Scholar | Speaker | Writer | Teacher | Advocate
We’re putting together a working session for folks interested in crafting messages, materials, and projects to promote librarians to the general public. We are doing an increasingly good job getting the word out about libraries growing relevancy and community focus, but folks need to know this is a result of librarians and library staff.
Please consider joining us in Orlando and sharing your ideas. Information below:
As people are starting to get their hands on the New Librarianship Field Guide I have put up a few items to make it more useful. Check out the Field Guide Related Links by Chapter. It gives you a “tweet able” core concept for each chapter and links to videos and presentations related to the topic. My hope is to keep this as a growing resource, and feel free to send me links and additional resource to add.
I’ve also put up a landing page for the book with quick access to new blog posts and materials around the guide.
[tl;dr version: How does my new book The New Librarianship Field Guide fit into my other books on new librarianship? Librarian or teaching librarians – read the Field Guide. Scholar or librarian looking deeper – The Atlas of new Librarianship is for you. Board member and non-librarians curious about libraries – Expect More.]
While there have been numerous articles and presentations concerning new librarianship, the core of the concept is found in three books:
The three represent stages of thinking and an evolution of the concepts in librarianship, but each remains relevant and each is targeted toward a specific audience.
Published in 2011 the Atlas seeks to present a holistic view of librarianship and is focused on answering the question, “what is a librarian?” It dives deep and wide into concepts such as knowledge and facilitation. It seeks to link the what and how of librarianship to a why founded around a mission: to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in communities.
Published in 2012 Expect More is written for non-librarians about the field and how libraries as institutions are moving from collection-centered to community centered.
Just released in 2016 the Field Guide is written for front-line librarians and library science students. It is intentionally linear (unlike the Atlas) and accessible by a broad audience. It is loosely modeled as a text book with resources for teaching and discussing the field. It incorporates updated concepts of librarianship from the Atlas and libraries as institutions from Expect More without simply being a digest version of both.
To be clear each represents an evolution of thinking from the previous work. These seek to both promote and document the learning of the field through conversation. As always these works seek to be of value, but don’t seek to be definitive. Any active and vital field will continue to evolve as the world evolves. The goal of any of these books is not to have everyone agree, but to provide a foundation for dialog and healthy argument.
I end with a request to the field. I know that there are aspects of my work and views that people disagree with; that is how it should be in scholarly discourse. From the treatment of knowledge, to the focus on communities, to the political implications of the work there is great room for debate and experimentation. These conversations have and should continue to happen on social media and in conferences. I ask that these conversations be constructive.
Let us all use social media and journals and other forums to debate and argue on the ideas. In the pages of these works you will find an evolution of my thinking that has come from engagement. Librarianship (new, old, or other) is ultimately about society making smarter decisions. I get smarter from engagement with those who disagree often more than a discussion with those who agree. Please share your thoughts in journals, books, and practice. And let us never dismiss useful ideas for failures of the messenger.
This week I’m posting on my new book, The New Librarianship Field Guide. I’ll be talking about what’s in it, but also how it fits with other work like the Atlas of New Librarianship. MIT Press is shipping these now, and Amazon is taking pre-orders with availability starting the week of May 20th.
To kick us off, here is the information from MIT Press’ Catalog.
OverviewThis book offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chance to make a positive difference in their communities—librarians who recognize that it is no longer enough to stand behind a desk waiting to serve. R. David Lankes, author of The Atlas of New Librarianship, reminds librarians of their mission: to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. In this book, he provides tools, arguments, resources, and ideas for fulfilling this mission. Librarians will be prepared to become radical positive change agents in their communities, and other readers will learn to understand libraries in a new way.
The librarians of Ferguson, Missouri, famously became positive change agents in August 2014 when they opened library doors when schools were closed because of civil unrest after the shooting of an unarmed teen by police. Working with other local organizations, they provided children and their parents a space for learning, lunch, and peace. But other libraries serve other communities—students, faculty, scholars, law firms—in other ways. All libraries are about community, writes Lankes; that is just librarianship.
In concise chapters, Lankes addresses the mission of libraries and explains what constitutes a library. He offers practical advice for librarian training; provides teaching notes for each chapter; and answers “Frequently Argued Questions” about the new librarianship.
R. David Lankes is Professor and Dean’s Scholar for New Librarianship in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.
“David Lankes continues to be a crucial voice in support of libraries as they evolve during tumultuous times. The New Librarianship Field Guide is an invaluable resource for all who care about libraries—and for anyone who wants to help build a bright future for knowledge and democracies in a digital era.”
—John Palfrey, Head of School, Phillips Academy, and author of BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More than Ever in the Age of Google
“Libraries + librarians = community: Lankes makes the case and shows his work. He offers a well-structured argument for where libraries in this century need to be going, and how librarians can get them there, answering the question ‘Where in the hell is librarianship going anyhow?’ with charm and grace. Lankes’s invigorating and challenging ideas will help new and existing librarians find their purpose and achieve positive change.”
—Jessamyn West, community technology librarian, Open Library and librarian.net
Today is graduation day at Syracuse University. I have been called upon from time to time to give remarks or thoughts to graduates. These follow some version of “you’re not done yet, keep learning,” or “change the world.”
Today’s ceremony will be different for me. In a very real way I am graduating. I will be graduating from an education that started 28 years ago as a freshman, through a masters, a doctorate, and through tenure and promotion. While I got paid for the last part, it was very much a continuation of my education. With my move to South Carolina, it is now time to truly implement what I have learned.
I have learned about the importance of a mission in your life that sustains you through international flights, shady motels, ad hominin tweets, and journal rejection letters. I have learned about the importance of colleagues, and that rank and title are in no way an indicator of value and importance. I have learned that all ideas improve when they are shared. I have learned that family is always first and that true scholarship is the seamless entanglement of research, teaching, service, and advocacy. I have learned that success is not a mountain to be climbed and summited, but rather a wayfinding exercise in the jungle of possibilities. And now I am learning the hardest lesson – sometimes you have to leave.
I have had the great privilege of sitting at the table with mentors and heroes and calling them friends. Syracuse has been for me, and for many, a special place that has indeed shaped the world we live in. I have seen scholarship in action where great scholars know that a study or an answer or a project is untested and incomplete without impact in the everyday lives of those you care about. I have had the great honor of working with students at all levels and ages who have shown me that a good professor is one who listens and learns as much as speaks and teaches. All of that is hard to leave.
The toughest question I get when I talk to librarians is about what to do when you realize the place you are is no longer the place you need or want to be. When a supervisor lacks vision, or a community becomes intransigent, or co-workers become hostile, or, as with me, you just need something different. Maybe it’s getting a degree, or taking up a leadership post, or moving to a bigger institution, but somehow you just feel it’s time.
My answer is normally a smattering of tactics and examples of changing the place you are, but in the end I always say, “sometimes none of that will work, and you will have to leave,” adding “and I realize that it is not that easy, because you have a house, and kids, and a paycheck.” And now I am taking my own advice and it is indeed hard.
It is hard because of the kids and the house and friends. It is hard because I am comfortable with where I am: I know the streets, and I the tricks for dealing with the snow. I am not just leaving a house, or a job, but in some ways I am leaving a scaffolding of place that I built up as part of my identity – part of me. Yes, I know in my head all those tactics and the mottos about an opportunity to rebuild and discover and to be challenged. But that scaffolding-sometimes creaky and teetering, sometimes cemented and robust-is still a part of me and building a new one will be work. Yet I have to. It is time.
To my new colleagues in Columbia I say thank you for being welcoming, and I look forward to working with you. But today I need to say thank you to my colleagues and friends in Syracuse. Thank you for helping me grow up. Thank you for the lessons, sometimes painful, that have shown me the way forward. Thank you for the laughs and the food and the jokes. Thank you for taking a chance on a young arrogant kid with skills, and seeing that in there was a scholar of worth. Thank you SU for the basketball games, the final fours, the strawberry festivals, and the frosted brownies in Schine. Thank you for bringing my wife and I together.
To my friends in Syracuse I say thank you for teaching me what a roof rake is, and for Wegmans and the State Fair. Thank you for helping to raise my sons. Thank you for apple orchards and cows, and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.
Thank you all. It is time for me to leave, because you all shared so much time with me while I was here.
“Rocket Science is Easy” Urban Librarians Conference. Brooklyn, NY.
Abstract: There is a different between a complicated and a complex problems. Both are hard, but complicated problems deal with known approaches, variables, and parameters. Complex problems are full of unknowns, shifting parameters, and unanticipated connections. Getting a rocket to the moon? Complicated. Helping immigrants find their place in a community? Complex. Library science is complex as librarians must navigate the intricacies of knowledge and human behavior. This presentation presents the vital importance of librarians in the complex tasks of building communities.
Slides: Rocket Science is Easy
Audio:
BPL from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.
The Rochester Public Library and Friends & Foundation of RPL (New York) have joined the Expect More Collaboratory as Lead Library Partners.
“The Myths of Innovation” Georgia Virtual Staff Development Day. Web.
Abstract: Many see innovation as a sort of grand effort from a gifted few. Innovation seems characterized by the start-up, or the creative class. Yet innovation, adoption of positive change, is essential to all institutions and is actually an obligation of the professional – including the librarian. This session will examine the myths of innovation, how these myths can prevent positive change, and examples of locally grown innovation that makes a difference to librarianship.
Slides: GeorgiaRealPDF
Audio:
The Myths of Innovation from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.
Nicolette Warisse Sosulski is a great librarian and a great friend as well. I asked her if it was OK for me to put something about her upcoming free webinar “Libraries and Local Businesses: Best practices for supporting your entrepreneurs.” Here is what she had to say:
I am really looking forward to the webinar I am doing for SAGE publishing this Thursday—after 11 years in biz librarianship, I still meet people nervous about business reference—and for good reason. Business patrons are directed, motivated, assertive, and know what they want to find, whether it may exist or not. They are rather like genealogists. Whether it is a product usage statistic or a 17th century ship manifest, their searches tend to be narrow, focused, and—at least to them—high stakes.
In my webinar I concentrate on the tasks of reaching out and demonstrating what libraries and librarians can do for entrepreneur patrons (some of them think we are no use, and it is our task to show them that the contrary is true), as well as clarifying and articulating the respective roles of the librarian and the entrepreneur patron (some think we are their onstaff 24/7 personal–as in just theirs–info consultant for free. Unfortunately not! ), so that we can transform them from skeptics past unrealistic customers to enthusiastic users.
Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, MLIS
Not every library is going to focus on business users, but for those who do, this should be great information. Nicolette is always looking to better serve library members, and in helping us all do so as well.
The webinar is Thursday, March 31, 2016
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific | 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Mountain | 1:00 -2:00 p.m. Central | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern
I am very pleased to announce that I will be joining the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science as director and associate dean in the College of Information and Communications. My appointment will take effect July 1, 2016 subject to the university’s approval process.
I make this move with a great deal of excitement, and a healthy dose of sadness. I have been affiliated with SU for nearly 28 years in one capacity or another but now is the time for me to apply what I have learned in a new environment.
While there will be more details to follow, I did want to say that it has been the greatest honor and privilege to be part of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. I also want to extend my thanks to the faculty, staff, and students at SLIS and the College of Information and Communications who have been so welcoming and supportive.