Transcripts For CSPAN2 Librarian Of Congress Libraries In T

Stopped by the loc pavilion and of course everyone who stopped by our open house yesterday. We cant thank you enough your stories your work have completely inspired us from prison librarians to army librarians to of course children and youth young adult librarians. We were so inspired by all the stories. We were hearing. One thing that was spotlighted during the pandemic was the Important Role of libraries across the nation. People discover that librarians are frontline workers during this pandemic whether you were giving out free covid tests or doing Contact Tracing or just trying to help your communities get through that entire pandemic. So todays conversation is as vital as librarians you all have an Important Role in the release of proper information. So today that librarian of congress along with her with our esteemed colleague will be discussing this important topic. So it is my distinguished honor to welcome the 14th librarian of congress carla hayden, and shes joined by Nancy Davenport retired University Librarian of american university. Thank you all. You wow. Hello, its so good to see everyone and i just have to start by saying. This has been like a family reunion. Its been a revival. Its been an inspiring in so many ways to see people that are firsttime attendees that have been coming for 40 and im gonna let that go a little bit 40 years and just delightful and to be here with you nancy. Thank you full disclosure. When roswell introduced nancy what he didnt say was nancy was . A mainstay basically at the library of congress for how many years 33 33 years. So i knew nancy before. I even thought about the library of congress but admired her and then she did something else. Thats very interesting. She left the library of congress and went to Dc Public Library first i went to the council on library and information resources for two years. And then from there to dc public. And then from there to a special project in vietnam working with the parliamentarians ovietnam to build a Research Library for that parliament. And from from there. I went to au so im one of those people who sort of wandered around librarianship finding every opportunity and taking it. Thats a good point in terms of. Some of the first time attendees the people who were in library slash information cool. It can tell my age when i just say Library School Library School to think about your career in a more cyclical way or winding way to be able to go from that. And i wanted to ask you a question. And this is for everybodys going to hear. What were the similarities though . Oh, what were the similarities there were because i spent multiple times multiple jobs within llc. It made Everything Else easier. Most of my career was in the Congressional Research service doing policy analysis and bringing together a lot of materials the Congressional Staff needed. The second part of my career i went to rare books with having absolutely no knowledge of what was going to go on there and discovered a theft so i worked a lot with the General Council etc to be able to figure out that theft. And i guess what and from there. I went to be the director of acquisitions for the entire library something. Id never thought about doing but it was it was really wonderful to do that job because it pulled so many things together the congress requires materials through copyright deposits. It requires them. It acquires them through purchase through subscription, but it also acquires materials from donors to give materials to us and working through all of those pieces were really important the library also has as you know, five offices around the world that require materials and so one of the great pleasures as well as it being an obligation was to occasionally go out on a field triping and go to meet the people who worked for the library of congress, but had perhaps never been to the library of congress as they collect a materials from their own countries. Its a its a very fulfilling place to work for sure. And many of the people and some of the people who are here today got a chance to see the open house in rossville talked about that and i just want to give you a sense of what it did for the Staff Members at the library of congress afterwards after everybody had left and ive been around and thanked all of the divisions because you had everybody there copyright even the development office. I mean just everybody was there and all theme the common thing thanked all of the divisions because you had everybody there copyright even the development office. I mean just everybody was there and all the different divisions and the theme the common thing that they said was we really . We know we work hard. We try to be there for the Library Community but to hear people thank us really was inspiring and so they were very pleased to get that feedback that it means something especially i have to tell you the catalogers were over the moon. One woman said the vision goes theyre really smart people go to cataloging and programming and childrens like me. Trailers good. Yeah, you can tell us there, you know catalogous and they and someone said its like visiting the mothership. It is the mothership right . Here it is and that was was so inspiring because i have to say what i admire so much about you nancy and other people who have been able to and i met some people here. At this conference whove gone from like a public. To an Academic Library or academic to public and they go between and for a while in the profession that wasnt that acceptable. We was not among friends. For public librarian, especially i remember when i went for public librarian, especially i remember when i went to a Research Library. And someone said you really like the public, dont you . Oh, yeah do but that thing that you know, and if you try to do something for the general public youre dumbing it down not true. Yeah. No, its not but it would took while for this. Interweaving and this being able to have people who had Public Library experience crossover. And be accepted. Now, how did you how were you accepted going to a Public Library after being at the mothership . In the same city in the same city with a different clientele with a very different clientele. It actually worked out very nicely and a couple of ways jenny cooper was the chief librarian at that point for Dc Public Library and as you travel around dc this weekend or however long youre here. Jenny was instrumental and getting all of the new libraries built and as she was working with the developers and the contractors etc down to the painters and the paint colors. It was going to be i had the opportunity to more run the library as as an institution and it was it was wonderful. I one of the one of the things we did while i was there was to create a whole cadre of teen employees and the presenting this concept to the board of trustees and i was blowing on about how wonderful it was going to be when we hired all of these students and one of the Board Members that and what are you going to call them and it was like teens of distinction and we made their badges that they were teens of distinction and it the kids stood up taller when they did that and the very first meeting of all the teenagers when they were higher was i went in to talk to them and they they just sat in their seats etc. And i said now i have two instructions for you the next time an adult walks into this room you will stand and they sort of looked at me, but they stood and from that point on they it was it was a life lesson, but at the same time it was one that every professional staff member walked in and said these kids are getting trained the way we want them to be trained to work with our public and thats a tough crowd the teams. Well a tough crowd to advocate for. Oh, no, theyre easy. Oh, no. Ive been involved with where i was told by one and i respected her saying this we were trying to get teen Services Going and special programming and their spaces and things and were going to really do more and she said i just have to say i have two at home. And i dont want to come to work and see them so. Respectfully im going to do that and the other was moving the audio visual making materials. Accessible and assess and and moving materials to the first floor. They hadnt been there before and they were going to be more and were waxing on about and this is what Library Directors have to sometimes. Think about youre going on and youre so enthusiastic and people are sitting there going you gotta find that line thats behind you are going to be so many more people coming in and the lady came up to me later and said she was retiring because that were going to be a lot of people coming in. And she didnt think shed like that. Because when they were on the third floor you could be quiet. Nobody was coming in the people coming in. They knew what they wanted and now were going to have all these people and so and i respected that. Because when you have people over there to there that arent into Customer Service be a difficulty. And every Library Leads a lot of behind the scenes help a lot a lot of behind the scenes, so were going to so there are similarities. Public libraries academic libraries, i would call the the Library Congress or Research Major Research Institution different even from an Academic Library because you have a pretty interesting clientele with faculty. Yes, we did. And special libraries and different types of lives, but there are certain values and i brought a copy. I am still a librarian. I pulled it out as i was coming in because this was a ala publication from a little while back Michael Gorman are enduring values and it was revisited librarianship in the everchanging world. I said what were we saying back then . What were we talking about . And its interesting even though we call it misinformation now we were still all no matter what type of library talking about and reaffirming. That we are that trusted source right that we will look for the best information and how we do it basic Reference Services and research that is a still a common theme. But a difficult one. In these days now remember were in front of friends. So we can we can talk. Misinformation so it was its interesting to be a librarian in this time when youre interacting with people who arent in the field. So theyre saying you know it really would i was on one panel. I was only librarian. We could have some way to tell people and show them and about good Resource Services like we do that. Information literacy weve been doing that that theres this is the time and i had another person that when i was talking about Information Literacy and librarians have been doing this. We checked the sources we say okay if you have something for instance, theres a famous actress that did a book on breast cancer, but thats nice. Thats her experience, but i want the National Institute of medicine. You know what . Im going to refer that, you know, so yeah, thats and youre the guide on the side and thats what we do and i was talking about these values and what librarians do and the person said, you know, if you librarians all join together and Work Together we could be the trusted info you could be like those big search companies. Everything if you all just put your resources together. Theres our ala. Okay, we do but that idea that this is the time and misinformation but that idea that this is the time and misinformation we should claim it. We should be even more vocal. Now do want to bring up something and i hope were going to open up for question answer and just comment too. During this time. When ive been meeting different people and its been so wonderful. Ive also been hearing about the threats. And the new term and theres a young gentleman whos getting his phd . In a new field and i had to write it down because i was saying it different. Knowledge destruction well, its misinformation banning books all of that, but its a new fill of looking at how it does and i keep going back to Alberto Manuel in that history of reading his book on history of reading and that one chapter. Forbidden reading and photo that starts that chapter has a woman who looks like shes a former slave and shes in front of a cabin. She has a book and he says paraphrasing but as centuries of dictators slave owners and other illicit holders of power have always known and illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule. And if you cannot prevent people from learning to read the next best recourse is to limit its scope. And then the whole chapter is about book burning and everything censorship in that and so what ive been hearing at this conference. Particularly, of course from School Librarians and and that is the start of efforts to. Really limit in a disturbing way. Yeah, right. What young people now weve always had that and i you told me something that im going to really full disclosure about your experience. This has been something thats been going on for a while, but you your mother did it . Yeah, my brother the story i told carla earlier was i grew up in a college town . With West Virginia university and morgantown is the town and the Public Library at that point was underneath the police station. So it was the safest place in town for any kid to be and mothers of course sent their kids there often and i had pretty much read my way through this library over the years and one day i discovered this book that id never read before and it looked interesting but had little tiny print and it was it was a novel, but it was not a contemporary novel so i checked it out and i went home with it and the librarian called my mother. And and said margaret, you should take a look at what . He brought home today. Im not sure shes ready to read it. And the book was anthony adverse if any of you remember this book, which was probably not ever a bestseller. And so my mother sat down and read that book that night. Sweetheart, id like you to wait another two sweetheart, id like you to wait another two years before you read this book. And i waited another two years because it was it was not hard for me to wait those two years since it looked like it was it was tiny print and it thin pages and at the same time, my mother said do read it then but dont read it now and it was readers advisory, but from a parent to a child and my mother was a big reader we would trade books all the time that we were reading while i was in high school in college, but it was i remember that story very vividly is dont read it. I would i want dont want you to read it now. I want you to read it in two years from now. And you waited i waited you were good kid. Well it was. So it it and it got a great education, but it was it was really so it it and it got a great education, but it was it was really important to me that. I had a sense. I had a sense of trust with my mother and she do with me and i didnt want to abrogate that trust in any way ever. It was really important, but i can tell you another story based upon the Catholic School piece. I used the Public Library to do a class project. Maybe when i was in the seventh or the 8th grade and it was all on it was all on the Blessed Virgin Mary you guess how much i could find in a Public Library. And so i did find a bunch through encyclopedias etc and i went back to school and they said but it doesnt have the impermontour of the church on it. So you cant use these materials. Thats when i thought maybe i really do need to become a librarian because reading widely is really important for us in a profession, but i think for us and eventually its also we read widely wherever you wherever you choose to Science Fiction is not my thing. It was my husband and he read constantly in Science Fiction, but those those sorts of things are really important in their formative to the individual when it happens. So when you approach a student whether its yours or a patron student the care with which you treat them will will always affect the rest of their library career. And didnt your you said that your mom . Purchased a copy she purchase copy. I mean she really wanted it when it was time. Let me see. Im still going back to you waiting two years. Nancy its like a chocolate bar. Theres chocolate bar would have been here. The book is gonna stay there wasnt gonna walk away. My brother was not going to be interested in reading it. There were only the three of us that parental responsibility part is coming out. However, i have worked in some areas, where putting that responsibility on a parent could be a barrier as well. Absolutely in terms of either their literacy levels or their time and effort and how are they going to get the book and all of that . So when you and you know the quick answer for some of these challenges that are saying we want the librarians to go through every book in the library and tag sexual content but thats a lot of work. Thats a lot of work and its a lot of work. We dont need maybe not if you sticking to children section. Or the young adult section, but still think about just that much who defines it and they said the legislation is a little loose on that. If they dont want their child to read it, but then you have to also think about what that is and then whos responsibility we do we think and then the quick answer as well, you know, tha