How do we prepare for futures we can’t easily predict or anticipate? What are the fastest, simplest ways to make effective decisions in turbulent times? In part one of a two-part series, Matt Finch offers two sessions offer simple, practical tools for planning and acting under uncertain conditions. Matt helps libraries and institutions with strategy, planning, and engagement work, and is a facilitator on the scenario planning course at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. See more at www.mechanicaldolphin.com.

Do you work in DevOps? Are you curious to learn more DevOps concepts and workflows? Regardless of your experience level, come to join the conversation or be a fly on the wall. (Note: Slides from Alan McCarthy-Behler’s October 5th presentation about DevOps in libraries are also available for view and download here: http://bit.ly/DevOpsLibrary)

Thursday, October 29th: 1PM ET / 10AM PT on Zoom. Register here. (Use any email you like–no need for an "NYU NetID".) Lightning Talks and Speakers: "Corporate Annual Reports: Supply & Demand", Elizabeth Marshall & Alie Visser, University of Western Ontario "The Pandemic is the Precedent: Publishing Our First OER Adaptation in 2020", Georgia Westbrook, Touro College Libraries "Crisis vs. Change Management: An Appreciation in Light of COVID-19", Corey Seeman, University of Michigan "Study Abroad at Home: Library Collaboration with the School of Management Global Programs", Carolyn Klotzbach-Russell, University at Buffalo "Building Resilient Community Relationships During COVID-19", Annette Bochenek, Purdue University Libraries (formerly of Barrington Area Library) "Crises of Our Own Creation: Where Did the Time Management Go?", Chloe Dufour, University of Pittsburgh "Undercover: Strategies from a Librarian in an MBA Student’s Clothing", Reece Steinberg, Ryerson University This free event is open to all–you need not be a METRO (Metropolitan New York Library Council) member to attend. See you on October 29th! Lucy Heckman (St. John’s University) and Dan Hickey (New York University) Co-Conveners, METRO Economics and Business Group

When making difficult decisions about electronic resource collections, librarians often examine valuable usage data. While organizing your data is an important first step, leveraging that data to make evidence-based collections decisions requires an additional layer of skill and strategy. This workshop shares best practices for how to approach difficult cancellation decisions. You'll learn strategies for leveraging usage data to identify patterns, spot trends, and recognize outliers. This workshop builds on concepts introduced in Part 1, but both parts can be viewed independently. Michael Fernandez is the Electronic Resources Acquisition Librarian at Yale University Library, where he manages a unit responsible for acquiring e-resources in all formats. His professional interests include accessibility, usage statistics, and collection management. He has previously presented on a range of e-resource topics at forums including ALA, ER&L, and IFLA. Courtney McAllister is a Library Services Engineer at EBSCO. Prior to transitioning to a vendor role, she worked in resource sharing, acquisitions, and e-resource management in academic and public libraries. She is the Associate Editor of The Serials Librarian, a Director for the Charleston Conference, and a NASIG Board member.

Find out more information about METRO’s Equity in Action Grant program. We will be giving a presentation, followed by a Q&A.

Don’t overlook this key step in your job search! Learn how to organize your cover letter to showcase your strengths.

Queer library workers and LIS students are invited to come informally network with us on September 25 at 4pm. We’ll start out with a quick introduction and a few rules and break into smaller groups to do ice breakers, hang out, and make connections with library folks across the gender/orientation spectrum.

The following is a summary of the event by Traci Mark, Program Manager - Equity, Archives, and Media Preservation, METRO, published on November 10, 2020. This webinar was moderated by Davis Erin Anderson, Assistant Director for Programs and Partnerships at METRO Library Council. The panelists included Violet Fox, former editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification and Treshani Perera, Music and Fine Arts Cataloguing Librarian at the University of Kentucky.  The terms critical cataloging, ethical cataloging, radical cataloging and conscious cataloging have been used interchangeably to describe the same idea. These terms fall under the same umbrella of critical librarianship, and they are inextricably linked. Critical librarianship is the idea of bringing the discussion about critical perspectives on our practice in libraries and recognizing that we work under these regimes of white supremacy, capitalism and structural inequities. How can our work as librarians intervene in and disrupt those systems? – Violet Fox Addressing the more problematic aspects of systems of classifications, Violet Fox began by stating how important it is to think about this work from an ethical standpoint. We must begin by accepting that there is a Western bias embedded in the Library of Congress subject headings and the Dewey Decimal classification system. These often include racist, sexist, classist, ableist, colonist and patriarchal ways of being.  Treshani Perera echoed this by reinforcing the subjective nature of cataloging. “Subjectivity is connected to the experiences and understanding of the world within those experiences. So if we’re talking about humans doing this work, and more specifically LIS workers doing this work of assigning subject headings or construction classification systems, it’s important to reflect on this process,” she said. Perera goes on to list a few crucial questions that library workers can ask themselves: Who has been doing classification cataloging analysis work historically? Who is continuing to do that work? Where is that work being done? Who has the resources to contribute? Whose viewpoints are being continually perpetuated? Whose expertise is being consulted? Under whose leadership is this work being done? “If subjectivity is inherent in the way humans do cataloging work, then the humans (more specifically LIS workers) performing this work need to be more representative of the greater society. It is the diverse viewpoints and experiences that need to be considered,” Perera said. In addition to this, she also mentions that there are specific restrictions in the actual cataloging systems and databases themselves. We can’t make systemic change without collective responsibility. -Treshani Perera Our cataloging systems have an inherent patriarchal bias. Perera gives the example of gendered headings associated with occupations. Where we have “Women Book Collectors” or “Women Bodybuilder.” We don’t have the same prefix for men for the same roles. In those cases, if they were describing men, then the heading would be solely “Book Collector” or “Bodybuilder.” Both Perera and Fox give other examples related to ethnicity and race and the categorization of fine arts and music.  Librarianship is a predominantly white, and predominantly female profession. How do we bring community voices into this critical conversation? Perera recommends paying attention to what BIPOC archives and libraries are doing. And if you’re looking to undertake a specific reclassification project, it’s important to think about labor and agency. Especially if it involves emotional labor. Consider your policy and procedures around compensation and recognizing that labor. What kind of agency are you giving them? “If you are in the LIS profession from a dominant culture in libraries and you are interested and eager to work with underrepresented communities, I would also strongly recommend that you approach the work with cultural humility. That is, to decenter your experience, your feelings, and your professional expertise. Approach this work as an opportunity to learn and do this work collaboratively. And let those who are underrepresented lead on how they want their experiences and narrative to be described and documented,” Perera said. “And be responsible for your own education. Take time to read and to ask the hard questions yourself. Develop a networking group for you to be able to ask those questions. Develop allyship and be willing to put yourself out there. Do not put the burden on people who are marginalized. Also acknowledge your privilege and have those conversations with people who can create the ripple effect of change.” Fox pointed out that it’s okay to make mistakes along the way. “The great thing about cataloguing and metadata in theory is that It is an iterative process. We know that we’re not going to get it right the first time we describe something, even if we can decide what ‘right’ was. We have to embrace this iterative process both within ourselves and not to let mistakes, or the fear of making mistakes, stop us from learning and growing.” Many thanks to our panelists for sharing their time and insights with us. Please join us at one of our future events; a full listing can be found atmetro.org/events. Resources and People Mentioned A Resource Guide Compiled by Treshani Perera Critlib.org Change the Subject (film) You’re Going to Screw Up by April Hathcock Authority Work As Outreach by Violet Fox and Tina Gross Frances Lydia Yocom Dorothy B. Porter Sanford Berman Doris Hargrett Clack Dorothy Ann Washington

Join us on Wednesday October 21st from 2-3PM for a BIPOC Community Call. This meant for BIPOC cultural workers only, we kindly ask that allies and comrades who identify as non-BIPOC to sit this one out. Our intention is to create a space that offers community, joy and conversation during this time. Please come with a spirit of openness and empathy as we share thoughts and feelings without judgement. This call will be facilitated by Traci Mark (Studio Manager at METRO) and Zakiya Collier (Digital Archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture).

If you’ve graduated from library school/iSchool in the past year or two, join us for a community call on Monday, October 19 at 4:00pm. Graduating into a combo pandemic/recession and taking our first steps as professionals is… quite a mix. Let’s take some time to debrief and discuss what we’ve learned working in the field, share our journeys toward (hopefully) finding employment, and reveal our coping strategies.

Shrinking budgets and looming cancellations are increasingly a reality for many, if not most libraries. As librarians confront these pressures, being well-informed is essential to making difficult decisions, and usage data is one of the most powerful decision-making tools. This webinar focuses on gathering electronic resource usage data, putting it all together, and managing it in an organized way. About our presenters: Michael Fernandez is the Electronic Resources Acquisition Librarian at Yale University Library, where he manages a unit responsible for acquiring e-resources in all formats. His professional interests include accessibility, usage statistics, and collection management. He has previously presented on a range of e-resource topics at forums including ALA, ER&L, and IFLA. Courtney McAllister is a Library Services Engineer at EBSCO. Prior to transitioning to a vendor role, she worked in resource sharing, acquisitions, and e-resource management in academic and public libraries. She is the Associate Editor of The Serials Librarian, a Director for the Charleston Conference, and a NASIG Board member.

DevOps is a set of practices that arose from the software development community which have had, and continue to have, a transformative effect on the culture of Information Technology. What are these practices, why do they exist, and how can you use them to improve your library services? Join us in exploring its use in finding solutions to real world issues. Alan McCarthy-Behler is a certified project manager and MCSA who works as the Associate Museum Librarian for Library Systems in the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is interested in bringing non-traditional project methodologies into library service environments and has previous experience in the Library Systems departments of the Pratt Institute, The New School, and the New York Society Library.

Months after pandemic lockdown, many of our formerly in-person meetings continued on web conferencing software. What does living and working on Zoom, Microsoft Meetings, and Cisco WebEx mean for our data privacy? How secure are these platforms? And what are the unforeseen pitfalls of relying on tech companies for most of our interactions with one another? Here, Daniel Ayala and Gary Price join us for a conversation about the implications of this shift to technical infrastructure in place of face-to-face interactivity.

Join us on September 16th from 2-3PM for a BIPOC Community Call. This meant for BIPOC cultural workers only, we kindly ask that allies and comrades who identify as non-BIPOC to sit this one out. Our intention is to create a space that offers community, joy and conversation during this time. Please come with a spirit of openness and empathy and we share thoughts and feelings without judgement. This call will be facilitated by Traci Mark (Studio Manager at METRO) and Zakiya Collier (Digital Archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture).

We’re nearing the six month mark of living under pandemic conditions. Not a single person has it easy these days, although living and working alone from home brings a new set of challenges. If you’re someone who lives by themselves, join us for some commiseration, wfh strategies, and (hopefully) advice on how to cope.

The following is a summary of the event by Traci Mark, Program Manager - Equity, Archives, and Media Preservation, METRO, published on October 16, 2020. This webinar was moderated by Davis Erin Anderson, Assistant Director for Programs and Partnerships at METRO Library Council. Panelists include Maurini Strub, Director of Performance and User Engagement at The University of Rochester and Tony Zanders, Founder and CEO of Skilltype. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with many challenges, including job insecurity. Navigating budget cuts, institutions and organizations are looking to downsize their staff. Many of us have faced the reality of being furloughed or laid off and dealing with the uncertainty of looking for new work and not knowing where that’ll come from. Maurini Strub and Tony Zanders spent an hour with us to discuss strategies and creative solutions to combat this, using their personal experience of dealing with these hardships. Zanders was let go from a position in Silicon Valley during the financial crisis of 2008. There were little to no job postings; many places were letting go of staff. The energy then was similar to our current moment. “It did force me to think about opportunities and options that I never would have considered before…it did force me to change my gaze and direction into considering other careers,” Zanders said. He acknowledged that it was one of the most stressful times in his adult life, especially given that he was living at the time in one of the most expensive cities in the United States. Strub graduated from school in a state with two library programs and a saturated library market. She knew early on that she would most likely have to move away from her home of twenty years to start a new position. Upon graduation, she moved to Louisville, Kentucky; even though she met many kind people, she found that being away from her friends and family was isolating. Further into her career, Strub was partially furloughed. Even though she saw it coming, she reports that it was a painful experience. “It’s hard not to take it personally and it’s hard not to feel a form of rejection or feel a form of discard despite what anyone is saying,” Strub said. She emphasized that it took some work and deep conversations with friends and mentors to get out of a negative headspace. Strub says one of the best pieces of advice she received from friends was to be honest with your network about what’s going on. “You tend to want to conceal and not talk about it… People can’t help you, direct you or open up their networks if you don’t actually talk about it,” Strub said. Understandably, overcoming the shame or strong emotions one feels during a time of job uncertainty is one of the most difficult parts. Financial issues are, of course, among the first things to come to mind when confronting a layoff or furlough. The loss of a paycheck could jeopardize your lifestyle, health, and the ability to put food on the table. To mitigate the impact of this, in preparation for a coming layoff, Strub created a profile for unemployment insurance. When she was furloughed, she officially filed and then followed up with phone calls. Strub recommends approaching with a strategy of calling between 10am and 12pm or 2pm and 4pm to work around the high volume of applications being received. She suggested that applicants expect auditing because there has been more fraud as a result of an influx of claims. Strub says that, within a week of filing for unemployment, she received her first check and simultaneously  stopped all discretionary spending.  On the topic of government support, Zanders added that when you’re reporting to the state what progress you’ve made on the job hunt, it’s tempting to apply to any and every job even if you’re not interested in or qualified for that job. “I would resist the temptation to do that because the applicant tracking systems at these organizations remember you… Treat each application thoughtfully, just like you normally would because you might need that interaction to help you in a future situation,” Zanders says. It’s easy to get into the mentality during this time that tells you that you need to make a lateral move. “One of the pieces of advice I got was not to just look at lateral moves, but maybe I could make a case for making an upward move earlier than my mental timeline,” Strub says. Allowing yourself to be open to that is important. Zanders echoed this and said that networking up can also be beneficial. “Generally, people want to be helpful and they also like their egos stroked; so (usually) you can ask someone for help that is aspirationally where you want to be and generally that goes over well. It’s asking them for help but also asking them how you can be helpful. I’ve found success with this” Zanders said.  We hope this conversation helps with the challenging times we know that many are facing. We thank our wonderful panelists for taking the time to share their insights and wisdom with us. As the Director of Library Assessment, Maurini Strub manages, leads, and collaborates on projects focused on gathering, analyzing, and using high-quality, actionable data to determine the value of library services, programs, learning spaces, and resources. She has a strong background in user-centered design, and recent assessment work has focused on spaces, services, and information literacy learning outcomes. Tony Zanders is an award-winning software entrepreneur and library technology executive. He is the creator of Skilltype – a professional development platform for the library and information science community. Zanders is also the inaugural entrepreneur in residence at the Boston University Libraries, where he provides executive counsel to the University Librarian during the academic strategic planning process while designing new approaches to recruitment, retention and training. Please join us at one of our future events; a full listing can be found at metro.org/events.

Book a 20 minute appointment with one of our two experts, Djaz Frederick Zulida and Kae Bara Kratcha. Register here [link forthcoming] and we’ll be in touch to schedule a 20-minute time slot. Please be prepared to share your resume with us on or by Thursday, August 27 so that our hosts have time to review. A few requests for participating in this event: Appointments are exclusively available to folks working in (or looking for work in) the library and archives fields Preference will be granted to METRO members Please be prepared to be available anytime between 6:30pm and 8:30pm on Tuesday, September 1st. We will work with you via email to book a specific time within that window Appointments are first come, first served We’ll take your preference for a coach into account but may not be able to grant all requests Please reach out to events@metro.org with any questions.

We will be reading and discussing How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. In addition, we will talk about what we can do to bring our learning off the page and into real life. This book club meeting will focus on guided discussion questions and will take place in breakout rooms so that everyone has a chance to share. All are welcome, regardless of participation in our first meeting. If you’d like to participate more deeply, please consider volunteering to be a small group discussion lead. Please fill out this form if you are willing to assist in this way. Please note that this meeting will be limited 30 people.

A great resume is a crucial component for securing job interviews. In this workshop, you will learn how to make your resume stand out to potential employers by effectively communicating about your work accomplishments. The presenter also gives some general guidelines about resume length and formatting.

Many of us have been working in remote/hybrid settings for almost six months, and since in-person meetups may still be a thing of the distant future, the Code4Lib NYC organizers thought it would be nice to do a community call to touch base with one another and talk about projects we are working on. Please register here. Topics for discussion: New projects in development, professional or personal Desired collaborations and/or requests for test users Remote and asynchronous work from home tips and tricks If you’re interested in doing a 3-5 minute lightning talk or project demo, let us (Esther Jackson <ej2432@columbia.edu-, Emily Andresini <emily.andresini@gmail.com-, and Seth Kaufman <seth@whirl-i-gig.com-) know!

Join us on August 19th from 2-3PM for a BIPOC Community Call. This meant for BIPOC cultural workers only, we kindly ask that allies and comrades who identify as non-BIPOC to sit this one out. Our intention is to create a space that offers community, joy and conversation during this time. Please come with a spirit of openness and empathy as we share thoughts and feelings without judgement. This call will be facilitated by Traci Mark (Studio Manager and METRO) and Zakiya Collier (Digital Archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture). We hope to see you there!

Looking to understand how your library is protecting the privacy of your patrons? Wondering how you might identify areas for improvement in safeguarding sensitive information? In this webinar Bill Marden (New York Public Library) and Erin Berman (Alameda Country Library) discuss how your library can audit its online and offline records, resources, databases, and more.

The following is a summary of the event by Traci Mark, Program Manager - Equity, Archives, and Media Preservation, METRO, published on September 3, 2020. This webinar was moderated by Davis Erin Anderson, Assistant Director for Programs and Partnerships at New York Metropolitan Library Council. The panelists were Emily Drabinski, Interim Chief Librarian at CUNY Graduate Center, April Hathcock, Director of Scholarly Communications & Information Policy at NYU, and Dave Ghamandi, Open Publishing Librarian at University of Virginia and Managing Editor at Aperio. Capitalism requires inequality. Racism enshrines it. -Ruthie Gilmore At the beginning of the conversation, April Hathcock, Dave Ghamandi, and Emily Drabinski explained how racist white supremacist culture has affected their working and personal life. Whether they are a product of this system and/or have experienced it’s disadvantages firsthand, as with everyone living in America, this system has impacted them in some way or another. What unites our panelists is a spirit and fervor to actively question and fight against it. My approach to librarianship is rooted in a refusal to leave my people behind. When I come on campus, I’m not leaving my people off-campus. They’re coming with me.  -Dave Ghamandi Per our panelists, one of the first steps to coming to understand our capitalistic system is defining it and recognizing that it is an economic system of production. Using an intersectional lens, we can begin to understand how capitalism shapes and influences all of society. Ghamandi describes the system in which we live as “private ownership of property that’s used to make goods and services… All of the value we create in the work day, only some of it comes back to us in the form of a wage. That difference is what gets kept by the owners and capitalist class as profit to accumulate and control over time.” Capitalism as a system aims to push political agendas by valuing the capitalist class and privatizing goods and services. It also promotes a sense of individualism while denouncing (overtly or subconsciously) any sense of community, collective action, or social solidarity. A second layer to this is understanding that capitalism and racism are inextricably linked, especially in the United States. “Capital relies on the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. The original act that accumulated that capital is the enslavement of African Americans by white people,” Drabinski said. Genocide committed against the Native Americans and the extraction of land is also essential to understanding the ways in which capitalism and race are inextricable. Hathcock echoes this: “[In terms of] racism, capitalism and settler colonialism, you can’t think about dismantling one without addressing the other. They rely on each other so heavily and closely.”  “Why does capitalism need racism? With slavery, simulatneaously capitalism created an international racial heierachy that’s still entrenched centuries later. The racial hierarchy divides the working class and is based on skin color. Capitalism has to have this working class divided in order for it to survive,” Ghamandi says. He went on to explain how this keeps working class people of all ethnicities apart;  we as a society have been told a false narrative that keeps us fearful. We see this in the narrative in which working class white people are encouraged to see immigrants as threats to their livelihoods. This thinking perpetuates capitalistic systems on an international scale. The third layer of this conversation interweaves libraries. Many libraries are (at least partially) funded by and part of a government system that is capitalist at heart. Some of the major issues brought about by  racism and capitalism within libraries include low wages, artificial salary caps (also known as market ranges), outsourcing, monopolistic vendors, and public/private partnerships. As we’ve seen during this pandemic, making big decisions such as determining which staff will be onsite and who will not is an extension of the relationship between capitalism and racism. Typically, the most precarious or low paying positions are the most at-risk and exploited.  “There’s a built-in inequality in our workplace that is systemic and reproduced everyday. Addressing that structural economic inequality inside of our organizations would have a significant impact on redistribution of wealth,” Drabinski says. Hathcock agreed. “It comes down to the fact that capitalism is more concerned with product than people” she says.  Anderson concluded the panel with the question we’re all wondering: what can be done within libraries to reduce the harm presented by this toxic mix of racism and capitalism? As our panelists can attest, there are no simple solutions to this question. Our panelists discussed dissolving any notions of a professional and activist divide, truth telling, asking critical questions, sharing histories and inviting others to do the same, developing a new vocabulary to fight these systems, nurturing solidarity, continuing to have important conversations, understanding when you have to grapple with things, and organizing together. It’s up to us to implement the change we want to see, even if that includes a shift in perspective and mindset or the small things we can do in our daily lives.  We thank our panelists for their time, wisdom and insight. Here are a few reading suggestions made by our panelists and attendees. Reading List Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson Settler Colonialism, Race and The Law: Why Structural Racism Persists by Natsu Taylor Saito Whiteness as Property by Cheryl I. Harris Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe by Antony Loewenstein The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein   Please join us at one of our future events; a full listing can be found at metro.org/events.

Creating a learning environment that empowers our patrons, community, and colleagues is imperative. Even though there is a larger system at play, we can still implement change in our daily practices as cultural workers, and as a collective.  This webinar is meant for cultural workers, activists, and anyone interested in exploring practical tips surrounding digital preservation of media through a social justice lens. Presenters include Samantha Levin (Curator of Digital and Audiovisual Assets at FIT Library’s unit of Special Collections and College Archives) and Chris Nichols (Media Archivist at New York Municipal Archives). Yvonne Ng also speaks about the groundbreaking work being done at WITNESS.  This webinar is a collaboration between XFR Collective and METRO.

Today, many library colleagues are entering a downturn for the first time, or are now in a different circumstance than the 2007 financial crisis. In this talk, Tony Zanders shares key lessons and heuristics for preparing for unexpected career shifts, how to reverse engineer the skill sets you want in order to build on skill sets you already have, how to network effectively from scratch, and more.