UC Libraries Forum 2021: Leading with Innovation, Stronger through Collaboration

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees do not have to be another box to check for diversity’s sake. In this presentation we will be looking at a case study of the UC Riverside Library’s Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this presentation, we will look at how the committee’s own best practices evolved from its inception in 2017 and how collaboration became valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The collaborative effort between the UC San Diego Library and the UC Santa Barbara Library (called Project Surfliner, after the train that connects the two cities) to share development teams that work on common strategic products is still going strong after almost three years. In this panel, we will chat with the two campus project leads, as well as some of the product owners to discuss working within this model. Find out what’s changed after sharing resources and product development goals over the last year. What needs more work, where are we finding our strengths, and how haven’t we run out of train puns yet? If you’re looking to learn how to collaborate with another UC, this is the session for you. Panelists: Matt Critchlow, UC San Diego Alexandra Dunn, UC Santa Barbara Jessica Hilt, UC San Diego Tim Marconi, UC San Diego Chrissy Rissmeyer, UC Santa Barbara Amy Work, UC San Diego

This presentation will share how members of the UC San Diego Library Special Collections & Archives staff responded to California’s sudden work from home order due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including remote project development, management tools, and collaborator involvement. Presenters will provide a brief timeline of events leading up to the work from home order, the development of a list of remote projects, and the assignment of priorities and responsibilities. They will describe examples of these projects and discuss how they progressed from ideation to execution, including workflow development and management tools. They will also examine the opportunities and obstacles of rapid project development, as well as training and managing the work of staff and student employees from other library units who volunteered to assist in archives-related tasks.

Presenters will further discuss reopening, highlighting the need for flexibility and acknowledging seemingly competing priorities as they balanced remote and onsite projects. Presenters will celebrate accomplishments, and address the challenges they faced while transitioning between remote and onsite priorities.

A presentation on the migration of the University of California to a Systemwide Integrated Library Systems (SILS) in 2021.

This presentation will distill a book length study on this topic by the presenter that was published in 2020. The topic deals with library services for those with ID, a population whose case has large implications for the profession as a whole. ID is defined as a condition of intelligence quotient (IQ) of 70 or below together with significant difficulties in learning, communication, and self-care. Insofar as diversity, equity, and inclusion involve redressing disadvantages, no population is more deserving of attention than those with ID. However, they also represent almost insuperable challenges to serve. Notwithstanding technological change, the mission of libraries remains to provide textual information: reading. So how does one serve individuals who not only have limited or nonexistent reading skills but face large obstacles to acquiring those skills? Coupled with a lack of training in special education together with a pervasive strain imposed by reduced budgets, the difficulties facing the library are considerable. On the other hand, ignoring this population implies that diversity has a limit and that certain groups fall outside the library’s area of responsibility. This dilemma promises to define the profession’s capabilities and values. After reviewing both the history of library services and the social and educational plight of those with ID, the presentation will summarize a case study of the first book club for those with ID at an academic library. This club has modeled itself on a grass-roots initiative in special education called The Next Chapter Book Club. Its rationale will appear familiar to librarians as a version of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a prominent topic of library conferences and literature, which promotes different learning styles. The talk will provide a detailed history, methodology, assessment methods, data, and best practices derived from the experience. These practices, spanning issues of collection, pedagogy, and research practice will appear surprisingly familiar to librarians. They underscore the conclusion that despite a history of underperformance in this area, librarians are well-equipped to serve this historically marginalized population and, in doing so, validate their core principles of service and their expanded commitment to instruction.

The UC Common Knowledge Groups (CKGs) provide an inclusive environment for sharing knowledge and information across the campuses that enrich communication among library staffs, expand resources and benefit library users in equitable ways. Reinforced by the structure of the California Digital Library (CDL), and in the spirit of all things related to equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI), the intention is to foster innovation and continuous improvement by providing an open venue to exchange ideas and collaborate on systemwide initiatives.

The UC system currently has about 20 subject-based CKGs; these are the focus of this presentation. Subject-based CKGs contribute to UC acquisitions, licensing, processing, staff training, utilization of new and emerging technologies and implementation of new services that benefit and advance the University of California in fundamental ways. Subject CKGs also advise and give feedback on UC initiatives (e.g. shared print, the eScholarship repository, shared cataloging and data management), leveraging the collective knowledge and thoughtful consideration of librarians who bring a direct knowledge of their discipline-based constituencies.

This panel presentation will: 1) provide an overview of subject CKGs; 2) share results of survey of CKG members conducted in Summer 2021; and 3) suggest impactful ways that the CKGs can contribute so libraries and their staffs are more resilient and empowered and collections meet patrons needs. We will conclude with an interactive discussion to elaborate and expand on the ideas presented. Our goal is to contribute to a shared understanding of CKG activities and spark discussion on ways that CKGs can continue to innovate and evolve.

I will present information about the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Becoming Better Allies Group that I launched in 2020. Library staff who are interested meet on Zoom to collaborate on allyship for the BIPOC and LGBTQ population. This is an independent group that meets biweekly. We share, explore, and discuss various articles, books, and videos that call attention to marginalized communities and steps to make changes within ourselves and our communities and institutions. I will discuss the importance of creating a Statement of Intention (with examples) for folx who wish to start their own anti-racist library group. We will also look at how creating a bibliographic website helped us track and choose the anti-racism issues we wanted to work on. In addition, participants of this lightning talk will be able to access my slides and extra resources including our website: Becoming Better Allies: Committed to Equity in University Libraries.

Through the COVID-19 Community Response Oral History Project, UC Berkeley's Oral History Center (OHC) is documenting the regional response to the global pandemic, and evaluating its effectiveness as it relates to public health, health equity, community, and politics. OHC interviewers Shanna Farrell and Amanda Tewes will discuss the importance of establishing partnerships on and off UC campuses, cultural competency when approaching narrators in BIPOC and immigrant communities, documenting the effectiveness of the regional response to COVID-19, and increasing community engagement with the OHC's collections.

As COVID-19 upended our activities as librarians in unprecedented and unexpected ways, the LAUC-B conference committee was faced with the prospect of organizing a successful bi-annual virtual conference. The use of virtual technologies in conference planning during public health-mandated work from off-campus remains minimally documented. Several studies, such as Romano (2020); and Peters and Dickinson (2020), focus on in-person conference planning workflow, but none address the processes of organizing a virtual scenario. The organizing committee, led by Corliss Lee and Shannon Kealey, formed a distinct subcommittee, composed of Kristina Bush, Natalie Marquez, and Liladhar Pendse, to investigate virtual platforms. In this presentation, Natalie and Liladhar will narrate the story of the subcommittee’s work in choosing a virtual platform that would simulate and embody normal and important in-person conference activities and experiences. To establish a baseline, the subcommittee scanned LIS literature for clues regarding conference attendees and planning committee priorities in order to draft a list of salient features needed for a virtual conference. The committee used this list of features to select platforms to review fully and then presented these platforms to the larger committee for collective decision-making. This presentation will highlight the values of proactive collaboration and professional “thinking out loud” among the subcommittee members as well as reporting out to our committee peers.

This presentation provides an overview of the work done by a cross-unit team at UC Merced to document and preserve the campus's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the campus was forced to abruptly shift its operational activities, a working group composed of librarians and records managers developed strategies to track, archive, and provide access to the scores of materials that illustrate the collective decision making activities of the various working groups that were created to confront the effects of the pandemic. Jordan Thaw, Records Analyst in the Office of Legal Affairs, and Jerrold Shiroma, University Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections will discuss the inception and goals of this project, and the across-campus collaborations that the project initiated.