about this important project. I was wondering if you can share briefly why you both decided to work on this project and what you hope school libraries, library advocates, and decision makers will understand from this important work? 

Debra: Keith and I have been working together since our first IMLS grant project in 2011 that produced a Pennsylvania school library impact study. We both feel strongly about the role of school librarians to preparing tomorrow’s leaders and citizens. In this three-year IMLS grant, we wanted to document the availability of school librarians in U.S. schools and how equitable that distribution looked in terms of school characteristics and student demographics. Thanks to Keith’s deep examination of the CCD datasets made available by NCES, we have evidence of profound inequities particularly among poor students, non-white students, and Hispanic students as well as those who are limited English proficient. Overall, almost 20% of U.S. school librarian positions have been lost since 2009-2010, while the number of administrators and instructional coordinators have increased by double digits. This plus an examination of per pupil spending leads us to believe that the losses of school librarians are not solely based on school finances—a common reason for eliminating librarians.

Next year begins the qualitative phase of the grant with interviews of school leaders who decide how to staff library, learning resources, and instructional technology services for their schools. Based on the NCES data, some school decision-makers are choosing to move school librarian staffing dollars to other more valued or needed positions, at least from their perspectives. Or, perhaps the traditional role and job title of a school librarian has changed or combined with other positions to the point that they are no longer being reported or classified as a school librarian. In some cases, school leaders may take the position that school librarians are no longer needed to meet their schools’ priorities. Whatever the reasons, we hope to tease out what’s behind the continual decline in librarian positions by interviewing 100 U.S. school leaders where there have been dramatic changes in the number of employed librarians–both in districts that added as well as eliminated those jobs. Examining the district level data from CCD between 2015-16 and 2018-19, we have identified districts meeting these criteria.

Personally, I am blessed to have worked over 30 years as a school librarian and district library coordinator during the booming years of school librarianship, the 1970s through the early 2000s. This project is legacy work for me. I don’t want to leave this profession in its current state, or worse than when I began my career as a school librarian.

Keith:  Deb and I share a concern for the future of the profession, given the losses of positions over the last decade. We believe a major contributor to those losses has been a “disconnect” between school librarianship and the larger education community, particularly school leaders who make staffing decisions.  SLIDE is an effort to describe what’s going on and to begin to open a dialog with school leaders, so the school library community can better understand the factors influencing staffing decisions.  It’s time for us to do some serious listening.

 

Ray: Anything surprising so far in your research that you can share? What has been the most challenging part in addressing this issue?

Keith:  For me, the most challenging part of this research is the limited data available about school libraries and librarians.  All kinds of data are collected about public and academic libraries; but, school libraries are quite “data-poor.”  We are using the only annual federal data there is:  counts of school librarians and library support staff in full-time equivalents at district, state, and national levels.  Unfortunately, there aren’t available data at school level and the definition of a school librarian on which the data are collected is quite outdated.  On the whole, though, these data are reported remarkably well—with the exception of a few states and districts that don’t comply with the federal data collection process.

Debra: To me, the most challenging aspect of this project will be securing interviews of school decision makers in districts that have eliminated librarian positions. Will they candidly talk to us and tell us about the experiences, values, perceptions, and priorities that formed their decisions?

 

Ray: In your research do you both see the impact on academic libraries and their roles in supporting students who attended schools where there were no school librarians? We see a growth of first year experience/student success librarian positions in higher education across the United States and wondering if this has some correlation between the decrease of school librarians and the growth of these roles supporting first year students.

Debra: While studying first-year college students from K-12 districts without librarians is not within the scope of this grant, others are studying this, such as Dr. Joyce Valenza, Rutgers University, who also serves on the SLIDE Advisory Council. However, I can only imagine the task it must be to teach first-year college students who have never experienced the instruction of a school librarian to enable them to excel in their academic studies. And there are districts that have not had librarians for that long.

Keith: This is a very interesting issue; but, it is not one on which we’ve neither done any research nor have any data.

 

Ray: What about the global context? Any thoughts you may have on this or research you’ve uncovered that you can share? Is this uniquely a United States issue? Of course, librarianship as a profession varies country to country but curious if you’ve seen similar trends or models?

Keith:  Unfortunately, there are no cross-national data about school libraries and librarians.  At least, none that I’m aware of.  I don’t believe any international organization collects comparable school library data for multiple nations. It seems unlikely, however, that what we’re experiencing in the U.S.—sharp losses of positions and major equity issues as a result—are uniquely U.S. problems.

Debra: I agree with Keith. However, I am aware of the work of Dianne Oberg (Canada), Margaret Merga (Australia), and others who have documented similar trends in other countries. So, I believe, the decline in school librarians in not just a U.S. issue.

 

Ray: Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions! Anything else you’d like to share that we did not get to talk about?

Debra: This project when completed will provide new information from the perspective of school employers who decide how to staff information, library, and technology services for their schools. We are most interested in knowing if the school librarian position has morphed with other educator roles and what that looks like in varying school settings. We want to learn if there are new models of library staffing that the school library profession needs to think about to ensure that K-12 students receive the needed information and technology instruction they will need to be successful in their futures.

Keith: We encourage everyone interested in keeping tabs on the SLIDE project to visit the project website regularly.  The URL is https://libslide.org/ ; our Twitter is @lib_SLIDE.  In addition to our reports, there will be interactive data tools that enable users to select data they wish to see and have it displayed in tables, charts, and maps.  Also, we encourage everyone who works in a U.S. public school to touch base with whoever reports to the National Center for Education Statistics about school librarian employment to be certain they are reporting about school librarians and library support staff and doing so accurately.

***

Debra E. Kachel is an Affiliate Faculty, School of Education, Antioch University Seattle, teaching online graduate courses in the School Library Endorsement program. She previously taught for McDaniel College (MD), Mansfield University (PA), and Drexel University (PA) and has over 30 years of experience as a school librarian and district library coordinator. She is the Project Director of SLIDE: The School Librarian Investigation—Decline or Evolution? and received the American Association of School Librarians Distinguished Service Award in 2014.

Keith Curry Lance is the Principal Investigator for SLIDE, best known for two decades of state-level studies of the impact of school libraries and librarians on standards-based test scores. He and Deb have published their SLIDE-related work in Phi Delta Kappan, School Library Journal, and Teacher Librarian. He was a featured speaker at the White House Conference on School Libraries in 2002, and received the American Association of School Librarians Distinguished Service Award in 2013.

Russian and US Libraries Supporting the Well-Being of Individuals and Communities Thursday, 3 June 2021, 9am CDT/5pm MSK by Svetlana A. Gorokhova and Daria Beliakova

The US Russia Library Dialogue, in partnership with American Library Association’s International Relations Office, and the Russian Library Association will host a free webinar “Russian and US Libraries Supporting the Well-Being of Individuals and Communities” on Thursday, June 3, 2021, 9am CDT/5pm MSK. Register — https://lnkd.in/eTNsW4Z — in advance for this webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the session. The webinar will be conducted in English and Russian (with translation).

As we head into a second year of living with the coronavirus pandemic, libraries remain second responders helping their communities navigate these uncertain times. In this webinar, US and Russian library specialists will share strategies for how libraries in both countries can support their communities, including the social and emotional well-being of library users and library staff, as we start to emerge from isolation and libraries reopen. The panelists will discuss challenges in returning to in-person service, strategies for supporting individuals and communities, and how collective self-care can become an ongoing part of library service.

Join us for a lively conversation as we discuss where we are, and where we would like to go as we work with our communities to navigate these uncertain times.

 

PANELISTS

US Speakers: Nicole Cooke, Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and Associate Professor

School of Information Science, University of South Carolina

Loida Garcia-Febo, International Library Consultant

Russian Speakers: Anna Galeeva, Deputy Director, Novosibirsk Regional Library, Head of Da Vinci Casa Art Platform

Liudmila Pronina, Director, Tambov Regional Library, LIS Professor, Tambov University

Moderators: Svetlana Gorokhova, Russian Co-chair US Russia Library Dialogue

Ellen Knutson, US Co-chair US Russia Library Dialogue

Interpreter: Valeriy Volozov

 

Как российские и американские библиотеки обеспечивают индивидуальное и общественное благополучие своих пользователей.

Четверг, 3 июня 2021 года, 17:00 (время московское).

Российско-Американский библиотечный диалог, под эгидой Американской и Российской библиотечных ассоциаций проводят вебинар «Как российские и американские библиотеки обеспечивают индивидуальное и общественное благополучие своих пользователей». Вебинар состоится в четверг, 3 июня 2021 года, в 17:00 по московскому времени. Ссылка для регистрации…….После регистрации Вы получите подтверждение и информацию по участи в вебинаре. Мероприятие пройдет на русском и английском языке. Зарегистрированные участники смогут воспользоваться синхронным переводом.

Уже второй год мы живем в условиях  пандемии, когда библиотеки являются вторым по важности (после экстренных служб) эшелоном, помогая  своим сообществам эффективно существовать в такое непростое время. Во время вебинара российские и американские специалисты поделятся своим опытом по поддержке своих сообществ, включая вопросы социального и эмоционального благополучия своих пользователей и сотрудников, во время открытия библиотек и возвращения их из изоляции  к полноценной жизни. Спикеры из обеих стран обсудят те вызовы, с которыми сталкиваются библиотеки, возвращаясь к физическому обслуживанию населения; какие стратегии вырабатывают библиотеки, чтобы поддержать свое сообщество и каждого из его членов; как сделать обеспечение коллективного благополучия неотъемлемой частью библиотечного обслуживания.

Присоединяйтесь к нашему разговору о том, где мы находимся сейчас и куда мы хотели бы прийти в нашей работе по поддержке наших пользователей в нестабильное пост-пандемийное время.

 

СПИКЕРЫ 

США: Николь Кук, профессор, Школа информационных наук, Университет Южной Каролины

Лойда Гарсиа Фебо, Президент АБА (2019-2019гг)

Россия: Анна Галеева, заместитель директора, Новосибирская государственная областная научная библиотека; руководитель арт-платформы «Дом да Винчи».

Людмила Пронина, директор, Тамбовская областная универсальная научная библиотека; профессор кафедры библиотечно-информационных ресурсов  Тамбовского государственного университета.

Модераторы:

Светлана Горохова, со-председатель Российско-Американского библиотечного диалога (Россия)

Эллен Кнутсен, со-председатель Российко-Американского библиотечного диалога (США)