I attended the California Libraries Association 2022 conference in Sacramento for a couple of days last week. I wanted to share some of my notes from the sessions I went to. Sorry this is so long. This is the brief version…

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Summary: The CLA conference was fairly large (there were up to 10 concurrent sessions happening at any given time). I’m sure it was much quieter than in past years (someone told me that it was just under 50% of the 2019 levels). But it still felt pretty busy. I’ve never been to CLA before. Unlike most conferences I attend, it’s a broad mixture of librarians from academic institutions, public libraries, and other government, private, etc types of libraries. I would guess that most of the sessions were presented by colleagues from public libraries, and most of the sessions were not focused on Technical Services (cataloging, acquisitions, etc). However, I thought there were a number of pretty interesting sessions that I was able to attend.

From USC, I know of three people who attended: Me, Junjiro, and Kelsey Vukic (Social and Behavioral Sciences Librarian). Junjiro and I co-presented a brief 5-10 minute talk on the Dean’s Challenge Grant project that he’s co-leading along with Michael Oliveira in the ONE Archive.

Sessions I attended:

  1. Are you ready for RDA toolkit after 3R - Luiz Mendes and Julie Renee Moore

    1. This was about the project to update RDA. First introduced in 2013, RDA is being completely rewritten—the online RDA toolkit is being reorganized, and the contents of RDA are changing. This session, co-presented by two catalogers from within the CSU system, talked about the status of that project, what we will need to do to get ready for it, and went into some detail about the new Toolkit.

    2. There will be some changes to how we work with the Toolkit after the changeover to 3R. That changeover will not happen before October 2022—while the new Toolkit currently exists, PCC has said that they will not adopt 3R before full testing and training materials have been created, and the earliest possible date for that is October. It’s likely to be later, though.

    3. What we need to know:

i. We do not need to organize any in-house trainings before PCC makes them available. We will want to participate in cooperative training, and make use of freely-available resources

ii. There are currently a number of early background trainings and webinars available. Junjiro and I discussed, and between the two of us, we’ve been paying attention to them, and attending most of them.

iii. We will also want to be paying close attention to announcements from PCC, Library of Congress, as well as other institutions (such as MLA (the Music Libraries Association), OLAC, etc) as they determine their best practices for using 3R

  1. Calisphere/OAC contributor information session

    1. I really went to this session because I knew one of the people presenting, and I wanted to wave ‘hi’ to her. It was interesting, but not hugely relevant to me. But there was some useful information

    2. What to know:

i. The CDL (California Digital Library—they run Calisphere and Online Archive of California) is participating in a 3 year project with OCLC to develop a model for creating a national version of the OAC. Therefore, OAC is currently just in maintenance mode—they’re not modernizing it, because they’re focusing on the NAFAN (NAtional Finding Aid Network).

  1. Displays and exhibitions in libraries - Fresno County Libraries

    1. This was bad. Most conferences I go to one bad presentation. This was it for CLA. I should have gone to get a donut.

  2. Preventing burnout in new hires

    1. I thought this was an excellent session. It was presented by two librarians from Cal State Fullerton. They were talking about a survey they did among newly hired library workers (not necessary new to the profession, but new to their jobs). They did a bit of research and investigation on what made these people burned out in their new roles.

    2. They really focused on the role of a robust and well-planned onboarding program. This really rang true to me (both as a manager and as someone who was relatively recently onboarded). They talked about how important it is to have support, a clear and well-defined role, and good introduction to the department/institution, and a support network around you.

    3. Here are some of my notes from this session:

i. Onboarding, when done well, sets new employees up for success

ii. Important to have clearly defined roles-- from supervisors and peers. This helps new hires understand how their job should be done, what the expectations are, and what priorities are.

iii. None of the people they talked to reported their burnout to their supervisors. Partly because they didn't want to appear weak, partly because they didn't think it would achieve anything, partly because they didn't trust management.

iv. Prior knowledge of the profession does not mean that new hires are equipped to handle the challenges and office politics of a new workplace.

v. Transparency in the onboarding process is important (for instance, explain why that person what hired-- what are they bringing to the organization)

vi. Frank and honest discussion of workplace politics can be useful. Preparing new hires to enter their new environment is crucial

vii. Documentation is very important-- this is the job description, this is what I want you to do, etc.

    1. What this means for me:

i. As we will be relatively soon launching the search process for two new librarians within Cataloging and Acquisitions, and there will be a number of new employees in Technical Services over the next few months/year, I thought this was really relevant to us.

ii. I will be extra careful to create a clear training schedule for people when they start, make sure to introduce them to people within the department (people who will be able to help with their job duties, as well as people who will know about parking, where the tea/coffee is, etc), and to people in other departments.

  1. Creating safe and welcoming libraries by embracing staff voices – Presentation by a bunch of people from LAPL

    1. This was an interesting presentation, but not as relevant to us as I thought it would be based on the title.

    2. They were talking about the process by which staff at LAPL participated in a process to revamp their safety and security protocols and regulations.

  2. Collaboratively Working to Improve Subject Description of an LGBTQ+ Collection – Presented by Junjiro Nakatomi and Josh Hutchinson, USC

    1. Pretty much the best session of the conference 😊

    2. Our slides are here.

  2. Critical cataloging -- rethinking cataloging practices for a better tomorrow – Presentation by two catalogers from the Cal State system

    1. I thought this was a really excellent session. They covered a lot of ground, so my notes will be fairly brief.

    2. Julie Moore from CSU Fresno talked about the product of her sabbatical, where she focused on what she was calling ‘critical cataloging’ – which she defined as a subset of critical librarianship which focuses on understanding and changing how knowledge organizations codify systems of oppression.

i. She talked that she looked in depth at LCSH, Library of Congress Classification, RDA, MARC21, and the relatively new cataloging code of ethics… https://sites.google.com/view/cataloging-ethics/home

ii. She interviewed a wide variety of ‘luminaries’ in the cataloging field, and gathered what they thought about various new initiatives in cataloging (such as the code of ethics, Homosaurus, efforts to make reparative changes to LCSH, etc).

iii. Julie talked about subject headings that need to change (such as Indians of North America), racist or offensive cutters (this was a new concept for me, but the idea is that some books in their collection are cuttered based on obsolete terms like .O for Oriental), and what they called ‘lackluster LCSH’ (such as with LGBTQ+ terms).

    1. Israel Yanez from CSU [somewhere] talked about how the CSU system implemented changes to the Illegal Aliens subject heading.

i. This was directly relevant to what Junjiro’s Deans Challenge Grant project was about, and was an alternate way of approaching the issue. They had a very robust way of changing the terms in Primo, which we were unable to do here—so we turned out to follow two very different solutions, even though we were tackling similar problems.

ii. Israel discussed other issues with LCSH, and talked about a few specific headings.

    1. My things to take back to USC:

i. The CSU system has an Inclusive Description Task Force—I wonder if USC can do something similar in order to continue discussing the issues (and solutions!) that the Dean’s Challenge Grant highlighted. Maybe this can happen through the ILS Working Group?

ii. It’s really impressive the range of ways various libraries (even Alma/Primo libraries) implement changes—based on their capabilities, interests, etc.

  1. Preferred, not required - discussion about MLIS requirements in jobs

    1. This was good. It was a presentation from 4 public library workers who became librarians before they obtained their MLIS, and they were talking about how it’s really important that the profession realizes that you don’t need an MLIS to be a good librarian. I agree.

  2. Management 101 -- Leadership in Pandemic times & beyond

    1. This session was ok. Here are some of the things I jotted down that were interesting:

i. all employees are humans, and you need to recognize the hard work it takes just to show up every day. Nobody stays around in a job where they feel like a cog in a wheel

ii. Communication is important- You may not need to listen to staff for all decisions, but it's important to involve them. Withholding information is not a power move. Communication is a form of acknowledgement (for instance: “I'm thinking of you when I make this decision”).

iii. You can 'lead' from any position. You might not need to be the manager to have the impact you want to have.

iv. An important skill in a manager is to be able to say ‘no’ to their boss—when asked to do something, don’t just automatically say ‘sure!’ and assign it to someone.

  1. Changing of the guards -- don't resign just yet

    1. This was a pretty good session. It was three managers from the Camarillo Public Library. They were talking about issues related to the earlier burnout/onboarding session.

If any of this is interesting, let me know!

Other things:

Sacramento is nice. I didn’t go into the state capitol building. The farmer’s market on Saturday is HUGE (biggest I’ve ever seen). It rained while I was there! Old Town Sacramento looks like Disneyland.

Josh