It's Academic

Understanding Your Strengths Workshop

August 7, 2023

Join dynamic trainers Jolene Pickens and Brianna Campbell who will help you understand your strengths! After completing the online Clifton Strengths Assessment (pre-session required work!), you will receive individual custom reports on your top 5 strengths. But reading a report isn’t enough! Spend 90 minutes with these Gallup certified trainers to help you analyze what you naturally do well and actionable items for further growth and success.

Thanks to generous grant support, we can offer this session valued at over $125 per person, for FREE for the first 40 registrants. Act quickly and register now!

REGISTER NOW

This live session will be Wednesday, August 30, 2023, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm. It will be on Zoom and will not be recorded.

Registration deadline is Tuesday, August 22, 2023. Posted on behalf of the College & Research Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association, Andrea Pritt, 2023 Chair

Where is Library Twitter Now? Alternatives to the Bird Site

July 28, 2023

tags: Faculty Communication, Liaison librarianship, networking, Professional Organizations, scholarly communication, Social Media, Twitter migration

by Jenn Monnin

Screenshot of my professional social media accounts, Twitter (left), Mastodon (right top), Discord (right middle), and Substack (right bottom). I am @msjennmo on most platforms if you’d like to connect.

Library Twitter in its various forms is a great place to network and connect with other library workers and library organizations. I’ve discovered like minded individuals, new areas of interest, free/low-cost professional development and speaking opportunities, and had my questions answered by field experts. As an early career librarian, I’ve found like minded collaborators to bounce ideas off of, and mentors to affirm patterns and concerns I’ve noticed about our field. Calls for proposals, job announcements, and threads on certain topics abound.

I have also used Twitter as a way to connect with my liaison areas. Faculty in my departments and divisions use Twitter to discuss with their colleagues and boost the visibility of their research. By following the faculty I work with, I can demonstrate my investment in their success as a researcher by retweeting their accomplishments and publicly celebrating with them. I’ve found Twitter to be a useful tool to build departmental engagement.

As more and more academics leave Twitter to seek other social media experiences, most librarians I’ve talked to are waiting to see where their networks land before deciding where to invest. This makes sense given the important part social media plays in scholarly communications. I understand the desire to follow your people and learn one new platform instead of several. In my personal experience, I’m starting to see three platforms pop up repeatedly:

Mastodon is a decentralized social media platform as opposed to a single website. People choose a particular server to join based on their location, interests, or values, and can use this account to communicate with people within their own server and across the “Fediverse,” or all the servers. Several people have written about the move from Twitter to Mastodon, including this article from Nature. I joined Mastodon as @msjennmo@mindly.social in November of 2022, and have noticed an increase in librarians over time.
Discord is a place where you can join or build a community and communicate through voice, video, or text. Discord also allows private messages as well, if you choose to enable them for your account. Since joining Discord in November of 2022, I have joined three servers: one on health sciences librarianship, one on STEM librarianship, and one in conjunction with a conference. Personally I get more out of the medlibs-land Discord server than I did on #medlibs Twitter, probably due to this being a walled off community as opposed to the open web.
Substack is a place where independent writers and podcasters can publish their content with the option to get paid subscriptions. A recent Inside Higher Ed article reports that the number of academics on the platform increased over 100% in the last year, and Substack itself wrote an article on how academics are using the platform. I myself wrote a newsletter piece for Medlibs Miscellany, and am considering starting my own newsletter on the platform.

With no consensus on a Twitter replacement yet, some are opting to stay on Twitter, at least for now. This group is large enough in my network that I still check my notifications periodically, though my time here is limited and I no longer post. It will be interesting to watch how everything moves forward.

Do you now or did you ever use Twitter? Did you choose to leave in the Twitter migration? Where do you participate in online professional networks? I’m interested to hear from you. To read more about Twitter on the PaLA CRD blog, check out this post by Kelly Saffin.

Oppose Section 552 That Will Block Taxpayer Access to Research

July 25, 2023

by Alex K.

In August of last year a government memorandum was issued that required new taxpayer funded research to be freely accessible. Look here for more details. This could obviously be a wonderful benefit to researchers and libraries everywhere, as well as the general public. However, SPARC, a non-profit group that advocates for open access to research, is calling attention to a new appropriations bill that blocks any funding for the earlier memorandum. If you would like more details about this or information on how to reach out to your representative about this issue look for more details here on the SPARC website.

Making Streaming Media Sustainable

July 21, 2023

tags: Ithaka S+R, Media

by Christopher Lemery

I often think about Woody Allen’s well-known statement that “80% of success in life is just showing up.” There are many ways this manifests in our professional lives. Undergrads are less likely to succeed if they don’t show up for class. Being present at faculty meetings is more likely to improve relationships with our liaison departments. One way just “showing up” has benefitted me is by joining a research project outside my liaison areas.

In July 2021, Ithaka S+R (the research arm of Ithaka, which runs JSTOR) put out a call for participation for their Making Streaming Media Sustainable research project. “Streaming media” in this context means streaming films and music from vendors like Kanopy and Alexander Street Press. Gaining a better understanding of these platforms’ usage is crucial to containing library spending on them. The project aimed “…to share evidence about and strategies around streaming media licensing terms” and “examine patron practices and needs when working with streaming content.” The project was divided into two parts: Ithaka S+R would conduct a nationwide survey of collection development librarians and researchers at 24 participating universities would conduct structured interviews with instructors to discuss how they use streaming media in their classes.

The Pitt Libraries leadership team decided we should be a part of the project, so our then-Associate University Librarian (AUL) sent out an invitation to join the team. I was intrigued by the invitation, but also hesitant. While I fielded the occasional purchase requests from my liaison faculty, audiovisual media acquisitions and contracts were (and are) far out of my comfort zone! Fortunately, deep knowledge of these areas wasn’t required. Since real growth happens in both librarianship and life when we step into the unknown, I decided to join the project.

For our portion of the project, my colleagues and I virtually interviewed 10 Oakland campus instructors who largely taught in foreign languages and the hard sciences (neither of which are my liaison areas). Ithaka S+R provided the interview protocol, which asked instructors, among other things, how they find films and use them in their classes. The corrected interview transcripts were then sent to Ithaka S+R for use in their final report, which is linked below. In brief, we found that instructors felt students had less ability to read a text and were more comfortable with media. Instructors also didn’t expect students to pay for access to streaming media and view it qualitatively differently than print texts. An incidental finding was instructors’ concern about their students’ mental health and the toll the pandemic had taken on them.

This has been an enormously rewarding experience in many ways. First, I got to talk with instructors I never would have had I not been a part of this project. Second, I gained an understanding of how our instructors conceptualize use of streaming media in their classes and how those understandings fit in with national trends. Finally, the interview protocol’s structure and language offer a template for future conversations with my faculty about class design and assigned materials.

So, whenever a professional opportunity comes along and you’re unsure about it, show up. It could be a great experience!

For those interested in the final Ithaka S+R reports, here are the links:

Quiet Quitting

July 6, 2023

by Kayla Van Osten

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recently popular term “quiet quitting.” This is the act of only preforming your job requirements and not going above and beyond your job duties in an effort to not become burned out. Like many others, I’ve also suffered from burnout, but I don’t like this term. To me, “quitting” assumes that all work stops. For me, it’s more of a “quiet no.” A gentle reminder that our mental health is important. That work will still get done, but not at the expense of our health. That boundaries are essential.

Libraries and library workers are revered in many ways. We even have an action figure wearing a cape and described as a hero. If heroes often make sacrifices for the greater good, what does that say about librarians? Maybe the work we do is heroic, but we’re still human.

We’re no strangers to budget cuts or even hiring freezes. We’re often asked to do more with less. When I was in college and decided I wanted to explore librarianship as a possible career, I found an internship at a local public library to learn more. I remember discussing my interest with the librarians there, and immediately being told by one in particular, “there’s no money in libraries, don’t become a librarian.” That was over 10 years ago. If library workers were stressed and burned out 10 years ago and still are, then clearly something needs to change. A quiet, polite “no” to adding one more thing to your plate may be the start of the solution.

When talking about quiet quitting, it’s important to also recognize the privilege of being able to say “no.” There will always be circumstances where saying “no” truly is not on option. Maybe your library has very few workers, or you’re the only one with certain expertise. But I want to challenge us to find ways, even small ones, to protect ourselves. This could be not volunteering to take the notes for the meeting, or blocking off your lunch hour in your calendar and committing to take your deserved breaks. If you’re in a manager role, it’s also important to model this behavior. Check in with your staff to see how they are coping and offer support if you’re able.

Saying “no” takes practice. Offer yourself grace and self-compassion, and reap the benefits of a quiet no.