#LISprochat with the Experts - bio & question call for Wednesdayday June 17 2020 - 8:30pm ET

"Question mark illustration," by Pixabay licensed with CC0

TOPIC

A Q&A With Stefanie Maclin-Hurd, ILS Support Librarian

Stefanie Maclin-Hurd (she/her) currently works as the ILS Support Librarian for the WAGGIN District (Washington, Greene, Fayette Counties) in SW Pennsylvania. Previously, she has worked at an IT Marketing Company, Oil and Gas Company, a Digital Publishing Company, and in academic libraries. She completed her MLIS with a specialization in Archives from Simmons College (now Simmons University) in 2010. She also completed a Certificate in Digital Services and Emerging Technologies from SJSU. She is the SLA Pittsburgh Community President, founded the Working Parents and Caregivers Group, and a former President of the SLA New England Community. 

Submit questions you'd like Stefanie to discuss as comments on this post and we'll choose some together and post them in advance of the chat.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Monday June 1 & Wednesday June 10 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

Re-opening of Libraries

Libraries are starting to talk about re-opening and it's important that we discuss how that's going to happen, what it's going to look like and how to do that safely. For the month of June we're trying out a new experiment we're going to run each chat twice, on the first week we'll run it on the Monday at 8:30 and then the next week we'll run it again at 8:30 on the Wednesday. Our Wednesday chat in May worked so well we wanted to give it a shot and see what it could be like if we tried to do both.

Here's some pre-chat reading on the subject:

COVID-19 Pandemic Resources and Plans for Library Reopening

Reopening: Not “When?” But “How?”

Planning for Reopening Resources

Preparing to Reopen Your Library

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1 Is your library in the process of reopening? Yes or no and what date?

Q2 Is your library going to be fully open? Are you doing curbside? What types of programs are you doing for your patrons?

Q3 What changes will you be making to your library policies and what are you doing to ensure the safety of your patrons and staff?

Q4 If you are a library in the process of reopening, what recommendations do you have for libraries going to be doing this in the future? 

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, JUNE 1 OR THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Wednesday May 20 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

Staying professionally engaged while working from home

As COVID-19 continues to keep us at home, let's talk about how everyone is trying to stay engaged professionally whether they're working from home or currently furloughed. 

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1: How are staying professionally connected and engaged while at home right now?

Q2: How have you been finding out about digital opportunities and what are your go-to resources?

Q3 What kinds of virtual opportunities would you like to see for LIS pros now and in the future?

Q4 Do you think virtual conference experiences could become the new normal? Do you think they should be?

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT WEDNESDAY, MAY 20 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Mon May 3 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

Libraries and the digital divide during the pandemic

METRO did a webinar last week on libraries in New York and how their patrons are being affected by the digital divide right now, I thought this was a good chance for us to discuss the same issue.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1: How are your patrons affected by the digital divide during the pandemic?

Q2: Is your library doing anything specific to combat the issues of the digital divide at this time?

Q3 What do you think the responsibility of libraries is to fix the digital divide right now? How can we fix it in the long term?

Q4? Do you think the current situation will help us make lasting changes in narrowing the digital divide or do you think this will make the divide even wider than it previously was?

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, MAY 3 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Mon Apr 27 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

Libraries, info pros and going digital during the pandemic

This is a continuation of the Virtual Roundtable discussion Leigh led with SLA on 4/16.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1: How did your library or organization handle the fast-changing situation of the pandemic? Did they close their doors quickly or wait a few weeks? What was communication like?

Q2: How well was your library/organization already set up for providing digital resources and services to users? What workarounds, alternatives did you have to use?

Q3 What were your library/organization’s biggest challenges and how were they addressed? What are the current challenges now?

Q4? What changes did your organization make that you think will have a lasting effect or lead to longer-term changes?

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, APRIL 27 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Mon Apr 13 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

COVID and Library Programming

Since we're all still figuring out how to exist and carry-on in this ever-changing pandemic world, this week we're going to talk about how to run library programming during a pandemic.

Resources:

https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-libraries-impact-goes-beyond-books/

https://www.bctv.org/2020/04/06/libraries-getting-creative-with-virtual-programming/?fbclid=IwAR1CLE92NVa8dpwxmRlw1J7-ZA3-OTl31ljQnjuYd42SPGxNeCmK1WI5ox8

https://www.webjunction.org/news/webjunction/youth-programming-goes-virtual.html?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=April+1+2020+Crossroads&utm_campaign&utm_term=WebJunctionCrossroads_COMM&fbclid=IwAR3kEl8AuChLNcutaNpmhBOFtcN-mOjY2xI7_9XhHh9VPojfdkz1klOaq_Q 

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1: How are things going for you and your library during the pandemic? Are you providing services remotely or is your library closed or something else?

Q2: What types of virtual programming /library services are you doing for your patrons during the pandemic?  Or what ideas do you have for virtual programming and library services?

Q3 Are you getting a good turnout for your virtual programming during the pandemic. What types of feedback are you receiving?

Q4? What advice do you have for creating virtual programming/services for your library? How can libraries work together to provide virtual programming during the pandemic? 

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, APRIL 13 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Mon Mar 30 2020 - 8:30pm ET

via Wikimedia Commons

TOPIC

Vocational Awe In A Pandemic

Fobazi Ettarh (@fobettarh) coined the term "vocational awe" and describes it in detail in a 2018 article in "In The Library With The Lead Pipe" titled, "Vocational Awe And Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves". She defines "vocational awe' as, "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."

In the current global pandemic situation, vocational awe led librarians and librarian leadership to intuitively want to stay open and serve their patrons. Libraries are seen as "safe spaces" and librarians as trusted individuals. However, viruses do not respect space and large public gathering spaces like libraries are no different than other spaces when it comes to groups of individuals getting infected. This chat will revolve around the past few weeks of the global library response to the pandemic and lessons learned to use for the future.

Sarah Braun works in a small political science special collections library in Washington, DC. She's an active member of the DC Chapter of the Special Libraries Association and is its current Communications Chair. She's also a member of the Public Policy Advisory Council of SLA. In her free time she attempts to garden and dabbles in analog photography. If you want to get in touch with her, reach out on twitter, she's @braunsk.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE'VE CHANGED THE TIME TO 8:30PM ET!

QUESTIONS

We post the questions here in advance of the chat so you can decide whether or not this topic is of interest to you and/or prepare your answers in advance.

Q1 How did the libraries around you, whether it be the one you work in, the public library you frequent, or the university's library where you're a student, respond to the virus? Were they keen to stay open, or did they immediately scale back hours? Did they have a policy in place to deal with this kind of situation?

Q2  What was the rationale for the decision taken? Do you think vocational awe and the library's mission to serve patrons at all costs played a role? Do you think public libraries or academic libraries were more likely to respond more quickly?

Q3 In general, what is your experience of vocational awe within the field? Have you experienced burnout because of these ingrained values? Has this pandemic caused you to rethink the notion of vocational awe?

Q4 What lessons can we take away from this pandemic? How can we creatively serve patrons during a pandemic, which we now know requires us to social distance ourselves, while keeping from experiencing too much stress and burnout?

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, MARCH 30 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG.