Category: librarianing

The Fine Art of Creating An Online Professional Presence

excellentthing
I am big in Canada!

Dear Internet,
Before I begin, I need to note some changes that have been going on. First big change is that I migrated all the blog posts over from my professional site to this site. I was not updating the blog portion of my professional presence in a meaningful time frame AND I talk a lot about professional stuff over here so combining the two became a natural progression. I have put the posts relating to the professional stuff on its own page, which is automatically updated as new content is published. I also have a widget in the right navigation bar for easy access.
The second change is that I reorganized the professional site to be more transparent on what my goals and career plans are, and took away the features that were geared for current MPOW by putting them on its own portfolio page.
Lastly, while I was working on this, I found out from my favorite John that at the recent Ontario Library Association, I was a THING OF EXCELLENCE (see photo at beginning of this piece) on online portfolios. I found the accompanying wrap-up of the presentation, which has a lot of good info.
That’s it for the news.
This all ties into when I started writing this post on developing a profesh librarian site last year, geared to illustrate my own experiences and giving examples of others. MPOW originally required faculty, of which includes librarians, to have a Faculty Performance Evaluation portfolio (formerly known as the FGIP) in place and on paper. My work is nearly all in the digital world, so thus my portfolio was digital. In the fall of 2013, MPOW moved over to an in-house digital product to manage and did away with paper and also making my site obsolete.
I came to the conclusion this was a good time to make my profesh site more robust and provide all the things! I changed the layout and theme a few times until I got something close to what I liked and started filling in more content, primarily stuff from before I started working at the college and more details about professional projects I was currently working on.
Yet, I felt like no matter how much I tweaked, I was still not satisfied with how the site was turning out. I came up with the brilliant idea that I needed to see what other people were doing, so I headed to Google and searched:

librarian -“ask a librarian” -“annoyed librarian”1

Time frame searched: Within the last twelve months
Criteria: Professional-esque site, with something that resembled a resume/CV, with a list of projects/presentations/papers or something resembling professional development. It was fine if they had a blog, were linking to other sites they frequented, or provided content that was more relevant to personal than professional.
I rejected sites linking to LinkedIn for resume/CV information since that required a LinkedIn account, which I don’t have and will not get. I rejected sites about librarianship that were portal or aggregation sites. I rejected book review sites.  I rejected the use of the word “librarian” in the title or URL by people who were not librarians.
I rejected a lot of content.
I combed through 56 pages of Google results.
I found very little. Maybe two sites, possibly three that fit my criteria.
I sulked about this for awhile because how was this even possible? There were a gazillion librarians, no one has a professional site? I knew creating digital portfolios was the rage at most library and iSchools, so why were these not coming up? Why weren’t people I knew who had professional sites coming up? My search was pretty broad and I did not discriminate against any type of librarianship.
Someone suggested I should look at the websites of people I know, which was a fine idea! I went through all 500+ people I follow on Twitter and added their names to my now growing list. Several people made recommendations. Of the roughly 50 people listed below, less than a handful are ones I do not know.

Margaret Heller
Becky Yoose
Jodie Schneider
Bohyun Kim
Christiane Evaskis
Chealsye Bowley
Mita Williams
Rob Dumas
Amanda Goodman
Emma Cragg
Annie Pho
Phil Bradley
Frank Skornia
Loida Garcia-Febo
Dennis Nangle
Heidi Steiner Burkhardt
Val Forrestal
Andrew Shuping		 Tiffani Travis
Sara Mooney
Ned Potter
Cynthia Ng
John Pappas
Ann Clark
Andromeda Yelton
Dorothea Salo
Matthew Reidsma
Sarah Houghton
Nicholas Schiller
Coral Sheldon-Hess
Mackenzie K. Brooks
Leah White
John Jackson
Jenny Levine
Erin Dorney
Stan Bogdanov		 Kate Kosturski
Marie Elia
Lynda Kellam
Emily Clasper
Jessamyn West
Andy Burkhardt
Cathy Cranston
Anne-Marie Deitering
Ian Clark
Jacob Berg
Emily Drabinski
Lauren Bradley
Michelle Kraft
nina de jesus
Ruby Lavallee
K.G. Schneider
Ruth Collings
Ginger Williams

Here is what the sites above have in common:

  • Clearly identifies who the person is
  • Provides a resume/CV or some kind of professional biography about the person
  • Presents publications / papers / talks of works either completed and/or in progress
  • Contact information is clearly made available in some form (email or social network)

It is now a nearly a year later and I repeated the same Google search. I combed through nearly 14 pages of links and found that only FOUR of the names listed in the table above showed up, as opposed to two in 2013. I found another 11 people who matched my criteria but were not in the above for a grand total of 15 people out of hundreds of hits as opposed to three in 2013.
In my search, I learned:

  • A large number of librarians really love using about.me and tumblr.com for their portals
  • Librarians of all flavors really love doing book review blogs
  • Almost all were “something” librarian (sneezy librarian, scratchy librarian, and so forth)
  • Librarians really love using “uncategorized” as their default category taxonomy on their blogs (WHY??)
  • Despite doing a global search, I had a hard time finding English language non-American librarian sites
  • With the exception of the four in my list, none of the librarians listed above came up in my search despite almost all of them having “librarian” somewhere in the title of their site, URL, or on their landing page
  • Despite using the word “librarian” on my landing page and using good SEO, I did not come up in the searches performed in 2013 and 2014
  • Search performed in April 2013 came up with 56 pages of results. Same search and Google settings in February 2014 came up with 14 pages of results.

This outcome really surprised me. I went searching for other sites to get ideas for design and content, and now I’m thinking about the fallacy of Google and search in general.  Primarily with Google, their new algorithm now leads news and products pushed to the top over sites with content.
But what this discrepancy says to me more is how we’re valued as a whole. We can’t project who we are, the diversity in jobs AND the people in the profession, if the term “librarian” is continually used to have such fluid meaning. My favorite John responded,

it’s both a desire for that authenticity and an implicit belief that the work librarians do is not very hard.

And he’s right. This is what frustrates me that we tell people who are going into the field to go search for librarians online but if a librarian themselves can’t find those like her, how on earth are we to expect the young bloods coming up in the field to connect and outreach to those they want to be mentored by? How are we able to connect and collaborate if we cannot find each other?
We keep going on about marketing to outside our profession, but exactly how are we doing that? If you’re not utilizing social networking and are relying your website as your main presence, then how are people finding you if even the most basic searches reveal nothing? Are we really putting together sites that make it easier for others to find us or are still projecting the cool kids club attitude by unintentionally putting barriers around ourselves?
P.S. I did find and fall in love with the Oh, So You’re A Librarian tumblr while doing this search as their gif curation is exquisite.

1. This search means, “Google. Please find me all sites that have the word “librarian” in them but does NOT contain “ask a librarian” (a common phrase used on library websites to direct users to ways they can ask a librarian) or “annoyed librarian” (the anonymous writer for a column in Library Journal).

Traversing the #libtechgender landscape

Dear Internet,
In the weeks since ALA midwinter, and the #LibTechGender panel, conversations have shifted all over the place. Much, I believe for the good. I have been attempting to be mindful and listen, read and listen more. Becky Yoose’s post, Gatekeeping the table full of cookies, and recent conversations with others have prompted me to put out there what I have been thinking for discussion.
(This is being fueled by vegan White Russians, so be forewarned.)

  1. The conflict over the use of “storytelling”
    Becky, and Julia, make clear, concise arguments on why storytelling is often not a Good Thing. I wrestled with this a lot. I do a lot of storytelling here on the blog on a variety of topics that can, and are often, painful to read, let alone write. It is mentally and emotionally taxing to keep pulling at the same scab over and over, but it is something I often feel needs to be done because there are too many variations on how people learn. So how do you approach this with grace and be mindful of other people’s needs? Hard question, but my buddy Liz put it rather succinctly, “Some need to feel comfortable with their own story before they’ll ever feel comfortable at the table.” This seems like a great way to start those conversations.
  2. The conversation is going to be messy, whether we like it or not
    I am at heart an observer and a commentator on what I observe. I’ve seen people talk around each other. I have had people tell me that they or someone they know are afraid to speak up. I’ve seen people ignore other points of view because for whatever reason. I’ve seen people dominate the conversation for their own gain, personally and professionally. I’ve seen people get into the conversation to cause a ruckus and then leave, never to be heard from again. I have had people say they don’t want to talk about this or any related topic publicly because of potential ramifications, privately or publicly. And when I mean people, I’m talking about anyone who describes themselves as human and has opposable thumbs. What we’re not doing is talking to each other. I don’t have the perfect answer for this, but I do know we need to put aside our egos and personal interests (myself included here) and move beyond the personal to start working towards the common good. If we don’t, nothing is going to get changed.
  3. We are all human
    I am going to eff up. You are going to eff up. They are going to eff up. I’m not conjugating verbs here, I’m pointing out that no one, no matter who they are, is going to eff up. We’re human. We pick ourselves up, we apologize, and we move on. I have long been cognizant my own diseases1 warp some of my social interactions and have said this many times to people privately and publicly, so this is ripe for repetition: If I somehow offend / piss you off / am an asshole or any other combination on anything, please let me know what and how so I can fix it / apologize / clarify. I’m being sincere here. One of the biggest growth things I’ve been working on is swallowing my own pride and listening to people when they are critical of something I did and or said that has upset them and not taking it as an outright attack against my person. It’s hard to shut up and listen, but if I truly want to be a good ally, hell a good human, I (we) have to let the ego go.
  4. Gender 101 vs Academic/Structural Breakdown
    I’ve seen arguments fly for both sides and both opinions are equally valid. I do not believe this should be an either/or thing. There are a lot of people who need the Gender 101/Social Justice intro and those who want to tackle the higher level stuff. As we’re not all at the same level, we should be but we’re not, dismissing one over the other is counter-productive and in the end, makes the conversation much messier. There is definitely room for both sides, and everything in between, to exist until we get it right.
  5. This is not the Lisa Rabey show
    After Internet Librarian happened, I was approached about the following things:
    • Editorial in a major professional magazine on library/technology/gender
    • Potential to edit/write a book on library/technology/gender
    • Quoted in various places
    • Requested to be on numerous panels at various conferences on library/technology/gender
    • Requested/finagled to do an interview panel for Circulating Ideas on library/technology/gender

    I am not an expert on anything other than my own life. But what I am is brassy personality who is a bull in a china shop who asks the right questions, sometimes the hard questions, at the right time. I am not the only one talking about this and I am not presenting myself as being the authority on the topic. But I think because I’ve been writing about my own experiences for nearly two years on sexism/gender inequality in library land and I was vocal on the panel at IL AND after as well as I keep tweeting to keep the conversations going, I’ve been approached because I’m accessible. I’ve turned down / requested others to be at the table other than me but many decline, due to some variation of my second point, so then I’m being touted as the voice. I also get no matter how much I make clear my intentions, there are people who are going to wildly disagree with whatever I’m doing. There is room for critique but I do not take kindly to willful misreading of situations to suit someone’s agenda. This whole situation becomes circular at times and trying to navigate this is tricky and hard in any attempt to be mindful, so if anyone has suggestions on how to better navigate this AND make the conversation go forward, please pass those along.

  6. No matter what, someone is going to be mad
    LaToya Peterson, owner and editor of Racialicious, wrote transformatively on the value of work, mindfulness, and moving the work forward. While her conversation is directed as a response to the Jezebel / Toxic Feminism kerfuffles, I felt her wisdom was on par with what I was attempting to figure out and articulate my thoughts on lib/tech/gender and it has been my touchstone for me in the last few weeks. LaToya’s comments, coupled with a few other things I have been reading lately in the same vein make concrete an ugly truth: No matter how much you try to be civil, kind, and attack the evil, people are going to be assholes. People are going to attack you not because of what you’re doing, but because you’re being you. Because you’re not doing it right. Because you’re doing it too right. Because you farted in the wrong direction. In short, someone is going to get pissed over something no matter how hard you try to right the wrong. Someone is not going to be happy because you were not doing it their way.This book project weighs on me heavily – I do not want to be another cis/white woman eating all the cookies. I worry heavily about my writers and the ramifications of their bravery and courage. I worry my diverse group of writers will be criticized for not being diverse enough or too diverse. I worry that people will critique the call was not made at various spots thus we were ignoring other voices, regardless if the call was actually made or not. I worry that it will be seen too much as 101 and not adding to the conversation. I worry about these things because this is the behavior I’m seeing in conversation on Twitter, which is leading me to believe something in print will be amplified.What was drilled into my head is putting the book out there, acknowledging the book’s shortcomings AND its strengths, will go a long way to blocking the detractors. I also know if I am going to go forward with this, even with that caveat and being mindful of the content, there will be complaints. I had to decide if I can grow the skin to separate the personal complaints against the legitimate critiques, and I decided the answer was yes. There has to be a first book, to push others then to write/edit their own books to move the conversation along. To get voices that may not have been heard before out there. Yes. This needs to happen.
  7. Questionable need for conferences / panels / summits not held by those trained in the field could potentially do more harm than good
    This is a valid critique and one I’ve been musing on for a while. Using the Backup Ribbon project as an example, stopping to see if someone is okay is not the same as being a counselor / expert in the field and should not be touted as such. It is simply being human. The ribbon provides an entry way to let people know you are there when they need you and can pull them out of harms way if they need it and direct them to appropriate sources. It seems logical if someone is warning said ribbon at a conference, it should behoove them to be familiar with the conference’s particular Code of Conduct / anti-harassment policies to have that information on hand when it is needed. As for the panels, conferences, and so forth, my experience with IL was the panel did the following:
    1. Created a public venue for people to interact in often “elephant in the room” topic
    2. Created a public voice, even if lopsided, to “elephant in the room” topics
    3. It was a point of entry for those who may not have pathways to discussing the topic

    I may be wholly naive on this, but I think as long as it is made clear what people’s intentions are and what the outcomes may be, presenting/discussing 101 and working on pointing people in the right direction to get training, additional information, etc can’t necessarily be a bad thing. It has to be done mindfully and with skill, but getting folks moving in the right direction is how they will move and think for themselves and carry their own conversations forward.

I am thankful for a lot of people listening and talking to me on these discussions, primarily Coral, Cecily, Emily, and Kristin. I’ll keep reading, listening, and reading and listening some more.

1. I’m Bipolar 1/2, with ADHD married with general anxiety disorder. At times when I am unstable, my behaviors are considerably more abrasive and alienating. Reconciling that sometimes it is the disease and sometimes it is me is hard work. I have had people say, later, that telling them to tell me when I am acting out in a way that is not acceptable is too confrontational. I can’t fix / clarify / apologize if I don’t know what I said/did that was intrusive. I am okay with doing the heavy lifting, but often I need to ask for help. There is, to me, no shame in asking for help.

Diversity Lecture Series: Reza Aslan

Reza Aslan

By Lisa M. Rabey
Systems & Web Librarian
Dr. Reza Aslan, acclaimed author and scholar, will be speaking on Youth Revolt: The Future of the Middle East tonight February 12, at 7PM at Fountain Street Church.
The event is free and open to the public.
Azlan, who has written four books, will be addressing the topic of the younger generation of Muslims and their acuity for being socially conscious, politically active, and technologically savvy. He will also be discussing the development of the new Middle East and his predictions for the future.
For more information about tonight’s talk, visit the library’s Subject Guide on the [Continue Reading]
Originally published at: Lisa @ GRCC

Safer Internet Day / The Day We Fight Back

 
By Lisa M. Rabey
Systems & Web Librarian
Today marks a special day on the Internet: It is the yearly Safer Internet Day, a day long event in which people from around the globe work together to provide a better Internet experience for all by sharing ways to “connect with respect” on being safe and having fun online.
It is also The Day We Fight Back, a worldwide protest against NSA’s mass surveillance protocol that is hot on the heels of SOPA and PIPA.
Both events are designed to bring awareness on privacy, cyberbullying, and security to name a few concerns. While you should always be safe and treat others with respect while you are online, it is always helpful to have a few guidelines. Below are recommendations, tip sheets, and organizational information on The Day We Fight Back and Safer Internet Day.

If you’re interested in learning more, the library has books / media on computer security, information technology – security measures, computer networks – security measures, computer crimes, data protection, and [Continue Reading]
Originally published at: Lisa @ GRCC

LibTechGender article roundup for January 2014

Dear Internet,
Here is your curated monthly round up of stuff on library/technology/gender, covering many -isms and spaces. Citations are pulled from writer’s about pages. If you have an alternate preference, please let me know! As always, check out the #LibTechGender project for even more.

Blogs/Sites

Articles

 

About that job description

Dear Internet,
Tuesday was the first day in 76 days I missed a day writing. Wednesday too. And you know what? I’m okay with that. But today’s entry will explain some of what has been going on.
My job posted yesterday.1
I am not reapplying for the position.
While I love working with students and seeing everything click when they get it, my passion remains and has always been in technology. With the college’s direction for the position, and the rewording of the position itself, it would be in my best interest to find a position that would better align with my career goals.
Some of you may not know my circumstances, so I’ll catch you all up.
I was hired as an adjunct in 2011. That fall, after two separate interviews, I was hired in as the systems librarian. The position was open for an academic year before I was hired. During this time, the faculty union, which librarians are a member of, were in negotiations with the college for their contract. All of us that were hired in the 2011-12 academic year were hired in as contingency employees. Our contracts were renewed on a year to year basis as contracts continued to be in negotiation.
In the 2012-13 academic year, the union and college came to an agreement with contract negotiations. Contingency faculty such as myself were not included as part of the agreement. We were told that all 40 positions would be reopened to a nation wide search. We could elect to apply for the position if we’d like, but please note that any time we worked prior to the now tenure track position would not be included when we apply.
My original position, while similar in wording to the current position, was sold to me as being 75% Systems / 25% everything else. The college’s push for student success has changed significantly in the last three years — every part of our core job services has been significantly amped towards student success and instruction. Out of my 35 scheduled hour week, I spend 10 hours on reference, 10-15 hours prepping/teaching/wrap up for info lit classes, 5-10 hours a week during liaison work, whatever time is left over doing systems. This also does not include my involvement time spent on meetings for internal department groups and college wide meetings. Or lunch.
When the job posting went live yesterday, those who knew me started emailing and tweeting asking what was the deal. Many asked if they had missed something on my blog? I made it a point to not publicly discuss my work here but to point people to my writing over at my professional blog, of course I did not discuss the terms of my employment because I had no idea what was going to happen to me.
Despite repeated assurances I would be notified when the job posted, I was not told. I found out the job was being posted several hours before it went live by finding a copy of the posting on our internal network of job positions.
As I read through the document, the last line under Minimum Qualifications set off all kinds of bells:

Ability to demonstrate the mental health necessary to safely engage in the librarian discipline as determined by professional standards of practice.

I called HR immediately.
I had a meeting with HR about this line and stated it was not only illegal but inflammatory and discriminatory. I was informed it was a directive from the director of accessibility to add that line to the 19-20 job postings that were going out. I was then asked by HR to provide language from ADA  about the discrimination and illegality of the content, but HR did agree the language did not sound correct.
This morning I emailed HR several direct sources of ADA information from the government. I did not hear back.
Completely independent of my actions, various people picked up on the mental health line in the job description as it was being distributed via national job hiring networks. I was tipped off by various people the extent of the uproar over Twitter and over at Tumblr. Lots of people took the college to task for its faux pas. Near end of business day, the college responded:


Now, before the Internet got wind of everything, I DID post my job was available on Twitter and that while I was not reapplying, I would sincerely answer any questions had about the position.
And while I will not comment publicly on the events other than what I’ve laid here, I have responded to people’s comments about “the past employee in that position” and I repeated my offer from earlier in the day that if anyone had questions about the position, I would be more than happy to discuss it with them privately.
It should also be remarked on that now several people of note from the college are now following me on Twitter.
My goal is to leave the position with my dignity intact. I have a lot of projects to wrap up before my contract ends on June 30 and I would like to have the opportunity to complete out those jobs. I’ve been assured while Michigan is an at-will state, the college has to have document course of action of any misdeeds done on my part, which has never happened. I’ve never even gotten a bad review.
But I am kind of excited about the unknown future. I’ll be revamping my professional site within the next few weeks and applying for positions.
And again,  I want to make clear that I am writing this up to present facts as they happened and to let people know who were bombarding me with tweets, emails, texts today that I’m okay. I’ll be getting back to some of you in the next few days but I really do appreciate all of the support you’ve given me.

1. Copies have been posted all over various job search engines but I snagged a local copy.

Live Action Sexual Harassment Continuum

Warning: Triggering for sexual abuse, harassment, rape
Dear Internet,
I did not throw the t-shirt out. I plucked it out of the trash before leaving the hotel for good and I’ve worn it several times since. I’ve attempting to pretend nothing ever happened.
But of course this doesn’t work that way, now does it?
On the day Live Action Sexual Harassment was published, I had over a thousand page views to EPbaB for that day, when I normally get 1/5th of that on a very good day. Since that publication and taking in the history of my site since June 2012, LASH has twice as many direct page views as any other article I’ve written on any topic at any time. There has not been a day in the nearly three months since writing it that I don’t get a smattering of visitors who read it, whether it has been referenced from a direct link somewhere or from someone searching.
Today, I want to give you an update what has happened to me since that night.

  • My sex life has waned considerably. At first I dismissed it as effects of coming off of Lithium, but as time has gone on, I am finding myself more unwilling to be sexy compared to even my darkest hours. It used to be when TheHusband, who loves my boobs above anything on the planet (Admittedly, I do have a nice rack.), would stroke my breasts, it would give me great pleasure. Now, not so much. My sexuality and my desire to be sexual is very important to me. I’m working with my therapist on moving past these feelings of inadequacy.
  • I have dreams, frequently, where I’m the recipient of unwanted heavy sexual manipulation. In the example of the dream I had last night, I was seeing a doctor who could only examine me while I was unclothed and he was unclothed, his erect penis pressed up against my side, my back, my belly as he moved around me, stroking me as he probed and touched. As someone who used to find great enjoyment in subscribing to Penthouse Letters and watching porn, this should have been some kind of wet dream and instead, I found my dream self and my real self both simultaneously unwilling, repulsed, and frightened.
  • I’ve been told privately, and openly, by men and women, they would not have let the asshole who was assaulting me go on as it had. I was also given examples by these same men and women of other women who would “not stand for that kind of thing.” I don’t think anyone would agree I am a weak woman or unable to defend myself, but these comments, even if the intention was not to be assholes, were assholish. After receiving one of the latest comments, I waited a good while and made vague series of comments on Twitter that to say such things was effing stupid. You have NO IDEA how you’re going to react in all manner of situations. I always thought of myself as a cool cucumber in place of high panic, because often I am the one who is that way when I’ve been with people who were in their own crisis modes, but in several situations I had no way to prepare myself, and thus was in panic mode supreme, forever cured me of that illusion.
  • Men, often well known men in certain circles, writing they had no idea such travesties were occurring in the work place, at conferences, etc despite the fact they were told repeatedly of such things and still denied it was happening until they heard it from a woman of note discussing it. It is striking to me that the ONLY way to get the point across is if someone of note brings it across. As someone who is not of note, being dismissed of my experiences that do not represent what these men were experiencing with females in their own circle moved these men into personal circles of frenemy I did not know I needed to have.
  • Private comments told to me that many well placed male figures in the library world who promote feminist allyship publicly while sexually harassing women privately.
  • Women commenting either on blog pieces or subtexting on Twitter that since they never personally experienced sexual harassment or gender inequality, it either does not exist or exist to the degree being discussed and/or the need for ALA’s Code of Conduct is stupid.
  • Watching conversations on gender/lib/tech being had only within certain circles, with articles on the topic being promoted only within certain circles, and forgoing, either for personal reasons or other, important bits  and people of the conversation. If you want to advance the conversation, stop preaching to your acolytes and MOVE BEYOND your comfort zone. There are quite a few people I’m not terribly fond of but I try to not let personal feelings marr their work on these topics and include them without reservation.
  • I have been criticized, numerous times, that my work on these topics and in keeping content clear and concise on my sites for others is damaging and promotes the troll behaviour I portray to be so vehemently against.
  • I’ve called various disparaging names and have been personally attacked online for my writing, discussing, promoting of others work as I find it online.
  • I’ve lost “friends/followers/whatever” for calling others out if I disagreed with their stance and when discussing this topic publicly.
  • I’ve been told by various my pieces only present a singular view and therefore are not potent to the conversation as a whole.

In the 3 weeks and 6 days I was off for winter break, I left the house less than half a dozen times. I have become more isolated and withdrawn from everything and anything in the physical world. The struggle to be ME from the plundering of my brain from all the drug trials the past year vs the struggle to not be defined by 2 minutes of someone’s sexual aggression is hard. Every time I see read my own past words, watch a movie with sexual assault, or hear about sexual assault/harassment from a third party, it is like picking at the scabs of a barely closed wound. It is never not painful.
This is not a pity party. None of this is written for you to feel sorry for me. It is written to present you with facts of a singular incident in a long history of incidents. In 1999, I confessed all of my sexual pathos, including discussion of date rape, possibly familial molestation, and being beaten by past lovers. In 2011, I finally posted a piece I wrote in 2008 about the ending of an abusive relationship and the aftermath. In early 2013, I introduced the 17th anniversary of one of the first pieces I wrote on the Internet, which includes how 24 year old me’s innocence was kind of shocking in regards to being date raped.

But I know my back story, I know how I struggle with my own emotional boundaries, and all of the protection I have worked so hard has now been weakened, my borders are compromised. I start to question how even my most benign of clothing choices became the object of his attention, his needs, his wants.
Some are going to read this and think,”What’s the big effing deal? You were at a bar, some drunk asshole was a dick, you weren’t hurt physically. Get over it.” But that’s my effing point, it IS a big deal. me, Live Action Sexual Harassment

It is timely today that Jezebel, though as much as I tend to abhor that publication, Lindy West provides a anger fueled visceral, yes even in print,  take down on why we must not stop shutting up.

Anyone who genuinely cares about anything is bound to sound like a broken record from time to time. If you actually give a shit about a problem (and I don’t mean a “problem” like “the co-op is out of Honeycrisps,” I mean a PROBLEM PROBLEM), then you don’t just lodge your complaint and sit back down while the world rolls on around you. You do not shut up until that problem is fixed. You repeat and reframe and repeat and reframe and message, message, message, and eventually—hopefully—you manage to lodge that message somewhere in the public consciousness. That is how things move forward. Lindy West

As it was, so it will be; this will be fodder for future panels, for examples and illustration purposes. The cycle continues.
 

Frankenstein’s Monsters: Roundup of Responses to ALA’s Code of Conduct

Dear Internet,
Apparently this was the wrong time to take a break from social media as it is currently all enflamed about ALA’s Code of Conduct — yes, this again. It will always be “this again” because as long as I have a vagina, someone, somewhere out there will be in disagreement of what I can and cannot do.
Below are as many of the articles I could find that have been published in the last week, which I’m going to put in chronological order. But to set the mood, I’m kicking things off with a piece by Sarah Houghton from 2011 about her experiences with professional sexual harassment, and adding in my own piece when I got harassed in 2013, and a piece from Dorothea Salo written 2007 about a woman being harassed at a DSpace conference. It’s stories like ours that explain the background reasoning as to why CoC’s need to exist. As Salo succinctly puts it in her blog,

No woman should have to “escape” people in a professional setting. EVER.

You’d think this would be enough, but obviously it isn’t or else we wouldn’t continue on having these “conversations.”
I’m also including a link to the working document to the CoC so that you can see how the process started and formed and a link to the finalized piece that is now on ALA’s website. I’m also including the Storify that ALA is tracking of all the commentary, which will be ongoing. Additionally, I’m adding in Will Manley’s piece, which was dismantled from his site several days later and lost through Googlecache, that I was able to capture via Pocket and made viewable to the world via Evernote and well, what started the whole pitchforking in the first place.

This entire list will be ported over to the LibTechGender project. Make sure to bookmark that page.
Lastly, as to be expected, there is trolling on some of the pieces and social media has been in a tizzy about calling those people out in public spaces for being effs. It is one thing to have a discourse with someone on a particular topic, even if  you violently disagree, but it’s a whole ‘nother space to start pitchforking for blood and harassment — that’s bullying. Don’t be an asshole to assholes.
Edit: 1/18/14 to add new posts.
Edit: 1/27/14 to add new posts.

LibTechGender Wayfinding

Hey there.
If you came over here from Andromeda Yelton’s piece on LibraryJournal or her blog  or from Julie Jurgen’s piece: Welcome! Glad to have you here!
If you’re interested in more of my writing on library / technology / gender intersectionality, this tag has all of my pieces. I also keep a digital clearing house of all of my work and the works of others, as well as suggestions, conferences, panels, etc over at LibTechGender Project. You can also track the tag on Twitter. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

It turns out that Amish romance novels are neither Amish nor romantic.

Christopher Walken knitting wins the internets today.

Dear Internet,
Today was the day we were to start our week of museuming while TheMIL is in town, but no one was seemingly getting their shit together to go at a reasonable manner, which was not necessarily a bad thing. Well. I fly out of bed this morning, take a shower, put on bra AND pants, so I am a bit miffed at being over dressed at Throbbing Manor while MIL and TheHusband hang out in their jimjams. I’ve been assured dinner is going to be out of the house at some point this evening but it’s slowly ticking into the dining hour and no one else, but me, is apparently ready to rumble for dinner. And I’m starving.
And grumpy.
If you’ve been following me along on Twitter at all today, you know I’ve been raging against yet another white, privileged, middle class male who decreed on his blog that having a code of conduct in place for conferences was akin to the thought and moral police dampening our right to free speech. In addition to the every growing commentary, I’m especially fond of the person who responded to one of my comments that,

You got issues. Don’t know what earth you live on, but most white men I know keep their hands to themselves and respect their colleagues. Sorry for whatever the fu …. happened to you but like I said, you got issues. Maybe it’s time to deal with them. Let go that anger.

I can’t even. I’ll let Dolly do it for me more succinctly:

As of this posting, there are four very well thought of pieces in response to the originating post  by Andrew, Nina, Kate, and Matthew. I’m still on the fence about writing up a post of my own, but even if I don’t, all of these (including the originating post) will get added to annotated round up for January.
I’ve decided to get off of Twitter,  and maybe the internets, for the rest of the night. One can only take so much willful, hateful ignorance in one go. Let’s hope to a better tomorrow.
P.S. Title today comes from LOL My Thesis.
P.P.S. Why are trolls so afraid to post under their real names? Are they not MAN ENOUGH to back up what they are saying? Just a thought.
P.P.P.S. Edit: 1/2/2014  Will Manley took his site off line, claiming it was part of his “new years, new goals.” Earlier in the day of 1/1/2014, his site was still accessible via Google webcache. As of the morning of 1/2/2014, the cache has been wiped. When I find articles to add to my weekly link roundup or for future use, I save them in Pocket, which I thankfully did for Mr. Manley’s. Sadly, the comments have not been saved.

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