LISProchat Reads the #LISprochat #BookClub - March book pick!

book image via Dave Dugdale

WHAT?

A book club! On Twitter! Where we read and discuss books to help us with our professional development in library land!

WHERE?

On Twitter, using the same hashtag we use for our chats! #LISprochat.

WHEN?

We'll announce the upcoming book in the last chat of the previous month and then have the discussion on the last Monday of the month regardless of whether it's a normal #LISprochat day or not.

WHY?

For a few reasons, Leigh and I thought it would be fun to have a book club. I mentioned that I was giving myself a new reading goal to try and read 1 professional book a month, and this is a good way for me to motivate myself to meet that goal through accountability!

March 2018 Book Selection

The chat will take place on Monday, March 26, 2018, at 8:30 pm. In recognition of international women's day on March 8th, I thought I'd pick a book related to libraries and feminism.

Title: Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction
Editor/Author: Maria T. Accardi

Publisher: Library Juice Press 

Date Published: 2013
No. of Pages: 160

WorldCat link: http://www.worldcat.org/title/feminist-pedagogy-for-library-instruction/oclc/889313854?loc=

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Providing both a theoretical framework and practical guidance, this title introduces feminist pedagogy to librarians seeking to enrich their teaching practices in feminist and progressive ways. Drawing heavily upon the women's studies literature where the concept first appears, Accardi defines and describes recurring themes for feminist teachers: envisioning the classroom as a collaborative, democratic, transformative site; consciousness raising about sexism and oppression; ethics of care in the classroom; and the value of personal testimony and lived experience as valid ways of knowing. Framing these concepts in the context of the limits of library instruction--so often a 50 minute one-shot bound by ACRL-approved cognitive learning outcomes--Accardi invites a critical examination of the potential for feminist liberatory teaching methods in the library instruction classroom. This book is Number 3 in the Litwin Books Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies, Emily Drabinski, Series Editor. 

#LISprochat lead-in - topic & questions for Mon Feb 5 2018 - 8:30pm ET

by Nick Youngson

TOPIC

Leadership skills & how to build them

I've been in my first leadership role at work since May of last year, and I just finished filling out my first performance review for this role. So to say I've been thinking a lot about how to improve as a leader lately is accurate. Leigh has been doing the same, she just came back from the SLA conference where they talked a lot about leadership. That's what we're going to do this week in our chat. I checked all of the articles on the first page of the Google results for "what makes a good leader" and here are the top 5 most commonly listed skills:

1. Communication skills
2. Knowing/understanding your team and making time for them
3. Being able to focus on the positives
4. Being able to learn from your weaknesses and mistakes
5. Being able to motivate and persuade people

One that I feel is an important runner-up is a drive to continue to learn and improve, after all that's how you'll build your leadership skills. Here are a few articles with tips for just how to build those skills:

7 Ways to Start Building Your Leadership Skills Today (No Matter Where You Are on the Ladder)

9 ways to develop your leadership skills

How to find out your style of leadership

7 ways to build stronger leadership skills

Becoming an Effective Leader (edX MOOC)

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

While you're here please consider checking out our new feature for 2018: #LISPROCHAT Reads, our professional development book club. The first book club session will be running next Monday, February 26, at 8:30 pm 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 What skills do you think make someone a good and effective leader? Do you think being a good leader is the same as being a good manager?

Q2 What resources do you use in order to build your leadership skills at work?

Q3 What resources do you use to build your leadership skills outside of work?

Q4 Do you think that library schools are doing enough to help produce good and effective library leaders? How would you have them change if not?

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING IN ON TWITTER AT 8:30 PM ET NEXT MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5 USING THE #LISPROCHAT HASHTAG. 

LISProchat Reads the #LISprochat #BookClub - February book pick!

book image via Dave Dugdale

WHAT?

A book club! On Twitter! Where we read and discuss books to help us with our professional development in library land!

WHERE?

On Twitter, using the same hashtag we use for our chats! #LISprochat.

WHEN?

We'll announce the upcoming book in the last chat of the previous month and then have the discussion on the last Monday of the month regardless of whether it's a normal #LISprochat day or not.

WHY?

For a few reasons, Leigh and I thought it would be fun to have a book club. I mentioned that I was giving myself a new reading goal to try and read 1 professional book a month, and this is a good way for me to motivate myself to meet that goal through accountability!

February 2018 Book Selection

The chat will take place on Monday, February 26, 2018, at 8:30 pm. In recognition of black history month, this month's pick is about an African-American Librarian.

Title: The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
Editor/Author: Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

Publisher: Amistad

Date Published: 2017
No. of Pages: 512 (ebook) 549 (hardcover)

WorldCat link: http://www.worldcat.org/title/original-black-elite-daniel-murray-and-the-story-of-a-forgotten-era/oclc/970397702?loc=

Synopsis via Goodreads:

In this outstanding cultural biography, the author of the New York Times bestseller A Slave in the White House chronicles a critical yet overlooked chapter in American history: the inspiring rise and calculated fall of the black elite, from Emancipation through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era—embodied in the experiences of an influential figure of the time, academic, entrepreneur, and political activist and black history pioneer Daniel Murray.

In the wake of the Civil War, Daniel Murray, born free and educated in Baltimore, was in the vanguard of Washington, D.C.’s black upper class. Appointed Assistant Librarian at the Library of Congress—at a time when government appointments were the most prestigious positions available for blacks—Murray became wealthy through his business as a construction contractor and married a college-educated socialite. The Murrays’ social circles included some of the first African-American U.S. Senators and Congressmen, and their children went to the best colleges—Harvard and Cornell.

Though Murray and other black elite of his time were primed to assimilate into the cultural fabric as Americans first and people of color second, their prospects were crushed by Jim Crow segregation and the capitulation to white supremacist groups by the government, which turned a blind eye to their unlawful—often murderous—acts. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor traces the rise, fall, and disillusionment of upper-class African Americans, revealing that they were a representation not of hypothetical achievement but what could be realized by African Americans through education and equal opportunities.

As she makes clear, these well-educated and wealthy elite were living proof that African Americans did not lack ability to fully participate in the social contract as white supremacists claimed, making their subsequent fall when Reconstruction was prematurely abandoned all the more tragic. Illuminating and powerful, her magnificent work brings to life a dark chapter of American history that too many Americans have yet to recognize.