{"id":16706,"date":"2017-10-11T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T04:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=16706"},"modified":"2017-10-10T13:47:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:47:26","slug":"doing-it-all-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/doing-it-all-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing it All: “Small”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always lived and worked in urban spaces. While nearly 81% of the US population live in urban areas according to the 2010 census, my visit to the Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in St. George UT<\/a> in September made it clear how myopic it is exclude rural perspectives \u201cby default\u201d from professional conversations.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve since been thinking about how ALSC might better serve colleagues in rural communities, and all of us, by centering aspects of our work from a \u201csmall library\u201d perspective, keeping in mind particular challenges that many of us work with:<\/p>\n

Staff leaders without MLIS training<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Rural librarians don\u2019t always have the MLIS, and access to professional networks and educational opportunities are geographically and financially dear. This is also a challenge for other libraries, whose \u201cparaprofessional\u201d leaders are often excluded from the leadership-opportunity pipeline because of status-quo bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

Services must make sense for the whole community and for the whole family.<\/strong>\u00a0 Larger libraries can be expert at services targeting populations, yet lose sight of synchronizing efforts in context of reaching families or cross-generational communities. Small libraries have to be community and family-focused first, because those relationships are heightened and at the front of interactions in a small community library.<\/p>\n

Scarce resources<\/strong>.\u00a0 Everyone can relate to lack of resources, but larger communities have readier access to outside-the-box solutions, and so, often, less practice in creatively approaching zero-sum situations.<\/p>\n

Here are my takeaways from the conference for areas professional development that can support everyone by focusing on the strengths and needs of rural libraries.<\/p>\n

Staff at rural and small libraries are experts in weeding and working in small spaces<\/strong><\/p>\n

I heard some great ideas on practicing continuous weeding, shifting, and display to activate and make the most of small collection budgets and space; decluttering, making do, and creating pop-up workspaces.<\/p>\n

Staff at rural and small libraries are experts in passive and outdoor programming <\/strong><\/p>\n

For small teams, passive programs are great because they just keep going: one staff person can set them up and they are easily generative, and self-service.\u00a0 My favorite: a Boggle wall. It\u2019s just a grid on the wall, and you post letters in it, and change them each day.\u00a0 So easy it dropped all 20 jaws at my children\u2019s services meeting on my return. \u00a0Small libraries also know how to serve communities where they are: often, in the park or community square, leveraging partnerships.<\/p>\n

Staff at rural and small libraries are experts in advocating from any position<\/strong><\/p>\n

Librarians at small libraries do everything.\u00a0 Sound familiar? Yes, though it\u2019s much more extreme in a rural community, where the Library Director is often the single staff with an MLIS and must be expert on everything, not the least of which is developing their capable staff and advocating for the library\u2019s unique role in the community. This was a frequent topic of conversation at the conference meals, for instance: \u201cMy mayor told my staff to take the new Amy Schumer bio off the display [because of her bare back]. When they told me later, I said \u201coh, I\u2019m going to have a conversation with my City Manager! Let me tell you\u2026\u201d\u00a0 If I\u2019d had the wherewithal to record what followed, we\u2019d have an instant podcast on Advocating for the Library Bill of Rights 101.<\/p>\n

Staff at rural and small libraries are experts in \u2026. Isolation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does all this sound a little exhausting? Isolating? I was certainly listening for this as I headed to ARSL<\/a>, but it also stood out starkly to me in the very welcoming environment at the conference. I was impressed by just how much attendees made of their rare opportunity to be with a few hundred colleagues. Most people I spoke with were attending for the first time, often supported by their state library, and supported through that network to connect with others.<\/p>\n

At the luncheon table where we got the run-down on schooling your City Manager, another attendee shared that she\u2019d been coached by hers, in a similar situation: \u201cTry not to create problems where there are none.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this statement a lot, as I think it really illustrates the isolation of being in a smaller community, or being otherwise marginalized in any.\u00a0 Unpack that sentence for a moment.\u00a0 What it is really saying is \u201cStop illuminating existing problems that the hegemony is trying very hard to keep obscured under systems of oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so important to have organized access to colleagues for backup when you need to stir the pot or take a stand.\u00a0 It is so much easier to get that access in a larger community, where resources like physical proximity, broadband access, salary scales that put professional memberships within reach, etc., provide pathways to supportive networks.<\/p>\n

I encourage you all to mine #ARSL2017 for some great ideas, and welcome members from small and rural communities to correct and expand upon what I\u2019ve shared.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always lived and worked in urban spaces. While nearly 81% of the US population live in urban areas according to the 2010 census, my visit to the Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in St. George UT in September made it clear how myopic it is exclude rural perspectives \u201cby default\u201d from professional conversations. I\u2019ve since been thinking about how ALSC might better serve colleagues in rural communities, and all of us, by centering aspects of our work from a \u201csmall library\u201d perspective, keeping in mind particular challenges that many of us work with:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[239,765,8,16],"tags":[818,1355,1353,1354],"class_list":["post-16706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-nina-lindsay","category-collaboration","category-conferencesmeetingsinstitutes","category-professional-reading","tag-alsctour","tag-arsl","tag-rural-libraries","tag-small-libraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}