Kimberly Hirsh logo Kimberly Hirsh

Real talk, I skipped the end of #CLS2022 to hang out with my kid and nap and I have no regrets.

🔖 Read Rapport or Respect? (Helen Kara).

Dr. Kara makes excellent points about how research can seem friendly but be extractive. This is why I prefer either to do insider research or to maintain relationships after the study.

I have a lot of hairs that are white at the bottom, black or brown in the middle, and white at the top. These are a useful indicator of changes in my thyroid function over time.

#CLS2022: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Library Spaces in the Face of Obstacles

I didn’t get to liveblog/tweet this session because I was co-facilitating it, but I’m jotting down a few takeaways and a list of resources/links in hopes they will be of use to folks.

Our panelists were:

  • Julie Stivers, middle school librarian at Mt. Vernon Middle School in Raleigh, NC
  • Miles, a rising high school junior and former student of Julie’s
  • Kym Powe, Children and YA Consultant, Connecticut State Library
  • Juan Rubio, Digital Media and Learning Program Manager, Seattle Public Library
  • Sandra Hughes-Hassell, Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science

We opened by asking the panelists to share their broad perspectives on creating equitable and inclusive library perspectives.

Connected Learning Lab Senior Research Manager Amanda Wortman took awesome notes on these. Here are some big ideas:

  • Hold onto why you do the work.
  • Recognize structural aspects of fostering equity and inclusion and simultaneously equip library staff to take individual action.
  • Center the voices and experiences of youth themselves.

We then launched into some questions based on our work in the Transforming Teen Services for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion project. I basically acted as a clueless, well-intentioned librarian asking for help.

How do I know if I’m actually creating an inclusive space?

You might not be able to tell, but if your love for the work shines through, you’re moving in the right direction. When your space starts to feel like a living room and a community hub, keep doing what you’re doing and grow more in the same vein. Look at yourself and your colleagues; what unstated or invisible expectations are you communicating? They might be making the space less inclusive.

I think I’m creating inclusive spaces but people aren’t actually coming into them. What should I do?

LEAVE THE BUILDING. There are a lot of reasons people might not come. Go to where they already are. Consider not just your own actions, but those of your colleagues. Are other people in the space making it less equitable and inclusive? Build authentic relationships, in or out of the library. The relationship with the person is more important than the presence of the physical space. Change the power structures in the space; design with youth rather than for them.

I know I need to leave the building but I’m overwhelmed. How do I start?

You start by starting. Team up with a friend. Build on the work of a colleague near or far who has already gone out; learn from their experiences. Don’t stop going out after one attempt doesn’t work. Move on to the next potential place or partner. Keep trying. You’ll eventually find the right fit.

Okay I’m ready! But I talked to my supervisor and they said I can’t leave the building. What’s my next step?

Relationships are important here, too. Build a relationship with your supervisor. Help them understand the value of the work you’re doing and why it’s important to go into the community. Write a formal proposal for the supervisor. Include outcomes and impact. Make it clear it won’t take you out of the building for a whole day at a time.

How can school and public librarians think beyond just going into each others’ spaces? How can we get to places that don’t have library or school vibes?

Go to where they spend time outside of school. If you’re partnering with a school, think about going to extracurricular events that don’t feel so formal and school-y. Recognize that what matters most is that youth get what they need, not who provides it or where.

I want to learn more! What should I do next?

  • Attend events like the Connected Learning Summit.
  • Look for free professional development like Project READY.
  • Talk to your state library.

Links

I’m taking the 10:30 - 11:30 PST hour off from #CLS2022 so that I can get some quiet time in before facilitating at 12. See y’all soon!

My Notes from #CLS2022: OPENING PLENARY - Staying Connected, Fueling Innovation, Affirming Core Values: Three Learning Organizations Carrying Lessons Forward from the Twin Pandemics

Scot Osterweil:

Getting today's plenary started - Staying Connected, Fueling Innovation, Affirming Core Values: Three Learning Organizations Carrying Lessons Forward from the Twin Pandemics

Jal Mehta:

is moderator, beginning the panel. Talking about carrying forward lessons from pandemic crisis into "neverending pandemic."

invites attendees to share something good that came out of the pandemic for them. There are too many to share all here! But big themes are family time, taking breaks, conversations about accessibility.

Jessica, let's start with you. We think of a library as a physical space where people go. What happened with your library during the pandemic? What can other people, in a library or otherwise, learn from your experiences?

Jessica R. Chaney:

works with Cloud901, a teen learning lab in Memphis Public Libraries, work with STEM/STEAM, project-based learning, and connected learning.

Closed for about a month, partnered with other city divisions & community organizations. Metropolitan Interfaith Association - library staff boxed food, were drivers, were able to get into community with access to library materials, worked with p

Worked with Parks & Rec and other divisions to disseminate information about social services. A great opportunity to get out and reach out to communities who were underserved or couldn't readily come to the library.

Previously divisions were siloed but now they can connect to serve the community.

Shifted to online programming. With that program, they touched people in communities across the country, not just Memphis.

Able to work with people who wouldn't normally come to the library for a myriad of reasons - anxiety in social settings, other reasons - able to access library programming at a comfort level that worked best for them.

A lot more families at online programming. A lot of parents working alongside kids during camps. Opportunity for family to get together & bond and parents became library advocates.

Understanding & seeing that library staff need to recognize in every aspect where barriers are, even when we don't readily see them.

Online programming was wonderful, but what about people without home internet? What about requiring supplies for a program?

What barriers are out there? How can we break those down? Wifi hot spots, takeaway supplies. Producing programs that only use things readily available at home or brick & mortar store.

With population 30-40% below the poverty line, people have to choose - do they send their kids to an enrichment opportunity, or do they feed them?

Jal Mehta:

Really promising: holistic vision of youth & families & what they need. Intersection of innovation and equity. "We can't do this for everybody, so we're not going to do it at all." So iterate to make it accessible for more people.

WILLIAM Izabal:

runs a clubhouse that had to move online. It was a challenge. Hearing some commonalities between ListoAmerica, an afterschool program that serves primarily Mexican community, and library already.

ListoAmerica is part of The Computer Clubhouse, a network. Had to shut down physical space, but within about 2 - 3 weeks, UCI PhDs were able to support creating the clubhouse online for the same hours online.

Tried to replicate as much as possible the pre-pandemic experience but had to be innovative. Started member-to-member meetups because new members would be isolated.

Members are youth. Usually middle school & high school. Connected new members with mentors.

Created hybrid programs. Created pick-up point for materials to pick up at one time and conduct sessions later on.

People would make themselves available in online community at specific time so other people could come discuss with them.

Temptation is to just learn the technology and gain skills, but goal of ListoAmerica is to support creation, not just skill building. Connect people with interests - for example music-interested youth and video-interested youth collaborate on music video.

Mexican culture is important. Mentors were almost all Mexican. Mexican American members often had parents who were undocumented and thus didn't want to come in. Mentor created entire Discord channel in Spanish and invite family members in.

Adam Kulaas:

works in Tacoma school district in Washington State. Fortunate to have a school board and superintendent who embraced pandemic as a community with grace and empathy.

In March 2020 decided to be as pro-active as possible. Set up design around an online school that they expected to have about 400 kids, ended up with about 5000 out of 30000 who wanted an online experience.

over 250 staff members, community eager to keep students safe in the online world. Quickly shifted gears into evolving into high quality. It was difficult because staff hadn't been trained in online teaching.

Grace for staff and students formed a community. While other districts are sprinting back to "normal," Tacoma has moved toward redefining and reimagining new normal.

Online school is now a fully-functional school with about 2000 students. Tacoma is also introducing a flex program to allow students to experience both face-to-face and online learning, which allows flexibility in their schedules.

:

Hearing vision and leadership from Tacoma superintendent and board.

Adam Kulaas:

Tacoma's been working on a whole student initiative and this moved them toward a whole community perspective.

Jal Mehta:

When is an online environment better than an in-person environment? When is it a weak facsimile of a personal environment?

WILLIAM Izabal:

Didn't think online clubhouse would work, for example "creative collision" in small space where people would bump into each other and notice each others' work and ask about it.

Somehow, with the hybrid model, it worked. Occasionally, we would get together in very careful (socially distanced, masked) groups, and were able to go global. Connected with clubhouse in Mexico City. Never were able to do that before.

That enhanced the cultural background, that it's okay to be Mexican in the United States, it's something to be proud of. Opened Mexican American citizens' eyes to what it's like to be in Mexico and what technology is like there.

Jessica R. Chaney:

Able to connect online with people from all over. Were able to ask colleges to send virtual tours for them to share with people who couldn't travel to visit.

This summer, they started back in person with summer camp. Every camp this year people have come back with people they met in camp and they've continued to work together. This didn't happen before.

Adam Kulaas:

It's a "Yes, and." Redefined understanding of connected. Multitiered opportunities to connect with adult learners, assessing online experiences combined with occasional face-to-face meetings led to some simple tech innovation.

Kindergarteners took a field trip to the zoo, some in person, but many remotely who were working in teams and engaging during chat because the schools had taught that school. Recorded the session and now it can be reused with different groups.

Online learning is not the best path for every kid, but it very well could be for some.

Teachers were not only livecasting, but were interacting with students online. Students could see their own teacher.

Jal Mehta:

Was the number of participants the same, larger, smaller, different people in online programs versus face to face?

WILLIAM Izabal:

Old members already had established connections. New members would introduce themselves and old members would connect with them.

Scale expanded going remotely. The question now is should we go back to some form of physical?

Jessica R. Chaney:

It depended on the program. Camps were larger than we anticipated. Some other programs like college virtual tours were huge numbers. Some programs just had 2 to 3 people in them. We counted it as a win whatever it was.

Adam Kulaas:

Club and extended learning opportunities tended to grow online.

Jessica R. Chaney:

Transitioning to online was already a struggle, so any number of kids we counted as a win.

We've gone back to in-person but there will always be some kind of hybrid component to a good bit of our programs.

We didn't have multiple-hour programs. They were very short, intensive. We would talk, but the staff made a lot of video work that youth could not only watch, but reference.

Having videos to reference helped kids who fell behind or missed sessions. We shared it with other library systems in Tennessee.

Jal Mehta:

Have there been opportunities to connect and collaborate with parents and other community organizations?

Adam Kulaas:

We had existing partnerships and it was exciting to see those partners pivot with us.

WILLIAM Izabal:

One thing that's worked for us is other non-profit engagement. We got a call from an organization in another county that wants to open up a clubhouse and a remote clubhouse working with us.

Jal Mehta:

Final thoughts?

Jessica R. Chaney:

What we have found is that for us, there's no "getting back to normal." There's working to address the shift in our youth. We've seen a number of youth ask for programming and services around mental health, being engaged with social & economic issues.

We're shifting and rebuilding in some areas with how we continue to service our youth. What we did before for branding & strategic planning can stay in place but we recognize that the way we were doing it needs to shift.

WILLIAM Izabal:

A young lady who started with us in middle school and is now at Cal State University Fullerton, whose world was a 2-mile radius when she started with us, now has a global perspective and spent a semester in South Korea.

Adam Kulaas:

It's a vulnerable celebration of acknowledging that we don't know what we don't know. Adam Grant: "We live in a rapidly changing world where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking."

I can’t liveblog/tweet any of the 12p Pacific sessions at #CLS2022 today because I’m co-facilitating one. If you want to livetweet or blog, I recommend using NoterLive. It will keeping everything in a thread & include the hashtag for you.

Deciding when to drop a paper: Rethinking my lit review about tabletop RPGs and identity development

I’ve been sitting on a paper that was “accepted with revisions” for more than 3 years. I have poked at it sometimes and worked hard on it others, sometimes hated the revision process and sometimes enjoyed it.

The purpose of submitting this paper was not actually to get it published. It was to get it submitted so I met the requirement of having submitted 2 items for peer review before my comps. Also, it’s not original research. It’s a literature review.

My assistantships in my first 4 years of the PhD put me in a situation where my colleagues and I weren’t publishing much in scholarly journals. The first year, I helped with a lit review that I think was for a popular publication. The next three years, I worked on an immense professional development project. I’m very proud of the curriculum we created and did get some trade publication out of that but again, not scholarly publication.

So it wasn’t until my last 2 years of my PhD that I was working with other scholars on papers, most of which are currently in submission or revision. All my work for scholarly publication before that had to be solo-authored and, quite frankly, what I wrote was Not Good. It wasn’t BAD but it needed so much revision.

By the time this accepted-with-revisions lit review came back to me from the journal (it had gone to a third reviewer because one reviewer was like “Accept! Minimal revisions!” and one was like “R&R… Maybe.” Reviewer 3 basically said “Accept but with heavy revision”), I was 3 years out from the original class paper it was based on. I had barely rewritten it from that for submission because, again, I just needed to move past a PhD milestone.

I was very excited when it came back accepted with revisions, but I was also in the middle of a very stressful house-buying process, writing my comps, and only had half-time childcare, so I couldn’t make it a priority.

Also I was, understandably, hurt by some of Reviewer 2’s pointed and accurate statements, so I set it aside for a while.

I picked it back up and made a revision plan, drawing on Wendy Belcher and Raul Pacheco-Vega’s advice on how to deal with revisions but as I sorted through these changes, I began to realize that NONE of them were small. They were all large changes. Here’s the kind of thing I mean:

  • Elaborate on places where I cited multiple sources and be more explicit about what they say and how they’re in conversation with one another. (This is a very reasonable suggestion, and the one I’ve been working on this whole time.)
  • Completely re-organize the literature review based on insights hinted at in the conclusion.
  • VAGUELY CONTRADICTORY SUGGESTIONS FROM THE SAME REVIEWER: broaden the scope to include more scholarly research; narrow the scope to focus on only one of three areas addressed in the lit review.
  • Find criticism that contrasted with the positive sources cited and described in the paper. (There wasn’t enough literature for that to really be a thing.)
  • Completely restructure the paper based on one of the developmental frameworks I drew on.

This is daunting as all get out, especially alone, especially when dissertating AND working (because I didn’t have a dissertation fellowship, I was also conducting research and writing as part of an assistantship my final year), and there’s a pandemic on (that wasn’t until a year after the paper was “accepted” but still) and you’re a parent of a young child and you have limited childcare.

But y’all, the shame I placed on myself for not revising this paper.

I’m absolutely still excited by the central ideas of this paper:

  • Teen library programming should support teens’ identity development.
  • Teen library programming around TRPGs should go beyond the idea of engagement and actually reach a level of impact where teens get to try on new personas, take imaginary risks, and figure out their own moral beliefs through pretending to be other people.

But oh my goodness I do not want to work on this paper anymore. This iteration of this set of ideas does not bring me joy.

And after yesterday’s Connected Learning Summit panel on post-pandemic burnout with multiple panelists talking about the importance of centering work that feeds and serves you, I am ready to let go of tinkering with this six-year-old literature review for publication in a journal that honestly deserves a more insightful set of arguments around these ideas.

On the other hand, I’ve worked hard on this thing for a few years and don’t want it to sit in my Google Drive collecting dust and being of no use to other people. And my colleague Maria Alberto said it was “absolutely interesting and useful.”

So I’m going to read through it one more time and make sure it makes sense, and then I’m going to publish it effectively as a pre-print/author paper here on my website and in a couple of pre-print archives as well, so it can get out there as it is.

THEN I’m going to do two more things with it:

  • Use it as the foundation for some public writing. If you know of an outlet where a paper about how TRPGs support identity development would be a good fit, please let me know.
  • I’m going to pocket it to support some original research, if I end up in a situation to actually collect data on the relationship between TRPGs and identity development.

Huge thanks to Sandra Hughes-Hassell for her feedback on this, the folks at JRLYA who gave me feedback, and Maria for validating me. Also to Katy Rose Guest Pryal for her advice on how to deal with research in The Freelance Academic, and yesterday’s panelists for talking about doing research that resonates with your soul.