Contributing to the IRRT Chair’s programme at the ALA congress today

The ALA conference, the biggest annual event for librarians in the USA features today a session of the International Relations Round Table (IRRT) Chair entitled Global libraries as agents of leadership in our post pandemic world: Leading Change, Advocacy, and Social Justice.

For those at ALA here are the event details:

Sunday, June 26, 2022

1:00pm – 2:30pm

Location: Washington Convention Center, 140A

Here is the brief description of the session:

The past year has demonstrated the essential role of libraries in leading change and building on innovation to respond to continual needs within their communities. The world has been marked by protest and unrest, social injustice, continual closures to protect public health, and legislative roadblocks. The IRRT 2022 Chair’s program panelists, representing libraries around the world, will share their experiences as agents of leadership through their work innovatively serving their community, advocating for policy change, and acting as agents of social justice at a grassroots level, or systemically.

This year’s program presentations feature:

Engineering Change in Libraries: A Pathway for Meaningful Action

• Clara M Chu, Director and Mortenson Distinguished Professor at the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Ajit K. Pyati is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada).

Engineering Change in Libraries was conceptualized as an approach to understand the Other and mobilize our libraries to provide more effective and equitable services and programs to underserved communities. Engineering Change is organized into two components: (1) the lecture (setting the context) and (2) a two-session workshop for library staff and stakeholders to engineer change in libraries in a process of understanding the Other and planning globally to create change locally.

The presentation will introduce the workshop, resources and experiences of libraries’ engineering change through a support/guided action process. We will report on the initiatives/action taken, what worked and what challenges the librarians had acting as agents of change, their engagement with their communities and the impact of their action, and share resources to engineer change in libraries.

(abstract from the description of the session).

And here is our double act with Dr Amanda Boczar: Libraries as Agents of Leadership in Digital Transformation in the Post-Pandemic World

The pandemic catalysed the interest in digital transformation, but there are still many unclear aspects of it, especially within the libraries, archives and museums. We are interested in exploring a range of questions: how much of it is happening in libraries? Are there useful lessons they can share with other sectors? What are the areas of leadership within those libraries which embarked on the path of digital transformation?

We are approaching these questions from our experience of putting together a special issue of the IFLA Journal dedicated to the topic of how the COVID-19 pandemic created opportunities for innovation in libraries. This talk will not concentrate on a specific library and its community but will offer examples from a range of library sectors across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. Our intention is to offer some inspirational examples to the community of library professionals.

Amanda will give examples from the work done in the University of South Florida Libraries which formed the backbone of in her article in the IFLA Journal special issue. This contribution to the IRRT round table is a great way to share some of the insights of DISTILL with colleagues from North America. I am sorry not to be there in person but it is great to contribute and to have the event organised face to face again.