Belonging Is NEVER a Given, It Takes Intentional Work: My Illinois Library Association Annual Conference Appearance Recap

I gave 2 programs at the ILA Annual conference while the tone was different in each, the message was the same-- Belonging is not a given in libraries; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Libraries and librarians have always placed barriers to access in libraries. 

We have excluded others actively and passively. This is true with in American society and in libraries. Libraries are one of our most democratic institutions, but because our entire democracy has been plagued (from its inception) by who is included and who is (legally) excluded, we have never risen above our country's flaws.

The theme of the ILA conference this year was "You Belong Here." I know th organizers of this year's conference personally. I know they understood the theme. They understood its complexity. Yes it sounds nice. Yes many attendees came feeling like-- oh I live this. But they knew that most libraries and library workers only give belonging a surface glance. And that is why they accepted programs that challenged this fact-- that we (as a profession) spend too much time patting ourselves on the back for fostering belonging, while our spaces and policies do the opposite-- they exclude.

If we truly believe that everyone is allowed to use the library we need to face the fact that WE are part of why many people do not feel like they belong.

I was energized by the programs that looked this hard truth in the face and challenged those in attendance to do better. I was heartened by those who understood the assignment-- both presenters and attendees. Those who shared these uncomfortable truths and worked to help us all find the path toward rectifying past mistakes and do the work to move us forward.

Of course there were those who shared how my programs trying to address the paradox of belonging made them feel alienated. People have a right to their feelings, but to be fair, especially in the first program I will list below, making established librarians (regardless of if they were "white" or not) feel very uncomfortable was the goal. To get these folks to feel even a little of the extreme discomfort that library worker of color face was the goal. I hope those who felt alienation and needed to leave spend some time with those feelings and come back to the slides-- especially the resources links at the end of the presentation.

To those who could not make it, below are the titles of the programs, links to the resources that were available to the conference attendees, AND a few more thoughts from me.

Tuesday, 1:30-2:30-- The Call is Coming From Inside the House: How White Librarianship Protects Itself and Hinders Belonging. Slide access here

In this program, Julie Jurgens, Alea Perez, and I were confrontational. We shared hard truths, but we also brought everyone around to asking themselves these questions in the end:

• What are the unconscious beliefs that I hold that create and sustain our fear of open conflict?
• What am I doing to uphold white supremacy?
• What can I do to stop being part of the problem?

We did not allow for questions from the group. Instead we asked them those questions. And like we encouraged the in person audience, I want to encourage all of you-- everyone reading this regardless of your identity (because marginalized people internalize white supremacy as well)-- to sit with those questions and really think about your answers, especially in regards to your work with your patrons. Write down your answers and then bring these hard questions (and your thought out answers) to your staff to foster the important (but uncomfortable) conversations that need to be had.

Thursday, 3-4pm-- You Truly Belong At Our Library: How Embedding Belonging in Your Planning and Policies Creates A Better Library Experience for Staff and Patrons. Slide and resources access here

In this program I organized a group of Illinois Library leaders to discuss how we had to consciously write belonging into our policies because over the last 5 years of providing antiracist training with Robin Bradford, the number one question I have gotten when I talk about Action Step 2 (on slide 5 here) and tell people to get your antiracism in writing, I am asked to provide examples. I got sick of telling people to make a go of it for themselves and I used my privilege to do the work for them. You can see those policies in the slides of my program with Robin and in the slides for the program from last week. 

I got true belonging into writing and now my library is living the policy. I gathered a few more folks who have been brave enough to do this work as well. Those people are listed in the slides available with the link above as is their contact info for more.

Please spend some time with all of the slides and resources I have provided here today. But don't think you can just click right now, look them over, and say oh, I now have learned it all. Schedule time to look at it all over time. Sit with your feelings. Look at those three questions above, specifically. They will guide you in this work as you need to do it. Belonging is your goal but getting there is a unique journey.

And as always, click here to contact me if you have questions or would like training to help you and your staff navigate these feelings.

I Have Concluded My Time on the Library Board But I Am Using the Event As Another Chance to Encourage All of You to Run for a Board

Last night, I completed my 6th, 4 year, elected term as a Board member of the La Grange Public Library. In stepping down, that moment also marked the end of my official connection to a library-- any library. I no longer can serve on system committees or access the statewide directories. I can and will remain a member of ILA and ALA which are membership organizations, so simply by being a librarian I am eligible to be a member.

I could write a post about everything I accomplished and all the good I did in those 24 years, but that's not the point of this post. It isn't even the point of why I gave all of those years to the library. Rather it is to remind you all that I did it for the advocacy, which will not end with my leaving the board.

I want to call you all to action because all of you - simply because you are a library worker-- are well positioned to follow my lead and run for your local school or library board.

To be fair, this is not a new call to action from me. I know of at least 6 people I have helped go from the idea of running for school or library board election to holding office and I know there are countless more who have heard me talk about making this move who pursued it on their own. 

But formally, I began doing this in 2017 at the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference with this program: 

We Should Run: Library Workers in Public Office:

Library workers from all areas of service are uniquely positioned as advocates in our communities. Having more library workers in public office leads to stronger boards, stronger libraries, and stronger communities on local, state, and federal levels. Not to mention that it's good for our own professional development! But where to begin? We will share our personal experiences from the day we decided to step out from behind the desk and jump into the political fray, to our current positions at the big table. We’re here to encourage you to step up, advocate, and lead too.

I reprised this program a few years later and then more reentry, other, younger library workers have taken up the call and presented a version of it as well.

Look, I know that being a library worker is harder than ever, but I also know that our library and school boards need good people more than ever. They need people who understand the institutions, who fight for intellectual freedom, who will not give in to radicals and fascists. 

There is never a good time to serve. Life is busy. When I started in 2001. I was a baby librarian. I had no children. I hadn't even written my first book (of 4 at this point). Now my kids are grown and out in the world. I was there through all of that. It was not always easy. My husband and I made a lot of personal sacrifices to make sure that I could be at every meeting and as a Trustee at LGPL  I concurrently served on regional and statewide committees as well. But all of it was to fight for libraries, for funding, and for intellectual freedom. I was there to serve the people my community, to give them the library they deserved, and to fight for every library in IL and across the country.

Our public school and libraries are foundational to our democracy. If we, as people who made this work our profession cannot stand up to fight to save them, who will.

I wanted to mark today-- the first day of me not being on the Library Board in 24 years, the first day of me not being attached to a library since I began working as a professional librarian--in the best way I know how-- by calling on all of you to stand up and serve.

Contact me if you want to talk about getting more involved in your local school or library board. I offer this mentoring for free. Let's talk about it. 

I want my legacy to be that library workers flooded their school and library boards all over this country. Together we have power in numbers to effect change everywhere, even in those places where you don't think change can happen. It can, but it starts with you taking the first steps.

I have said this to many of you in person, many times, but I believe if you want to see the change you have to do the work to make the change. I have made the change in my community and state, but now I want to help us all do it. 

As bad as it all seems, we can do this if ALL OF US are willing to fight. I know that fight will look different depending on who you are and where you live, but I am willing to help you figure out the best way for you to do this.

One person encourages another, and then those people encourage more. And then we all reap the benefits as our numbers grow exponentially. 

Today is a beginning for me and I hope, for many of you too.

RA for All Heads to the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference

Today the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference returns in person in Rosemont, IL. Click here for the conference website.

While I will be busy at the conference, I have set both blogs to keep posting. Don't worry, I have you non IL people covered. 

Not only is this the first time back in person since 2019 for the ILA Annual Conference, but also,  I am now an Executive Board member for ILA, so I have new roles and responsibilities. I am excited about it though. I love learning new things. So, on top of presenting and sponsoring this conference, I am working a 2 hour shift at the information desk for the Trustee Forum and I have a list of exhibitors I am responsible  for visiting and thanking. I am very interested in seeing how that goes and what feedback they have, both as an ILA Board member but also as someone who plans conferences as well.

But back to the event itself. I have 3 presentations, plus I will be at the awards luncheon because I nominated the Trustee of the Year winner! I will also be part of the Trustee Day breakfast, lunch, and forum meetup.

Here are some details with a secret coupon for all of my readers, not just those in attendance:

• Tuesday, October 18th Robin and I presenting our Actively Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Readers in 2 sessions. Both in room 40-41. We will spend the first session- 2:45-3:45- doing our foundational lectures and then the next session- 4-5- facilitating a discussion. You can click here for Robin's slides and here for mine. 
• Secret coupon alert! My last slide has details about the brand new, coming very soon, version of this training via NoveList with a coupon code.
• Please come to RAILS Executive Director, Dee Brennan's, retirement party from 5-7pm in rooms 26-29. It is free, but we are asking people to register here. Come anytime in the 3 hour slot, but there will be a short ceremony at 5:30. I will be there from 5-6:30.
• Wednesday, I will be around but probably will not have much time to attend sessions. Find me at the welcome table from 1-3 however. I will also be at the Membership meeting- 10:15-11:45. And the Exhibits opening w/lunch. 
• Thursday is Trustee Day. We have a breakfast, lunch and forum meeting which will take most of my day. I am also moderating: Get On Board: Encouraging Library Workers to Run for Local Library and School Boards. I will link the handout here to this post on Thursday.

Now for those of you not at ILA Annual. You can follow my adventures on Twitter through my handle or  the hashtag #ILAAC22. You can click through to see the Tweets whether or not you have an account or follow in the gutter of this blog where I post my Twitter feed for the things I tweet and retweet.

I hope to connect with some of you there. But again, for those not anywhere near us, both blogs will be running with content all week.

Materials Challenges and Your Library From the Trustee Table: New Presentation

Today I am debuting my presentation about why Library Trustees should not, and technically cannot, ban books.

I am hoping to give this presentation far and wide to as many library Trustees as possible, but first I need to test drive it.

Speaking of that test drive [at Noon Central today], you can find the details here and I believe the recording will be free to all at this link after the event as well.  This is all part of Wisconsin's annual Trustee Training Week where they offer an hour long webinar for trustees every day [M-F] from Noon to 1pm. I have presented for this event previously as well.

From that page:

Materials Challenges and Your Library from the Trustee Table 

Monday, August 22

Presenter:  Becky Spratford

Regardless of whether or not your library has had a request for reconsideration of library materials, the increase in challenges is dramatic, and quite frankly, upsetting. Becky Spratford, an expert in serving leisure readers through the public library with over 20 years of experience as a locally elected library trustee, Reaching Across Illinois Library System board member, and Illinois Library Association Executive Board member, will walk you through everything you need to do to prepare for a request to ban titles at your library. From the steps you need to take right now, to how to properly handle a challenge from your seat at the trustee table, Becky will help you to put the emotions aside and protect intellectual freedom.

Here is the link to my slides and here is the link to the handout I made of the links to make it easier for the Trustees to access more information .

If you are interested in having me come to your board meeting to present this, let me know. To keep the price down, I may consider providing you with recordings for them to watch and then simply charge you $100 for me to come to a Board meeting the answer questions live. You can always find my contact info by clicking on my logo.

But first, I need to see how it goes and make any changes after the fact.

Stay tuned.

RA for All Is Training Trustees at ILA Annual Conference Today

 

click here to enter the site

Tuesday-Thursday of this week is the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference and it is virtual once again.

RA for All is a Silver Sponsor of the entire event. I love sponsoring my home state's library association conference and am proud to be a part of it in this way. This year, I have a slide show that will run before my sponsored panels [which are also the three panels I am presenting in]. You can view that slide show here. It is like the first RA for All commercial.

You can click here to see the full schedule even if you are not attending. You can also click here to sort by my appearances as a speaker.

Today is my 3rd program of the conference and it is not RA focused, although it is something every library worker should know about-- Library Boards!

Back in May, Joe Filapek, the President of the Aurora Public Library District Board and Head of CE at RAILS, and I presented a program at Reaching Forward by ILA for library staff telling them what they need to know about how their Boards function and how they can best get involved. You can click here for access to those slides.

We planned from the start to do the "flip side" for Trustees and Directors here at ILA. So today, during the Trustee Day of the virtual conference, Joe and I are presenting, "Walk the Line: How Trustees Can Best Lead Their Libraries Without Overstepping Their Authority."

[And yes, there are Johnny Cash puns. Also balance beam fail gifs.]

Hope to see some of you there. Even if you are not a Trustee or even a manager, there is something for you to learn here.

Click here for slide access

RA for All Virtual Roadshow: Peek Behind the Admin Curtain: Trustee Secrets All Library Staff NEED to Know

Today I am presenting a program I developed during the pandemic as I saw communication between library workers and those in charge breaking down badly all over the place. Little did I know that this problem would reach a sad pinnacle right in my own back yard at Niles-Maine Public Library. 

Normally, I would not post a non-RA related program on the blog, but this is a topic that affects all library staff and those of us who do public desk shifts helping people with the leisure reading requests tend to have a fairly open relationship with our patrons. Staff who do any kind of RA work, whether officially from a service point or [especially] circulation desk staff, are the ones who are best positioned to do the most to help improve communication between staff and those in charge.

This program is meant to both empower you, the average library worker no matter your place on the org chart, to act while giving you the road map as to how to do so while "staying in your lane." There is a lot more you can do than you know, and since I have served at all levels in the library [including as a Trustee], I know how to walk the most effective line.

Today's program is for PCI Webinars so it will be seen by staff from many libraries; however, if you cannot access this and you need someone to talk to confidentially, please reach out. I offer mentoring and advice on this topic for FREE. I am also actively training Trustees on their side of this issue, encouraging them to be more open to listening to staff. 

Click here on on the image below to enter the free slides.  

Click here for slide access

Support Niles Library AND Educate Yourself About Your Own Library Board

I am hoping most of my readers have heard about the horrible and troubling situation at Niles-Maine District Library. I have many colleagues and a few friends who work there. But this is a problem that every single person who works in a public library [or school library] should worry about. 

First, and most time sensitive, if you live in the Chicago area and can, please consider joining the rally and march tomorrow evening. See this article: July 20th, gathering at NICO Park at 5pm and walking to the library.

You can also visit the Save Niles Library website and sign the petition.

I have to be at my Library Board Meeting, otherwise I would be there too. 

Now those are the specifics for my immediate area. What about the rest of you? 

Second, Kelly Jensen over at Book Riot wrote this excellent piece about this library. She breaks down the issues, provides all of the background, and tons of links for more information, but she also makes it clear as to why every single person who loves their library [as well as works at one] needs to understand what is going on here. 

Again, click here and please read it.

I have been very aware that rogue boards, can hijack the library to push their political agendas for years. No library is immune. Niles is in the same county as me, Cook County, IL, and on any political map we are very blue. That community is probably more purple, but I know that the majority of the residents do not agree with the 4 Board members and their extremely racist views who have deliberately gotten on the Board and now have a slim majority all because of complacency in the community.

Niles-Maine District Library is an award winning library with a great staff. The community figured it was going fine, the staff didn't concern themselves with the politics of Board elections precisely because everything was going well. Their Director was great. Well now that Director has been forced out. And she is not the only great Director in the Chicago suburbs who has been forced out by a rogue Board in the last few years; she is just the one in the newspapers. 

Earlier this year, I created a training program to deal with this type of situation, something I knew was already an issue and one Trump and Covid magnified. This program, entitled "Peek Behind the Administrative Curtain: Trustee Secrets All Library Staff NEED to Know" argues that every single staff member at the library can be informed and influential in helping to make sue the library does not end up run by extremists or people with another agenda.

For example, you as a staff member need to know the specific things Trustees are allowed to control. Currently at Niles, they are taking over all hiring, which is outside the scope of their powers as defined by the state. They only can hire, fire, and evaluate the Director. That is their ONLY employee. This means there are legal options for the library staff here.

Also, staff are a great resource for identifying and encouraging people to run for the Library Board. Look, I know it is not glamorous and it is A LOT of work to be on the Library Board. And the pay is $0. But your happy and well served patrons are NOT going to run unless you ask them. They are happy with the way things are. It is the unhappy people who have the energy to jump through the hoops to get elected. 

This is also why I encourage library staff to run for their local library boards [as long as they don't live in the town where they work]. My current board has 3 librarians. Me, a Department Head from another area library, and someone who works for the Freedom to Read Foundation. But even stacked with Librarians, we are NOT the majority. Our board is great, but we work hard to be on the same page and keep it that way-- all 7 of us. We work on communication with the Director. We handle differences of opinions openly and in public meetings and give the management team time to come up with their solution options. We don't always have unanimous votes, but we do agree to speak as one voice, as the law says we need to. This is how it should be run. 

Even I am not complacent, even after 21 yr and counting, nor are our staff members. They are encouraged to be involved and share their thoughts with the Board, the management team and the Executive Director. 

[Side note, it does not have to be racists who can cause problems. I once was part of an appointment process for a Trustee vacancy and one person clearly was trying to get on the library board as a stepping stone for a Village Trustee position. His cause? More liquor licenses for our village. We did not feel comfortable choosing him because he had an agenda other than helping run the library. Nor should you. We have had Staff let us know when problematic patrons have applied for openings multiple times.]

I will be giving the above mentioned training program for PCI in August next but if you have a library where things are going down the wrong path, please contact me. I can provide FREE consultations and help. Remember I am a 21 yr Library Trustee, a member of the System Board, and I have 15 years of library worker experience including management. I can help you. I want to help you.

Even if you think your library is fine now, please look at the slides. There are things here everyone can be doing to keep it okay going forward. I know of other libraries near me and a few in neighboring states who are in the thick of this and it is a bad harbinger. 

I also have a version for the Trustees too. You can access that one here.

Get out and march for Niles-Maine District Library tomorrow if you can, read Kelly's article, and sign the petition.

Every single one of you, no matter were you work, has more power than you think.

RA for All Roadshow Virtual Appearance at Reaching Forward With a New Program and Partner

Click here to learn more about this conference

Today I have a totally new program from a completely different angle. As part of Reaching Forward, a conference for library workers, I am presenting Peek Behind the Admin Curtain: Trustee Secrets All Library Staff Need to Know with my colleague Joe Filapek.

This is part of a two pronged strategy that Joe and I are launching in an attempt to help improve communication between all levels of staff. Step one is today when we talk to staff about how they can communicate within the organizational structure of the library. Step two will be at the ILA annual conference when we will talk to Trustees about not overstepping their bounds. It is all about teaching admin and staff to communicate better and providing the proper avenues to both on how to accomplish this, and listen to each other, with the results being a better library overall.

But why am I doing this with Joe? Well, Joe and I have known each other a long time. He was one of my first crop of students when I taught at the MLIS program. But we are now both library world CE experts AND trustees, and between the two of us, we have experience with every type of IL library-- village, city, and district. We are leveraging our unique position to help all libraries. Here is one of our first slides to showcase who we are in this sphere, because for many attendees they only know us as the people who provide training programs:

Click here for slide access

One of the may things Joe and I have learned during this pandemic is that there is a great need to fix communication throughout the entire organizational chart, and while there are only so many things we as individuals can do to fix this problem, providing education and sharing information is something that will help, and it is also something that we are perfectly positioned to provide.

I know this is a slightly different type of training than I normally provide, but it is one that can help any and all library workers. While the specifics in this program are geared toward IL law specifically, the general gist works across most states.

Click here or on the image below to see the slides and some of our notes. 

Click here for slide access

Back Monday with your regularly scheduled RA specific content.

Reading Resolutions Part 2: Becky's 2021 Resolutions

Yesterday I began the process of posting my 2020 reading resolutions by first looking back and assessing how I did on my 2019 resolutions. You can read that post here.

Today, using what I learned by assessing how last year went, and knowing what things I have planned for the coming year, I present my 2020 Resolutions-- the ones I will hold myself to for assessment a year from now.

Again, please remember, I post these both so that I am forced to hold myself to them [or not as the case may be] but also because I am a big proponent of the "lead by example" leadership style. If I am advocating for you to make resolutions and then go back and assess how you did before making the next year's resolutions, I also have to do it myself.

However, that being said, my resolutions are very specific to me. I do not expect nor encourage you to take mine as your own. Please use the process as the example and then try to make some for yourself. Tomorrow I will have another librarian who agreed to share hers too. 

2021 Resolution: I will look for ways to drive change when it comes to EDI. Last year it was about being louder,  and getting myself into more venues to discuss equity, diversity, and inclusion to more physical people. My focus was on helping well-meaning white people separate being racist from their part in systemic racism. I think with the help of the larger Black Lives Matter movement, I was able to be a small part of this reckoning for many people. Understanding that you don’t have to be racist to be part of the structure that upholds racism has always been the point of my training, but I think more people were ready to listen to the message this year. But now I need to pivot. As I mentioned yesterday here, I began to take personal action on the EDI front from joining committees to starting a diversity scholarship. However, it is not enough to simply keep doing what I have been doing. Systemic change is a marathon, and it requires constantly pushing the boundaries in order for noticeable change to happen. We are up against over 400 years of history. So I will actively be a force to drive change this year. I already know I will be part of some serious EDI work through my local library [as a Trustee], and I am determined to make sure that the RAILS EDI committee gets some action steps going very soon, but in terms of my own training programs, I need to step it up a bit. Most of my current training is about revealing to library workers that systemic racism is a thing and they have to actively work against it, but I need to create a second level training. I think this can happen after the new book is completely in the publishers hands [Feb/March]. I also want some time to talk with others, especially those from marginalized communities about where my efforts are best focused.

2021 Resolution: I need to keep embracing horror while actively inserting graphic novels, nonfiction, and stories [non horror] back into my leisure reading life. This comes out of my assessment from 2020. I did great reading Middle Grade because I made it a resolution. But in the strained leisure reading life of 2020 these other loves of mine just disappeared. Again, I discussed why yesterday, but just because I have a reason doesn’t mean I am off the hook. I know reading more of these titles will improve my personal and work life, so I am making it a priority right now. Once the details of my manuscript submissions for the new book are done, I am sure I will have more brain space for non-horror reading and listening too, and I will make these reading areas a top priority. That being said, I need to also continue to find the healthy balance of embracing of horror as my main genre even when I am not actively writing a book about the genre. 2021 will be the year to see if my ability to stop apologizing for reading mostly horror, will actually stick. I realize all of you expect mostly horror from me; but I still felt guilty every year but this last one [2020] that this was the case.

2021 Resolution: I will work on increasing connections and interactivity with my general RA training programs. In 2020 I did many more webinars than interactive training programs due to the pandemic. Libraries also wanted more “train the trainer” programs, which while super effective in the short term, are not as helpful in the long term because many of the the trainers I trained have not had effective ways to get more staff involved and trained when everyone was socially distant. I was still able to provide a handful of libraries with an experience similar to in-person, but most of those were for small groups- less than 25— so we could all be on Zoom together on one screen. Only 1 library was able to turn my planned, hands-on, full library in-service day into a virtual event and that was because the person running It on the library’s end is exceptional and a friend. We were able to spend time working it all out together and we then presented on how we did it at a library conference. Neither the webinar only model, nor the elaborate virtual recreation of a full library, in person staff day are sustainable for another year. And with closures and limits in services still happening off and on at libraries, I cannot stand by and do nothing either. 2020 exposed the problem I have been warning of for the last 5 years— libraries tried to back away from being about books and now, that’s what people need and our staff’s are not ready to provide the level of RA service they need to be able to provide. So I am going to try to identify a few clients with whom I can work to figure this all out. Even if things go back to “normal” this Fall, libraries are not going to be able to close for staff days anytime soon; tax players won’t stand for it. I can make a living doing things virtual, but the content and learning is much better when the programs are for the entire staff and truly interactive. I care more about the experience and learning. Thankfully I have some ideas and two upcoming programs where I can try a few things out. 

2021 Resolution: I am going to offer more training programs that work to help close the huge communication gap between Administration/Trustees and Library Staff. As I mentioned yesterday, 2020 exposure a huge disconnect between administration/trustees and the boots on the ground staff. Operation in the midst of a pandemic was the catalyst but it is a gap that has been widening over the years. Many libraries have a toxic work environment, I am starting to think it is the norm quite honestly. I worked in one of those toxic environments so I understand it all too well. I have some ideas on how to improve communication between both sides, which I think is the biggest problem. Too often, I hear from staff that they cannot talk to anyone above them except for their immediate supervisors, for example. I also know of libraries where Trustees are going directly to library staff to demand information behind administrators’ backs. I even heard of one extreme example in the Northern US where the Director washed their hands of helping out in the pandemic by moving to Canada and being “unavailable” to go to work. None of this is good. And It is happening all over the country. I have begun to address this issue by proposing a program at a library conference for general staff about what they need to know about their Board of Trustees and how they can interact with them. Most libraries with toxic work environments would be greatly improved by better, honest communication between the very top and the bottom. I am also in the process of working on a larger program to figure out how to council both the top and the bottom of the organizational chart on how they can work together better. I am working with another library professional who is also a Trustee and I hope to expand to include some Directors and Clerical Staff. 2020 was the year library workers got vocal and went public with the details about the toxic work environments we have all been dealing with behind the scenes, and I am glad that it is no longer a secret, but the next step is to act. I am well positioned as a library professional and a Trustee to begin acting. 

So those are my plans for 2021. Again, they are all informed by my assessment of my 2020 resolutions.  I know I won’t be perfect with these 4 goals, but by laying them out I have an outline of where to begin, and the beginning is the best place to start.

Please let me know if you want to share your 2021 Resolutions and/or your Assessment of your 2020 Goals. It is a very tame way to hold yourself accountable and helps others. Click here for my contact info.